NetCIL Manager User Guide
Applies to: NetCIL Manager 1.70

Revision Date: 10/3/2011

Introduction

NetCIL Manager is a software application that is designed to handle administrative functions for the NetCIL (CFAL) database system. The application is also used by administrators to generate state and federal reports such as the RSA 704. All administrative functions must be handled by NetCIL Manager.

1- File Menu

Check for NetCIL Manager Updates

Under the File menu click the second option “Check for Updates”. NetCIL will automatically check if you are running the latest versions of Manager and CFAL Client. You will see this screen:

If there is an update available click the blue Update and the update will download. If you are running the current versions of CFAL Client and/or NetCIL Manager a green check mark will appear.

Connect

If the NetCIL application has already been installed and is running properly on a computer, NetCIL Manager should automatically locate the file server. If your network connection changes and/or you need to re-connect to your file server you can do so by clicking the “Connect” option and navigate to the network drive where the file NetCIL File Server.mdb is located.

View Connections

This feature allows you to see if a user has an open connection to either NetCIL, NetCIL Manager or I&R Log applications. If the staff has not exited the application, their Windows login name will appear once you click the “View connection” menu option.

Transmit Data to ED2C

If you are properly configured with an FTP account (usually this process is done at the time of the initial installation and configuration), this option will allow to securely transmit your data to your ed2c FTP account. Under the File menu click the forth option “Transmit Data to ED2C”. You can transmit data while people are still using NetCIL. NetCIL Online is automatically configured to back up your file server on a daily basis. You can always choose to transmit manually as well; each function does not overwrite the other.

Receive Data

If you transmitted your data to ED2C for analysis or repair using the “Transmit Data” function mentioned above, you can automatically receive your repaired file server by clicking on the “Receive Data” option. A warning message will appear (see below). Click ok to continue. Please note that your current file server will never be replaced but instead will be renamed NetCIL File Server.old and the application will remember the location of the file server.

Compact & Repair Database

In order to recover lost space, improve performance, and guard against errors, the NetCIL file server should be compacted and repaired on a regular basis. It’s recommended that you perform this operation at least once per month. If you have many users and a large database, you may want to perform this operation more often. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Under the File menu Click on the Compact & Repair option

2. Make sure that all users have exited the NetCIL application (see screen shot below). You can verify that all connections are closed by checking for the existence of an ".ldb" file in the directory where the file server resides. The “.ldb” file will have the same name as your “.mdb” file server. If the “.ldb” file exists and you are sure that all users have exited the application, try deleting the “.ldb” file. If you are unable to delete the file, then someone is still using the application.

3. Make a backup copy of your file server.

4- Click ok to proceed with compact & repair

If the process is successful, the message below will be displayed:

Schedule a Compact & Repair

Under the File menu you can also click on “Schedule Compact & Repair”. This option allows you to automatically Compact & Repair your database by creating a scheduled task. Please read the message below carefully.

Once a password has been provided, you will need to decide on an appropriate time and schedule to perform the regular “Compact & Repair”.

Special Note for Office 2007/2010 Users

At present, Microsoft restrictions prevent the NetCIL compact and repair functions from being used with the new “accdb” file format that became available in Office version 2007. Compact and repair functions are therefore built-in to the file server software. If your file server is not properly configured for auto-compact and repair, please contact ed2c customer support to have your system updated. To check your file server version, open it directly. You can determine the name of your file server by examining the link information at the bottom of the Manager Main screen (shown here circled in red):

In the example shown above, the file server is named “NetCIL File Server.accdb” in the folder “c:\NetCIL Data”. Open the folder, then open the file. If the following screen appears, your file server is up-to-date.

NetCIL Online users do not need to schedule a compact and repair process, as it is performed automatically on a daily basis.

2- The Config Menu

These options will allow the database administrator to configure and customize specific drop down lists within the NetCIL database.

