Claiming and Downloading Policy

Crisis Cleanup is collaborative, and only works when each organization respects others' ability and right to help survivors.

Claiming Policy

Remember the 6C's when performing work: Call, Claim, Confirm, Check/Assess, Clean, Close Out. We ask that you follow these rules:

  • Always claim work orders/cases your organization intends to complete, even if you keep track through your own system.
  • In general, only claim work orders/cases that you can complete in a few days.
  • Never claim work orders/cases more than six days in advance.
  • Never claim large numbers of work orders/cases in an area unless you intend to complete them all within six days at the most.
  • Unclaim work orders/cases right away if you cannot complete them.

Contact Us if you need to unclaim a large number of work orders. See the Examples section at the end of this article.

Downloading Policy

For convenience and efficiency, Crisis Cleanup allows you to download a CSV file (e.g. an Excel file) containing all of the work orders in an incident. It is a very popular feature, based upon the number of downloads. The CSV file contains information necessary to contact residents, plan, deploy work teams, and run reports. Crisis Cleanup strictly minimizes the personal information it collects (see the Client Data Collection Policy).

While being able to download a complete list all survivors' contact information is convenient, it also has three significant drawbacks:

  • Your organization must rely upon every other organization to keep your clients' contact information safe.
  • Any unauthorized person who obtains a copy of this file would have all of the contact information for up to 20,000 clients (on larger incidents).
  • Some organizations download the entire list and go straight to work without claiming any work orders in Crisis Cleanup. While this helps the survivors they serve, it hurts your clients when you must spend days calling dozens of families to find one that still needs help.

Consequently, effective September 28, 2017 we have made a few minor changes to the CSV download. These changes improve client privacy, security, and partner collaboration. All organizations will continue to have access to all client contact data through the Map and the "Browse" feature (Dashboard -> Browse). Only the CSV download has changed.

  • If your organization reported or claimed a case, your CSV will include all client contact data, as usual. These will be grouped at the top.
  • If your organization neither reported nor claimed a case, the client's identifying information will be removed. The client's name, street number, phone number, and precise location are hidden. The street name and all other data will remain.

But I need that information! Can I still access it?

Yes! Of course! There are many legitimate reasons for accessing contact data for cases your organization has not claimed. For example:

  • Calling a homeowner to see if they still need help, prior to claiming a work order.
  • Conducting a "call-down" to update old information.

Whenever you claim or update a record (through the Map or Browse features), you will be able to view all client contact data. As soon as you claim a work order, that client's contact data will appear in your CSV. For all other work orders, you will still be able to plan (to the street level), run statistics, and create reports.

That isn't good enough. I really need a CSV with every single name, address, and phone number—all 20,000 of them.

We understand that some organizations, like VOADs or Long Term Recovery Groups may need special subsets of the data. If you feel you have extreme or special needs for all personal contact information in CSV format, please contact the help desk.


Claiming Examples:

Claim a Few, Days Before You Work: You are a team leader planning to lead a team on Saturday. On the Wednesday prior, you log into Crisis Cleanup and claim a few work orders. You are reasonably sure you can complete all of them on Saturday. You contact each resident and arrange a time to help.

Great! This is exactly how you should use Crisis Cleanup.

Estimate Big: You arrive at a disaster and estimate you can recruit 500 volunteers in the next few weeks. You claim 50 work orders, intending to complete them in the next few weeks.

Not OK: Even if you reach your volunteer targets, it isn't fair to make survivors wait. Only claim if you can complete them within six days.

Specific Examples: Your team has claimed four work orders:

  1. The first person isn't home: Unclaim it. You may re-claim the person if you contact them later.
  2. The second person reschedules: Keep it. Because you have scheduled a time, the resident is expecting you. Mark it "Open, assigned."
  3. The third work order has been done by others: Keep it. Mark it "Closed, done by others."
  4. You complete the fourth work order:Keep it. Mark it "Closed, completed.

Play Nice with Other Organizations: You have claimed work order A123, but have not scheduled a time to work. Another organization contacts you and explains they already have an appointment scheduled with that person but had forgotten to claim the work order. What should you do?

Play nice. Unclaim the work order and allow the other organization to claim it. You should always work things out with the other organization in a way that is fair. In this case, they already have an appointment scheduled and you do not.

Demobilizing: Your organization is demobilizing. You log on to Crisis Cleanup to update work orders and realize there are several cases your group never completed. What should you do?

Unclaim them. At a minimum, unclaim each work order and set the status to, "Open, unassigned." Make any notes about the status for other relief organizations that might help them in the future. Tell the resident you are unable to help. If possible, coordinate with other organizations to ensure they are helped after you leave.

Old Cases: It has been several months since the disaster, and it is your job to find out who has been helped as long term recovery begins. You find that one organization that left months ago failed to unclaim work orders, even though they never helped. What should you do?

  • Contact the organization. First, always try to contact the organization and ask them to unclaim the work orders.
  • Contact Us. If you are unable to reach the organization, contact us. DO NOT contact us until you have made repeated attempts to contact the organization and can demonstrate they are completely inaccessible. If they are missing and inaccessible, we can help unclaim those work orders.

Policy Effective: September 8, 2016. Updated: December 10, 2016 (clarified examples), September 28, 2017 (implemented CSV download policy), June 19, 2019 (Moved and clarified examples).

 

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