Enlace: Improve/increase referrals

[cecilia-donnelly]

@kevinrak9 wrote:

This is more of a general question than a request for features (at least at this point).

We want to facilitate referrals between our partners. We have found they are not happening at nearly the frequency we think they should be. One of the strategies we are considering is using some kind of technology to make this process easier.

What we would want would be a way for people at one organization to see a short list of the services each other organization provides, along with a way to message that organization's referral contact directly with information about the client so the receiving organization could follow up. Because there will be client information shared, it should be secure (password protected at the very least).

Do you have any suggestions about how to do that?

I responded:

I imagine that the fastest option is to just have a page in TTM with a list of organizations. Each org would have a blurb about the services they offer and the contact information for their referral contact. You would be able to edit this page, but it wouldn't send messages. This might work, since all users would need to do would be copy and paste the referral person's email address and write to them that way. We could even include some search options, if a user wanted to search for organizations that offered a specific service or search for the contact information of a known organization.

On the other hand, just sending out a sheet might work just as well as having an online page (i.e. a relatively static page like that might not add much value). How much do you want to be able to track this referral activity? I know you want to track referrals in general. Would that be through this same referral system, whatever it is?

And Kevin told me:

There is a contact page on the database; is there any way to use that functionality, but include a drop-down that would select the recipient? Sorry if that doesn't make sense or wouldn't work.

I'm inclined more towards the idea of having a page on the database, but we will see what people say. We don't need to track these directly; we will probably continue to use the metric of looking at how many cross-enrollments there are in the database.

@kfogel @cwebber @xray7224 any ideas on this? What's the best way to encourage referrals and make them easy for users, within or outside of TTM?

[kfogel]

So, my thoughts on this are a little bit pessimistic...

Kevin, what you are describing is sort of the holy grail of information management :-). It's easy to have the organizations do a one-time publication of their services to each other -- but how are those lists of services going to stay up-to-date? How are the lists of appropriate contact people going stay up-to-date? When is it okay to share client information? Is there a process for making that decision (and is LISC liable when such information is shared improperly, if LISC provided a mechanisms whose sole purpose is to do that)?

I'm not saying there aren't possible solutions to these problems. But I think this is a "sit down and discuss" kind of thing; it's very complicated.

[kevinrak9]

Thanks for the questions, Karl! We've been talking within the network about some of those questions, so I think we could figure them out. But as you pointed out, there are definitely some things we would need to consider and come to agreement on before rolling out anything.

On the technology side, would it be helpful for us to meet at some point, or should we continue talking over email/Github? I'm fine with either.

[cecilia-donnelly]

I'm not sure what @kfogel thinks, but I'm happy to meet at some point, @kevinrak9. It might be good to meet so we can all have an overview of where we are and what is going to happen by June (and beyond), too.

[kevinrak9]

I think that sounds good. Would you be available next Friday before 2:30? I live in [redacted] and will be heading downtown for Data Friday at 3, so I'm flexible on the location.

Also, I've started working with [redacted], who works with the YMCA, on this project. Would you mind if he joined us?

[cecilia-donnelly]

After meeting, the to-dos on this issue are:

• Add a "program description field" that appears (in a tooltip) on hovering over a program name anywhere the program name appears
• Add contact information on a page about the program (different from the program profile!)
• Add a field when adding a participant to a program that asks "was this student referred from another program?"

[kevinrak9]

That sounds great, thanks!