Community Activities

The 704 Report has replaced Community Achievements (System Change) with Community Activities. To accommodate this change, “Community Achievements” in NetCIL are now referred to as “Community Activities”. These are activities that your agency as a whole is working on to improve conditions or address issues on a community level. Staff members should use Work Log entries to reflect the time they spend working on these “Community Activities” in order to properly report data for Section D on the 704 report. To configure NetCIL for Section D reporting, follow these steps:

• Click the “New” button at the bottom right of the screen

• Enter a descriptive name for a “Community Activity” that will reflect its pertinent “Issue Area” and “Activity Type.” This field is for internal use to help staff identify the different community activities and will not appear on the RSA 704 Report

• You can still associate the activity with the old 704 “Goal Type.”

• Enter a “Start Date,” “Target End” and “Actual End” dates as appropriate. When creating Work Log entries, users will not be able to select Community Activities past the “Actual End” date of the activity.

• Associate the activity with a pertinent “Issue” and “Activity”. These two fields will be reported on the 704 Report Community Activity Table.

• Community Issues: There are 4 pre-configured Community Activity Issues mandated by RSA. But if you wish to add to these issues, you may do so by opening a new table in NetCIL called “Community Issue Codes” This table is pre-configured by NetCIL to reflect the minimum number of categories that RSA has chosen to highlight. You may add records to this table in order to track activity for additional categories as required. NetCIL Manager will generate data for all combinations of Issue and Activity areas that are found in the Work Log for a given time period.

• RSA wants CILs to report all issues that you are working on. They have four core issues already pre-configured but if you want to add issues that are specific to your center and area, select to “Config Issue” button. Please note that you cannot delete the issues with ID 1 through 4 as they are standard RSA issues.

• Activity Type: This drop-down list is also pre-configured to reflect RSA mandated categories and therefore should not be modified if your agency generates a RSA 704 Report.

• List “Objectives” for the activity as appropriate. Text that you enter here will be reported in the 704 Report Community Activities Table.

• List “Outcomes” for the activity as appropriate. Text that you enter here will be reported in the 704 Report Community Activities Table. For internal use, you can also assign an “Outcome Score” to the activity.

• Enter “Notes” as appropriate. This field is for internal use only, and text that you enter here will not appear on 704 Reports.

Configure consumer goal standards

Consumer Goal Standards

The Goals form in NetCIL contains a control labeled “Goal Standard”. This control uses data from the table “Consumer Goal Standards,” and it is designed for internal agency use. If you predefine a set of goals for your agency, proper default values will be automatically entered into each consumer’s Goal History records.

Many consumers have similar goals. A NetCIL database administrator can use the Consumer Goal Standard feature to create standard goals that staff can apply to all consumers with the same specific goal. To use the Goal Standards feature, you must manually enter records into the Consumer Goal Standards table as follows:

Goal Type: Name of goal as known to your agency

Goal Code: Dropdown list of standard RSA-recognized goal types.

Description: Default text description of the goal

Access Code: Assistive Technology; Health Care Services; Transportation

To add another standard goal click the “New” button at the bottom right of the screen.

When a NetCIL user clicks the Consumer Goals & ILP button from the People Form they can select a Goal Standard from the drop down list for an individual consumer. The “Type of Goal” will be set to the value in the Goal Code field, the “Access Category” will be set to the “Access Code” value, and the “Goal Description” text box will be filled with the text from the “Description” field of the selected record in the “Consumer Goal Standards” table. All of these values can be edited by the user if necessary. This feature is provided to enhance the accuracy of goal information by providing pre-defined values for data entry. For convenience, there is a query in versions 4.6 and above named “Sample Consumer Goal Standards Query” that is designed to assist with data entry into the Consumer Goal Standards table.

Database Users

Everyone who uses the NetCIL database should be registered in its Database Users table. If an unregistered user attempts to run the application, the user must log on as the system administrator in order to gain access. If you supply a password to the system administrator account, access will be denied unless the password is supplied. You will also need the administrator password if you need to open your file server directly. Do not delete the System Administrator entry in your Database Users table. Doing so may prevent you from accessing your data.

When entering the name of a new user, first click the “New” button in the bottom right corner of the Database users screen. Then specify Initials, First Name, Last Name, and a Username (same name that is used to log on to your network), if you want the NetCIL and NetCIL applications to default to a specific user when opening the application. Each user must be given a Level of access (see below), a password (optional but more secure) and a Startup Form (also optional).

Every time you have a new staff member using NetCIL you need to add their name to the Database Users table.

