Welcome to HomeKeeper!
Before you can proceed with your HomeKeeper setup, please make sure you have completed the HomeKeeper Member Application, met with a HomeKeeper Support Specialist and signed a Member Agreement. If you are not already using Salesforce, you will also obtain Salesforce licenses (either by purchasing or receiving as a donation from Salesforce's Power of Us program)
Transitioning to HomeKeeper requires a significant amount of time and energy, particularly during the first 6 months. Successful adoption requires:
- A HomeKeeper Champion at your organization who can take the lead for the rest of your staff
- All staff who'll be involved to attend the orientation meetings
- All staff involved to have sufficient time for entering data after orientations
Getting HomeKeeper can be a really exciting time, but to make the smoothest transition possible, we want you to know what to expect. We hope the entire process lets you reflect on your program and get excited about the work that you do, as well as the new possibilities that will open up when you start using HomeKeeper. There are 3 overall phases before you'll be ready to start getting your data into HomeKeeper and using it for your day to day program management. In each phase there are tasks that the HomeKeeper staff and developers are responsible for, and tasks that new users are responsible for.
1. Pre-Installation Planning
This phase starts when you sign your HomeKeeper member agreement and ends once you have a Getting Started meeting with HomeKeeper staff. It will include:
- Identify your organizational goals, including a timeline for historical data entry as well goals for managing current applicants and homeowners
- Make sure you're collecting the information that'll allow you to get a Social Impact Report.
- Evaluate your program's unique training needs
- Identify all staff who'll need training on HomeKeeper
- Identify customizations needed for your program, your location and your workflows
- Identify any special circumstances for your installation, including migration or extra customization
- Answer any of your questions and make sure you know what to expect
Organization staff will need to:
- Dream big! What questions do you want your data to answer? What processes do you want to make smoother? What kind of reports do you need?
- Get up and running with Salesforce - purchase (or receive donated) user licenses
- Make changes! Evaluate changes needed in your program in order to receive a Social Impact Report and fill out the Data Collection Checklist form online.
- Tell us about you. Fill out the Getting Started Survey form online which will allow HomeKeeper staff to identify your training and customization needs.
- Consider what format your program, property and client information is in currently (Your head, paper, Excel, Access)
- Set a time for the Getting Started meeting, a discussion with HomeKeeper staff to plan and prepare
2. Installation and Customization
This phase starts once you have a Getting Started Meeting with HomeKeeper staff and ends when HomeKeeper staff finish the customizations to your HomeKeeper app. It will include:
- Install HomeKeeper app into your Salesforce
- Customize HomeKeeper for your program, your location and your workflows
Organization staff will need to:
- Create a Salesforce user for HomeKeeper developers to customize your system
- Add all relevant staff to access HomeKeeper Support Forums
3. Orientation
The Orientation process can begin even before the installation process ends. You and your staff will need to pull the file of a homeowner who applied, purchased and went on to sell a home in your program, since this will allow you to see the full homeownership lifecycle in HomeKeeper.
The Orientation process is meant to:
- Orient you to Salesforce
- Orient you to HomeKeeper
- Show you how a file would be hand entered from start to finish
- Help get a file from paper into the correct places in HomeKeeper
- Make sure you understand the various fields and objects in HomeKeeper
- Makes sure you know where to go to get HomeKeeper support
- Get you excited about the possibilities of HomeKeeper
The webinar Orientation Meetings consist of entering a first file from start to finish. To prepare for this training, HomeKeeper users will need to pull this first file, as well as do some pre-orientation homework to get to know Salesforce. Generally we divide this orientation into 2 to 3 hour/hour and a half long sessions that we record for you to later go back and watch. These sessions are usually divided into:
- Entering a property and property subsidies
- Entering application information about a homebuyer: application process, living situation demographics, income certification
- Entering purchase information about a homebuyer: monthly housing costs, purchase financing (Loans, grants, cash, etc) and pricing
- Entering resale information: pricing, transaction details and exit survey
Organization staff will need to:
- Add all relevant staff to Salesforce
- Add all relevant staff to the HomeKeeper Support Forums
- Read specified articles and documentation before orientation
- Pull a first file and backup documents
- Subscribe to the Announcements Forum in the HomeKeeper Support Forums
- Schedule and attend 2-3 1 hour long Orientation meetings
- Practice entering files in between meetings
Learning more about Salesforce makes it easier to use HomeKeeper. Salesforce has a free learning tool called Trailhead - check out HomeKeeper recommendations at myhomekeeper.org/trailhead.
Post-Onboarding: Launch HomeKeeper
Once you've finished your HomeKeeper orientation, you and your staff will be fully capable of hand entering all of your historical data into HomeKeeper, plus be able to enter new and current clients into the system in real time. You'll have access to our Support Forums, where you can search for answers, ideas and inspiration from the articles and webinars we have posted there. HomeKeeper staff will send along a post-orientation e-mail with tools and tips for new users, plus follow up with a phone call after your first month to see how things are going.
Organization staff will need to:
- Read the announcements!
- Keep entering files soon after orientation
- Customize the system to meet your needs
- Get your historical data in
- Review your files for the National Roll Up fields
- Ask questions! Let us know about problems! Attend our webinars!
- Dream big, drive your program with data and explore the possibilities of Salesforce!
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