DAS – Disability Assessment Systems

Summary

Affinity’s DAS service offering provides consultancy, configuration, implementation, development, hosting and support. Affinity’s business analysis, Agile approach to application development and the flexibility of DAS will help to ensure that the tangible benefits around productivity, efficiency and visibility, can be realised with minimal financial and time investment.

Benefits

1. Platform offers high flexibility customised to fulfil the business requirements
2. Reduce usage cost no individual user licences needed
3. DAS can be used either on-site or online.
4. Less risk - Future of system not tied to one company
5. Scalability - System integration Maintain a single view of data
6. Access can be on-site, online and mobile
7. Schedule your meetings and phone calls using the integrated calendar
8. Generation of preconfigured emails and paperwork, assign actions to users
9. Audit trail of who did what and when
10. Customer contact history

Features

1. Utilizing Affinity’s tried and tested process methodologies.
2. Easy Integration with third party applications
3. Powerful object level user rights
4. Meeting Management, Phone Call Management, Document Management
5. Equipment Management (supply, service and adaptation)
6. Customer centered view of all information
7. Many-to-many relationship between customers and agents
8. Configurable process flows including assessment types assigned to process flows
9. Configurable assessment outcomes and costs. Highlights double booking of resources
10. Multiple concurrent process flows per customer

What does DAS do?

The DAS system is centred on the customer. The customer view contains all the information relating to that customer in one place. The customers contact information, contact history, agents, scheduled assessments, completed assessments, equipment, equipment servicing and adaptations and more can all be seen on one screen. The user can then drill down for further detail on any piece of information held against that customer. Any new information to be recorded can also be actioned from the same screen and actions assigned to the relevant user.

The DAS system allows the contact information for customers, relatives, health care professionals and professional bodies to be recorded in one place and linked together as required. The relationship between customers and their agents (any entity acting on the customer’s behalf) can be a many-to-many relationship. A customer could have many agents, for example their doctor’s surgery and a relative, and a doctor’s surgery could be an agent for many customers.

The DAS system can be configured to send emails to any contact held on the system based on various business logics.

Schedule meetings, assessments and phone calls using the integrated calendar. You can see your agenda and your colleagues' agenda in one view.

Any attempt to double book a resource is highlighted to the user in real time with the facility to proceed with the booking as an ‘Active clash’.

Multiple process flows can be configured and assessment types assigned to those process flows. All paperwork required for an assessment can be held on the system in the form of templates. Covering letters, pre-assessment questionnaires, the assessment paperwork, follow-up letters and reports can all be preconfigured and then generated at the click of a button. Any hand written documentation can be scanned and uploaded to DAS and stored electronically for easy access.

The stages of each process flow can be configured as required and used for searching and statistical reporting. Stages may comprise of for example, Enquiry, Send Information Pack, Pending Customer Response, Pending Book Assessor, Send Appointment Letter, Pending Conformation, Pending Assessment, Print Assessment Paperwork, etc. The DAS system can be used to search by stage. For example, a list of all Pending Customer Responses could be used to generate preconfigured chase-up letters.

A user can see all actions assigned to them in one place and drill-down into each action in turn to process them.

Any equipment required by the customer, whether it is on loan, purchased or already owned by them, can be recorded on DAS. It is then possible to schedule servicing and repairs and create quotations for such services or replacement equipment. DAS can generate order forms, delivery notes, handover documents or any other preconfigured paperwork at the click of a button.

Assessment costs are configurable depending on the assessment type and who referred the customer for the assessment. For example, the cost of a driving assessment may differ if the customer was referred by an insurance company or solicitor compared to a referral by social services.

User Groups allow users to access certain forms and action buttons as well have certain privileges to modify the data on the system. DAS follows strict security protocols internally to ensure that the data objects are accessible to the right users through either explicit permissions or group level permissions. The overall system functionality can be divided across three dimensions namely; user groups, processes and system interactions.

The DAS system can be configured to report on any relevant information. For example, customers meeting a certain criteria, assessment types, process stages, customers using a particular piece of equipment, etc.

The DAS system is not limited to manage one process flow at a time for a customer. If during one assessment process the need for another assessment or an adaptation to a piece of equipment is identified, the additional process can be started and managed concurrently.

Architecture

The DAS architecture is based on the open-source ERP platform, ‘OpenERP/Odoo’. OpenERP/Odoo is a flexible ERP solution that allows modules to be added/removed in the future as the need arises. It allows both windows desktop based clients as well as web based clients to access the system.

Components:

• OpenERP/Odoo Server

This component needs to be running at all times. The server manages the database storage, retrieval and business logic. All bespoke customisations will have to be deployed onto the server and the server will require restarting every time there is a change deployed.

• OpenERP/Odoo Windows Client

A windows based client can be used to access the DAS solution. This client will require access to the OpenERP/Odoo Server at specific ports which may not be possible from within the firewalls of some organisations

• OpenERP Web Server

OpenERP/Odoo has a web server available that hosts all the client screens via the web. This is usually the primary mode of connecting to the server and using the functionalities within it. The server will be hosted at port 80 which is the standard port for all websites. It does not require special port permissions from within the organisation. The only connectivity requirement is to allow the users to browse the public www/internet.

• Database

The data behind the DAS system will be stored as a PostgreSQL Database Server. This is an open source database engine and requires no license to use it.

Why Affinity?

Affinity offers consultancy, configuration, implementation, custom module development, hosting and support services to help your organisation make the most out of its DAS implementation.

DAS as a service: Affinity can help you move to the Cloud! With our DAS as a service offering, you need not worry about application infrastructure, upgrades, skills or even hardware! You can simply subscribe to our service and access it over the Internet using your browser while we ensure it is backed up, maintained, upgraded and available 24x7!

Consulting: Affinity can help you take your first steps towards an DAS implementation. From ROI studies, cost benefit analysis, requirements gather to business architecture and IT architecture, Affinity can help you all the way to ensure a smooth implementation.

Configuration, development and implementation: Affinity can help you achieve cost effective solutions to meet and even exceed your CRM requirements. Affinity can help you identify, configure and enhance existing modules. Where requirements cannot be met with existing modules, Affinity can develop custom modules and help plan your implementation with minimal impact on your business.

Support and maintenance: Affinity can assist you in getting most out of your investment. Our highly experienced resources have all the tools and knowledge to analyse your DAS environment and suggest enhancements, changes and tweaks to optimise your implementation.

Migration: Affinity can help you migrate from legacy systems to DAS.

The same version of DAS can be used either on-site or online. At Affinity, we are committed to open source philosophies and give the freedom of choice to our customers helping you decide what is best for you.