If the Username entry is incorrectly specified or if you leave this field blank, both the NetCIL and NetCIL applications will not be able to recognize the identity of the user, and the following message will appear:

The user will need to select his or her name from the drop down list and provide a password if one was entered.

If a Windows Username is provided, this screen above will not appear and both applications will open directly to their Main screen.

NetCIL and NetCIL use a 10-level user privilege scheme that allows access to software, database, and reporting functions.  The levels 1-5 are intended to be assigned to front-line staff members, and levels 6-10 are for supervisory staff.  The following table describes each of the currently-utilized levels and their capabilities (note that not all levels are listed; these are reserved for future use):

Client Functions	Minimum Level	Remarks
People	1	Privilege level 1 can only access a single form (usually the People form), which must be assigned in the database users section of NetCIL Manager.
Work Log	2	Privilege level 9 or higher is required to view other users’ work log records and to configure Community Activities.
Organizations	5
Community Activities	9
Projects	6
Events	6
Parent-to-Parent	1	Available only to Parent-to-Parent organizations.
Outreach	5
Inventory	8
Archive	5, 9	New function in NetCIL 5.0, NetCIL 1.0, and NetCIL Online.  Level 5 users can search and retrieve from archives; level 9 users can create archives.
Queries	8	“Action” queries can quickly alter large amounts data; therefore only trusted users should be granted this privilege level.
Make Replica	5
Synchronize	5
Send Letters	4
Find Volunteers	2	New function in NetCIL 5.0, NetCIL 1.0, and NetCIL Online.
Run Reports	2	Level 7 or higher is required to run reports on other (or all) staff members.
User Knows Best	5	If “User Knows Best” is not selected, users will have to press the F3 function key to unlock existing records for editing.
Edit All Records	5	User levels 1-4 can only edit records which they have entered.
Delete Records	9	Applies to People and all sub forms.
NetCIL Manager Functions	8	A minimum privilege level of 8 is required in order to run NetCIL Manager.
Reports	8	Agency-level reports such as the Consumer Summary and RSA 704.
Database Configuration	10	Level 10 users can configure tables and grant privileges to other users.
NetCIL IRLog	1	No restrictions are currently placed on the use of IRLog; therefore, it’s recommended for use only by users with privilege level 5 or higher.

Disabilities

The Disabilities Configuration form allows you to list as many disabilities as you wish. Proper reporting statistics will be generated as long as you assign one of the standard agency disabilities to each record in your list. As with other elements of your database, care should be taken in order to keep this list accurate and configured properly.

To add a new disability, click on the “New” button at the bottom right of the screen. Make sure that you link each specific disability to the appropriate state and federal category.

If you have questions about what category a specific disability should be linked to please refer to the RSA 704 Data Collection Protocol and/or the data collection protocol from your state. These documents can be found in the Documents folder within the NetCIL Database folder, or online at www.netcil.com under Downloads.

FTP Config

In order to answer questions and resolve problems with data ED2C provides licensed NetCIL users with an ftp (file transfer protocol) account on the company’s web server.  Users can move a copy of their NetCIL file server to and from the site for backup, analysis, or modification purposes. The FTP configuration form can be accessed from the config menu of NetCIL Manager, as illustrated by the following graphic. 

The Installation directory name, FTP Username and FTP Password will be provided by ed2C at the time of initial installation.

Grants

The Grants screen is used to enter information for work that you perform under specific grants or programs such as RSA, HUD Section 8, and SSA.

To add a new Grant, click on the “New” button at the bottom right of the screen. This new grant will then appear on the dropdown lists in the People Form and on the Work Log. The Grant will then be listed on your 704 report and your specific state report as well.

Mailing List Codes

If you wish to use NetCil Client to generate mass mailing, you can configure mailing list by selecting the “New” button. Once you have configured your list, it will appear on NetCil Client, in the Mailing List sub-form where you can associate the person to a specific mailist.

Services

The Services Configuration form allows you to list as many services as you wish. Proper reporting statistics will be generated as long as you assign one of the standard agency services to each record in your list. As with other elements of your database, care should be taken in order to keep this list accurate and configured properly.

To add a new service, click on the “New” button and make sure that you link the specific service to the appropriate state and federal category. If you delete a service it will no longer be tracked on NetCIL or in your reports.

