Understand case management, because garbage in ...
Case Management is, at its core ... management. It is management
of information, management of resources, management of people. It
is well and good to build a hundred custom fields. Anyone can do
that. But it is far better to build to build 10 customs fields that
are used all the time, than to build 100 custom fields that are
never used.
There is a saying: garbage in ... garbage out. In database lingo,
if you build a system with hundreds of fields for intake of case
information, the users will rebel. And you will find that you are
worse off than before, some users will have judiciously filled in
the case management profiles, but many others will not. The result
will be "bad data" ... the inability to actually get a report across
all your cases based on the information in the case management profile.
So ... to THINK Case Management
In planning a case management system, ideas must be tempered by hard reality. Every field you change will be used hundreds or thousands of times. This means,
the fields must be carefully laid out in a logical format. Related information must be grouped together. Good design makes use of drop-down lists to help the user put in a consistent
answer that will produce valid aggregate data. And it also means "less is more".
In a case management system like Time Matters, the initial
focus should be to get the information entered in memo fields (free
form) and then properly profiled. To do this, extensive use of classification
codes that have real meaning is the best place to start. From there,
you can branch out. Some legal practice areas have specific data
that is required in multiple form documents, or may be useful for
negotiations or planning purposes. If these items need to be reviewed
on an aggregate basis, but them into the custom form. On the other
hand, if they need to be used for a single document, which, once
created, is never needed again, put them into a memo field, anecdotal
style.
K.I.S.S. - Keep It Silly Simple
This is a system that real people use everyday.
Count each second that it takes to get the process flowing. What
can be reasonably expected from someone answering a potential client
inquiry. Are you going to do a "social service worker" style intake
that requires a 30 minute interview just to get someone's name in
the database? Or, are you going to get the essentials, and let the
file build over time. Where do you want to take this system? Plan
it out with K.I.S.S. Test it out on the users. You will find they
have an opinion ... Boy do they have opinions, opinions that you
had better listen to.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
It is very easy to build complex systems - you
just start. Every time you think of an idea, you add to it. In time,
the system grows beyond the original creator's ability to grasp
the whole system and maintain it. And then, well .. you know the
story, strange things start happening. The solution is to build
modular, test, and then grow. Solve the small problems. Don't try
to engineer triggers for an entire case; take each element, one
step at a time and automate it. Triggers, chains, and autoentry
forms in Time Matters form the building blocks of a sophisticated
workflow system. Since there is no wizard for visually laying out
a workflow process in Time Matters, it is recommended that you use
a tool like Visio to plan out your flow and the steps to reach it.
