Clarity Report Parameters
HMIS houses a lot of data. Every day, users are telling the stories of their hard work and their clients’ journeys through a multitude of text boxes, drop down lists, radial buttons, and toggles. But what can you do with it after it has been entered into the system? Here we will look at the basics of running any report in Clarity: the parameters.
Reporting parameters dictate what information you will see when you run the report. There are many different options to control the scope of the data presented in the final report. Not all of the parameters exist on every report, but every report will ask for some. To help understand these better, we built a table:
| What is it called? | What does it mean? |
|---|---|
| Agency Status | Filter to just agencies that are Active or Inactive in HMIS. |
| Agency(-ies) | Agencies you want to view data for. Select one or multiple. |
| Program Type(s) | Project type code you want to view data for. Select one or multiple. |
| Program Status | Filter to just projects that are Active or Inactive in HMIS. |
| Program(s) | Programs you want to view data for. Select one or multiple. |
| Screen Type | Select the screen where data was input that you want to view data from. |
| Enrollments | Whether the clients were Active or Newly Enrolled in the reporting date range. |
| Status | "Active within report range" means the client's entry date was on or before the beginning of the report date range. "Enrolled within report range" means the client has a project start date on or after the beginning of the report date range and on or before the end of the report date range. "Exited within the report range" means the client?s project exit date is on or after the beginning of the report date range and on or before the end of the report date range. |
| Veteran Status | Whether or not the clients in the report are veterans. |
| Report Date Range | The date range for the data in the report. |
| Client Project Stays | All Active clients in the report range, Clients who were newly enrolled in the report range, or clients who exited in the report range. This is similar to the "Status" field. |
| Report Output Mode | "Regular report" will give a summary of all of the data. "Details report" will produce spreadsheets with each individual data point. The details report is good for deeper analysis of the reported information. |
| Report Output Format | What format do you want the report delivered to you? "Web Page" will produce a report that can be accessed in the internet browser. The benefit of the web page output format, is that client identification numbers can be clicked on to take the user directly to the client?s profile. "PDF" will produce a downloadable PDF version of the report. "Excel" will produce a downloadable Excel version of the report. "Zip with XLSX" will produce a zip folder with multiple Excel sheets in it. This is the format the details report will be in. |
| Drilldown Output Format | When you click on a link in the report, how do you want the drill down information to appear? "Web page" will open another tab with the detailed information. "PDF" will download a PDF file with the detailed information. "CSV" will download a CSV with the detailed information. |
These parameters give you the control over what you see in the reports. Here are a couple more handy tips on running reports in Clarity:
- When selecting the agencies or programs for the report, you can select multiple agencies by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the options. This will keep each one you click on highlighted.
- If you hover the mouse over any numbers on a report in the “Web Page” output type, the cursor will turn into a hand. This means you can click on that number to view the details behind it. For example if the Data Quality Report says there are 10 people with name errors, then click on the number 10 to see each of the clients it is referring to. Additionally, if you set the drilldown output format to “Web Page,” then you can click on the client’s unique identifier and it will direct you to the client profile.
This might seem like a basic topic, but I hope you were able to learn something from it! Mastering the basics is half of the challenge in most disciplines and data literacy is no exception.
If we missed anything or you have additional questions, feel free to reach out to your HMIS Team at Commerce.
Happy reporting!