If you have questions about what category a service should be linked to please refer to the RSA 704 Data Collection Protocol and/or the data collection protocol from your state. These documents can be found in the Documents folder within the NetCIL Database folder, or online at www.netcil.com under Downloads.

Site Profile

The Site Profile form allows you to record specific information about your organization. The information that you record here will be included in a variety of reports to oversight agencies such as the Department of Education 704 Report.

Combine People

A new feature added to NetCIL Manager version 1.41 assists database administrators in the elimination of duplicate records within the People Form. If a consumer is listed twice in the NetCIL database, you can now keep one record and delete the duplicate while combining all of the notes and goals into the record that is kept.

First select a record you want to keep from the top drop down box, then select the duplicate record you want to delete from the second drop down box. When you click the “Combine Data” button in the middle of the lower half of the screen the two records will merge into one.

Run QC Report (MS Excel)

To ensure that your database configuration is up to date, you can select the “Run QC Report” option. This action will do two things:

1- Check your database configuration and update it if you answer yes on the configuration error message. You will then get a configuration modification message which confirms that your configuration has been corrected. Although this action should not affect your disabilities and services, we suggest you to review them to ensure proper configuration.

2- Fix errors with invalid dates and generate an Excel spreadsheet of all data correction. After you have run the configuration repair function, you will be prompted to run the QC report, as shown below. Select “Yes” to continue.

If there is erroneous data detected, a warning message will let you know. Select the OK button to continue.

The Excel spreadsheet that will be generated will show mainly case notes with invalid dates, Inactive consumers still receiving services after their date of deactivation, old goals that were not closed after a consumer was deactivated.

3 - NetCIL Manager - Report Section

In the drop down list that says >>>Select Report you will find a list of reports available to you. This list will vary depending on the state where your center is located.

The standard reports in NetCIL Manager are:

1- 704 Report: Standard RSA 704 yearly report

The 704 Report can be generated by grant. After selecting your report for the drop down list, an additional list of Grants and Counties will appear. Just select the desired grant.

Please note that in order to retrieve data based on a specific grant, an intake into a grant must be made for a specific person on the “People” form, on the “Grant History” form.

The 704 Report can also be generated by County. This will retrieve a set of data based on a specific county. After selecting your report for the drop down list, an additional list of Counties will appear. Just select the desired county.

2- BFS Monthly Report (Blind Field Service Monthly Report or Chapter II): Official Blind Field Service Monthly report-This report allows you to track the types of services received by a particular visually impaired consumer over a certain month.

3- CILR Report: Used in California (AB-204) -This report will generate a detailed Excel spreadsheet listing demographic and services provided to all consumers over the preceding quarter. You can also filter this report to find out specific information about the consumers served, such as how many consumers were served from a specific zip code.

4- The Consumer Summary Report: Extensive consumer report which retrieves all necessary information needed to track data for the federal report and some state reports. Information on this report includes: demographics, individual services, unduplicated consumers served, consumer goals set and met, community goal set and met, and I&R services provided. This report can help the database administrator maintain and manage the data and in turn generate accurate state and federal reports.

Please note that the Consumer Summary Report can be generated by grant. After selecting your report for the drop down list, an additional list of grants will appear. Please note that in order to retrieve data based on a specific grant, an intake into a grant must be made for a specific person on the “People” form, in the “Grant” form.

5- Geographic Client Profile: Generates a total number people served by state, counties, zip code during a specific period of time.

6- People Report (MS Excel): This report will generate a list of all active people during the reporting period and their demographics, regardless of their contact type.

7- RSA Title VII Chapter 2 (MS Word) : RSA Chapter 2 grant report

8- RSA Title VII Chapter 2 Detail (MS Excel): RSA chapter 2 detailed report

9- Service Report: This report provides detailed information and statistics about the types of services your agency has provided within a given time frame.

10- Unduplicated People Served (MS Excel): This report will generate an Excel spreadsheet showing an unduplicated number of consumers, I&R contacts, inactive consumers that were served during the reporting period.

11- Work Log Report (MS Excel): This report provides detailed information taken from staff work log entries regarding specific community activities, tasks and events.

