Case Management
All government organisations now have clear good governance requirements and a need for visible
complaints management processes. Increased public scrutiny, increased environmental OSH and public
and safety laws are driving corporate organisations to formalise their existing complaints processes.
Internationally standards for best practice complaints management are being defined and accepted
driving a demand for software which meets best practice needs.
If accountability, good governance and change are to be effected at the root level, complaints need
to be resolved expediently and good information management, tracking and reporting is paramount to
enable this.
CMS is essentially a framework (toolkit) which allows us to build Complaints Management Systems
(databases) for our customers requiring Case or Complaints management. It is classed as a Custom Off
the Shelf application (COTS). There is a base product which is then configured to meet the requirements
of the customer. As each customer's internal business processes and terminology are very different -
there are no set standards as such. Therefore the system needs to be extremely configurable and needs
the ability to dynamically change with associated changes in requirements or processes. That is the core
strength of the product. Other competitive products are less configurable and less dynamic as they have
to be "bent to fit" rather than the product matching their business processes. Bespoke developments
can match customer's needs exactly, but are inherently costly by comparison and are largely standalone
in design.
The Case Management System is a document / workflow management tool which is in use in many organisations
in New Zealand. The product can be customised to fit almost any situation where workflow / document
management go hand in hand with classification and reporting.
CMS History & Technology
LANWorx has long and successful history of designing, developing and implementing exactly this type of
system throughout New Zealand. In addition we have been directly and indirectly involved in offshore
implementations. CMS (released in 2006) is the latest version of the Case / Complaint Management Software
from LANWorx Limited. The latest version of CMS is a highly customisable application able to meet the needs
of a wide variety of organisations where a core requirement is document and workflow management.
CMS is a Customer server application written in Microsoft's Visual Studio.NET designed to run on Windows
Servers & Workstations. CMS is truly scalable, using Microsoft SQL Server as its backend database
(Microsoft SQL Server Desktop Engine can be used for smaller installations).
The software has been completely redesigned on this new development platform to take advantage of the latest technology.
Some of the features are:
- Manages all documents associated with a Case or Complaint
- Integrates with Microsoft Office Suite of applications
- Fully customisable with a built in form designer
- A comprehensive suite of reports
The LANWorx CMS Framework
Complaint handling shouldn't start with a complaint about your software. The intricate business of complaint
management is hard enough without having to battle your software or be dictated to by it.
CMS makes your business more efficient by providing software that fits your business model. CMS is a
purpose built application for recording, managing and reporting on Cases, Complaints or Investigations, written
for anyone who works in Case or Complaints Management.
Flexibility to meet your needs
- Is it a Case?
- Is it a Complaint?
- Is it a Dispute? An Investigation, a matter, an issue
There is a multitude of terminology that refers to the nature of the work your organisation does.
In our experience working with many Ombudsman organisations and related agencies, there is no
standard terminology for the complaints industry. What some might call a Case, others will call
a Complaint or a Dispute; you need software which is flexible enough to easily support the
terminology relevant to your organisation.
Within the complaint management industry, each organisation has different terms of reference,
codes of practise or legal mandates that define the business rules for that organisation. With developing
trends toward multi-jurisdictional Ombudsmen, there is an increasing requirement to integrate roles
previously handled by separate agencies, e.g. Human Rights, Race Relations, Investigation of Corruption.
Our belief is that your software should be able to accommodate how you wish to operate, not force
you to change your business processes to fit the software.
Product Overview
CMS is a tool to allow you to manage your complaints, processes and people more efficiently.
Written in an industry standard development language and utilising standard Office applications
such as Microsoft Word and Excel, it is designed to fit into mainstream IT environments.
Designed in conjunction with the New Zealand Office of the Ombudsmen, it is written to fit the best
practises of Ombudsmen.
CMS software manages every step of the Complaint life cycle from the recording of the initial contact
through to reporting on the final outcome. Incorporating document management and workflow features,
CMS becomes the single point of access for all information relevant to a complaint.
The following is a summary of the key features of CMS and how it will help your organisation set new standards
for complaint management:
Workflow
At every point in the life cycle of a complaint, all interested parties need to be informed on progress
and to the eventual resolution of the issue.
Action Tracking
From the Complainant to the Investigator, the Case-Load manager to the Ombudsman and ultimately the
government, Aid agency and the institution involved, all require information about the issue relevant to
their respective role in its resolution. CMS has detailed information on the status of each complaint. This
may extend to each complaint having a 'life-cycle' (acknowledgement, preliminary assessment, investigation,
preliminary view, comments sought, final view etc) and tracking the complaint through each stage. A tracking
and follow-up facility to ensure all actions taken in relation to a complaint are recorded and promptly
allocated to the correct investigating officer for action. The system automatically generates prompts and
reports identifying the need for different types of action, e.g. following a reallocation of a file to a new
investigator, an un-actioned inward letter, no recorded action on a complaint within a given time frame, an
outstanding response etc.
Document Management
There are many types of information that needs to be stored with a Case or complaint as well as the ability
to retrieve and report on this information. All forms of correspondence such as email, letters, faxes and
so on can be linked and stored with any complaint for easy retrieval and reporting. The system allows for
scanned images of inward correspondence. This can be extended to Optical Character Recognition of the
scanned documents.
Import Scanned Images such as Posted Mail
Security
The nature of an Ombudsman's work inherently involves the capture and maintenance of some very
sensitive data. The integrity, security and sensitivity of this information is fundamental to the
design of system. A hierarchy of authority levels determines the access rights of each user and
security integrated with workflow and document management ensure that confidentiality can be maintained
right down to the document level.
Simple User Interface
The new CMS desktop provides a multiple document interface allowing the user to have more than one
Case or Complaint open at a time. The quick search bar at the left provides an easy way to search the database.
Cases open on the desktop also appear on the Cases menu for quick access when several windows are open simultaneously.
An Application Already Tailored To Your Needs
Using a technology called 'Dynamic Classifications' you can create a data model to match your business
requirements and forms to match your organisations workflow. Currently there are several types of fields
that can be utilised and more being planned for the future.
Using dynamic classifications and the built in form designer data can be displayed in a variety of layouts
Basic Dynamic Classifications
- Include fields for all the basic data types.
- Checkboxes for True/False or Yes/No type data.
- Textboxes for character and numeric data.
- Date Time pickers for storing date and time information.
Customisable Data Entry Forms
Advanced Classifications
Some of the more advanced classifications include:
Drop Down lists that enable a user to select from a list of pre defined values. These can be configured via
the Form Designer to 'cascade', meaning that selecting a value from any Drop Down list can change the items
listed in any subordinate child list.
Parent & Subordinate Relational Menus - In this example the values in the 'Organisation'
drop down change dependent on the value selected for 'Sector'
A Multi List Box allows you to create a field that can store multiple values from a list, ideal for keywords or
anywhere that multiple values of the same type need to be stored.
Multi Value Keyword Selection
Using the Advanced Status Control, the status history is compiled. This shows when items were put on hold, closed, re-opened
(or any other status that you define), and how many days an item spent in any given status.
The KPI (Key Performance Indicators) control is used for ranking a case based on a list of criteria that you define.
This allows us to look at a Manager or Investigator's workload and assess the difficulty of each case assigned to them.
Reporting
CMS includes a comprehensive suite of reports where any of your custom fields can be used as selection criteria.
Reports come in multiple formats; Counts, Counts with a Graph and Listing Reports meet most user requirements out of the box.
The standard Workload, Timeliness and KPI reports provide the essential statistics required by management.
Build Your Own Reports
Variable Display Formats