General Concepts

The Homeless Shelter CSDB database application records client activity at one or more of your homeless shelter locations. Each location may have one or more lodging or service facilities.

The Homeless Shelter CSDB supports four types of users: administrators (or super users), homeless shelter managers, date entry users, and view-only users. Each user group has its own set of features. 

The Super User is a staff member responsible for managing the database for all shelter locations. The super user doesn't perform data entry regarding client services and stays, but manages the program at a higher level. Specifically, the super user:

  • manages the shelter location or locations
  • manages the user accounts for other super users, shelter managers, and data entry users
  • runs reports that provide information about the program at an organizational level and summaries for each location
  • manages the database backups

The Shelter Manager is a staff member responsible for managing clients at a single location. The shelter manager:

  • adds and maintains client and client contact records
  • perform data entry to record client stays and services
  • run a variety of reports related to client activities at their location, including rosters
  • manage, configure, and personalize a variety of lists associated with their location
  • manages the list of facilities at this location, including the rooms and beds at each location

A Data Entry User has similar data entry abilities as the shelter manager, but can not edit or delete existing records. In addition, the data entry user does not have access to report.

The View-Only user has access to various reports, with limited access to client information.

 

FAQs

Q: Our organization is small and has only a single location and a single staff member working with clients. How do we configure that?

A: Not a problem. Simply configure a single location. The single staff member will still require two accounts: a super user account and a shelter manager account. To work with client records, the staff member will log in as a shelter manager. For overall organization statistics, the staff member will log in as a super user.