Additional State reports: To run a specific state report, your state must be specified in the state field of the site profile set up screen.

1- California State report

2- New York State VESID report

3- Michigan State report

Additional options can be available while running certain reports:

1- The 704 report and Consumer Summary report can be run by specific grants

2- The 704 report can be run by a specific county

3- Selecting the “Send Letter Using Report Results” option, you can automatically generate a mailing list in NetCil Client, using the results of your 704 report. Only people who count on the 704 report will be added to the mailing list. This can be useful for sending Satisfaction surveys for consumer served during a specific period of time.

How to generate reports in NetCIL Manager:

To generate a report, select its name from the dropdown list then select the appropriate date range and press the “Generate Report” button. Depending on the format of the report, a Word or an Excel document will be generated with the appropriate set of data.

Common 704 issues:

1- “Carried over Consumers”

In order to be counted as a “Consumer Carried over from Previous Year”, a person must have a contact type set to “Consumer” and have an initial entry prior to the reporting year. There must also be activity (a note in their history, a goal) every consecutive year since their date of initial entry. For the RSA 704 report, the fiscal year runs from October 1^st until September 30^th.

Example: if a consumer starts on 04/15/2004. This person must have activity in their history (one single note will be enough) in 2005, 2006 and 2007 in order to count as a “Carried Over Consumer”.

If there is a gap of more the one year at the time of the report (no activity from 10/01/06 until 9/30/07) and you write a note after October 1^st 2007, this consumer will now be counted as a “New” consumer in your 704 report for fiscal year 10/01/2007 until 9/30/2008 .

2- “New Consumers”

In order to be counted as a “New Consumer” a person must have a contact type set to consumer and have an initial entry during the reporting year (between October 1^st and September 30^th).

Also counted as a “New Consumer” is a person with a contact type set to “Consumer”, with a date of initial entry set earlier then the year before the reporting year, with no activity in the year prior to the reporting period and activity in the reporting year.

Example: A consumer starts on April 15^th 2005. This consumer will have no activity between October 1^st, 2006 and September 30^th, 2007 and will not have been de-activated. If a note is written after October 1^st, 2007, this person will be counted as a “New Consumer” in your 704 report for fiscal year 07/08.

3- For New York Centers who generate both the RSA 704 report and the State VESID report

Question: Why is the total number of CSR’s different on the federal and state report?

Answer: New York VESID report does not take into account the federal “Carried Over Consumers” category. So if a consumer was served in the previous year, this person will automatically be carried over for the next year on the 704 report. The NY VESID report will only count CSR’s who were provided with a service during the reporting year.

4- For Michigan Centers who generate both RSA 704 report and the Michigan State report

Question: Why are the demographics on the State and federal report different?

Answer: In the demographics section of the 704 report, only the people with a CSR will be counted. This translates into NetCIL as only the people with a contact type set to consumer (or inactive consumers if they became inactive during the reporting year) will count.

For the Michigan State Report, the demographic section will include I&R contacts as well as active consumers and inactive consumers who became inactive during the reporting year.

5- Discrepancy between two fiscal years

Question: When running a 704 report, why is the total number of opened CSR’s

during a specific fiscal year not matching the number of CSR’s carried over in the following year?  

Answer: To answer this question we need to refer back to the first point of this document which is “New Consumer and “Carried over consumer”.

Carried over: A consumer with an initial entry prior to reporting year who has been served every consecutive year.

New consumer: This category includes consumers with an initial entry during the reporting year or consumers with an initial entry prior to the reporting year but with a gap of a year or more in their activity.

For example: if a “Consumer summary Report” from 10/01/06 until 9/30/07 is generated from NetCIL Manager, there may be people called: carried over not served.  These people are carried over (because there was activity the year prior to 06-07) but as of yet, have not been served. If they don't get deactivated before the end of FY 06-07, and if they are served in FY 07-08, they suddenly appear in the "New Consumer" category because they have a gap in their activity that is more then one year. To avoid this problem, people who appear in the category “consumer carried over not served” should be reviewed and deactivated before the end of the fiscal year.

For additional assistance with any of the topics covered in this manual, licensed users are encouraged to contact ed2c technical support:

(888) 678-0683

techsupport@ed2c.com

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