4) Systems Thinking

When hitting the brakes on a car, several tools are used to make it so. You decide to brake, your hands must stay on the wheel, your foot depresses the brake pedal which puts friction on the wheels to stop turning, bringing you to a safe stop. 

In SAM, you'll often need more than one tool to help SAM do the job. 

Let's go back over the tools: 

-Tables & Fields
-Main Entity/Record Types
-Forms
-Documents
-Checklists
-Templates
-Reports
-Auto Actions

If you need to review the definitions, click here.

Tools used together: 

1) Because SAM is a database first, you'll always consider the Main entity and its tables and fields.  

Are you wanting to create an email to families or about families? Is this this a required report about a child? Are you adding a communication between your team and expectant mother? 

-What clients or persons are being affected? 
-What specifically is being worked on?

2) Forms, documents and checklists 

The term form and document can be used interchangeably in english, but in SAM we separate these into 

a. Forms are used by the team or end users to enter data directly into SAM. Forms can be setup with multiple tables and fields to retrieve data from a user. 

b. Documents are uploads that users can also download to view. 

Have a list of to-dos? Checklists often combine forms and documents, creating a list used to collect requirements for a service. Checklists can also list tasks users need to complete to progress a service, like sending an email, in-person visits, or approvals. 

3) Data entry can trigger automated actions by SAM. 

Often, when a task is completed or we're about to begin or end a process, we communicate. It makes transitions easier and knowing when a task is complete can put us into motion to complete the next step. 

SAM uses Auto Actions with Templates (the message) to send notices to clients, staff and others that need to know. 

Think of SAM as your new admin - taking care of data entry for your team! In addition to sending emails, SAM can also update client records. 

Often as a form is submitted, a checklist item is completed, or at the conclusion to a process, that step will be used to update the case. For example, when a family's home study is complete, SAM can update the case stage as Ready for Match, rather than your team needing to do that.