Activities for Supported Independent Living (SIL) Accommodation Services
The Unit of Measure (UOM) for the majority of Support Items related to Supported Independent Living (SIL) and providing assistance in a shared living arrangement, is an 'Hour'.
Our recommended approach for managing this in SupportAbility is to create 24-hour Activities for each day of the week, for each house.
We appreciate some additional time is involved in the set-up and management of 24-hour Activities rather than week-long Activities, however, with the use of the Replication Management Settings, many providers find it to be well worth the investment.
Creating an Activity that starts and ends on the same day will avoid the inevitable problems encountered when a Client's NDIS plan ends midway through a 24hour Activity spanning multiple days. Similar issues are often experienced when a Client's NDIS Plan ends midway through a week-long Activity.
How Activities are structured, however, is ultimately at the discretion of your organisation, and will depend on your organisation's processes and required outputs, i.e. how you wish to manage the Roster and generate billing data for this service. We see a range of different Activity structures amongst our providers, and we are here to guide and assist you in setting up the most efficient method to meet your organisation's requirements.
Once these Activities have been set up, Staff Rosters can be filled as required, the weekly invoicing process can be managed effectively and the Staff Members who work in each residence throughout the week can add Client Journals & Goal evidence directly to the Activity to capture important information related to their shift. Multiple Client Journals may be added to Activities and there is no limit to how many entries can be associated. Staff Members can also complete their Staff Time Sheet Sign Off when required.
This article provides detailed information relating to how a 24-hour Activity can be set up for each residence, with some reference to the set-up for week-long Activities. Considerations are also outlined which will need to be taken into account when setting up Activities to accurately reflect your organisation's requirements. Information about adding Client Journals and viewing Staff Rosters is also covered.
Audience: Team Leaders, and anyone tasked with creating Activities for an Accommodation or SIL Service.
Summary
The following list summarises the content of this article. Click on the links below to take you to the relevant sections:
Set-Up
- Considerations when creating Activities
- Create the Activity
- Customise Staff Shifts
- Client Funding
- Allocating Supports
- Replicate Activities
Operations
Prerequisites
- We recommend reviewing the Managing Staff Shifts article, linked below, prior to commencing this process to become familiar with some of the foundation features associated with setting up Staff shifts.
- Staff require the privileges to manage Activities in order to set these up. Please see the Privileges required to manage Activities article linked below for more information.
- It is also important to understand how Activity Replication works in SupportAbility prior to creating an Activity Set once the initial Activity has been set up. We recommend reviewing the Replicating Activities article for a comprehensive overview of this functionality.
Set-Up
Considerations when creating Activities
When planning how to best configure an Activity for your organisation's SIL service there are some important considerations that must be determined prior to commencement:
- Creating separate Activities for each house/residence
- Separate Activities are recommended for each residence delivering the SIL service to reflect the different requirements for each.
- The Activities for each house/residence generally include the Clients receiving this Service, as well as the Staff Members who work there, with separate Staff shifts determining the Staff Roster for that location.
- Some providers, however, choose to create separate Activities for Clients and Staff to manage Client billing and Staff Rostering separately. There are pros and cons for managing them this way but your organisation will be best placed to determine the most appropriate structure to meet your required outputs, and we are here to provide guidance if needed.
- The duration of Activities
- Our recommended duration for Activities for the SIL service is a 24 hour period to match the Hourly Unit of Measure (UOM) for the majority of Support Items related to Supported Independent Living (SIL).
- We suggest the Activity duration is kept to one day e.g. 12.00 am to 11.59 pm Monday 10 January, to minimise the impact when managing NDIS Plans which end midway through an Activity period.
- It is important to understand that the Staff shifts in an Activity do not need to match the Activity dates and times.
- Billing assets generated from the allocated Supports in an Activity reference the Activity dates and times. This is why we recommend keeping the Activity's duration to one day. This makes it easier to manage the situation when a Client's NDIS plan ends midway through an Activity.
- The Dates and Times of Staff Shifts, however, can be managed separately to the Activity Dates and Times. While Staff Shifts cover a similar period to the Activity, they generally reflect the Staff Roster. Therefore, the From time of the first Shift and To time of the last Shift may vary slightly from the Activity From and To Dates and Times.
- For example, the first Staff Shift may commence at 7.00 am while the Activity commences at 12.00 am
- Another example is the last Shift may be an overnight Shift spreading across two days, while the Activity ends at 11.59 pm on the same day as the commencement time.
- The structure of the Staff Roster
- Once the duration of the Activity has been set, the way in which Staff Rosters are managed for each residence will inform the number of Shifts to be included in the Activity.
Considerations include: - The number of Shifts that occur during that period
- For example, calculate the number of shifts/day, including any split shifts, and be mindful of any differences between weekdays and weekends.
- This number will be used in the setup process to create the relevant number of Staff shifts TO BE FILLED, for the period of the Activity.
- The relevant start and end times for each of the Shifts can then be customised later once the Activity creation has been completed.
- Overnight Shifts may need to be split into 2 Shifts to activate the 'Active Night Shift' hours functionality
- When using a rotating Staff Roster, separate Activities may need to be created for each Roster pattern, then each of these can be replicated according to the corresponding time frame.
- Alternatively, an easier way to manage this may be to create only one set of Activities, leaving the Shifts set as 'To Be Filled', only populating the relevant Staff Member for each Shift once the Roster for each cycle is known and is to be distributed to Staff.
- Once the duration of the Activity has been set, the way in which Staff Rosters are managed for each residence will inform the number of Shifts to be included in the Activity.
- Staff Shifts which are regularly filled by permanent Staff
- Staff who work a regular Shift i.e. same day/time can be managed by adding the Staff Member to the relevant Shifts, then replicating this across the Activities in the set.
- Changeable Staff Shifts determined at each Roster cycle or filled by casual Staff
- Changeable Staff Shifts or those which will be filled by casuals can be populated as 'TO BE FILLED' when creating the Activity and replicated as such. The relevant Staff can then be added to these Shifts as required for each Roster cycle.
- This ensures the admin work for setting up Activities can be completed in advance while:
- providing flexibility to add the relevant Staff as needed
- ensuring Staff only have visibility of the Roster for the current cycle, which is a requirement of some organisations.
The above information will be critical in assisting you with setting up Activities for each of your organisation's residences.
Create the Activity
For the purposes of this article, we will be outlining how to create an Activity with a 24-hour duration.
Begin by navigating to the Dashboard and selecting the + button next to 'Activities':
This will open the Activity creation wizard where the relevant details can be entered:
- Step 1: Activity
- Step 2: Staff
- Step 3: Clients
- Step 4: Confirm
Activity - Service and Site
Select the relevant SIL Service at the relevant Site e.g. Supported Independent Living (SIL) @ Smith House:
Activity - Dates and Times
From Date: when using a 24-hour period structure for Activities we recommend creating separate Activities for each day of the week e.g. Monday 10/01/2022
From Time: we recommend the start and end times of the Activity are set for the same day. Therefore, the 'From Time' would be 12.00 am
To Date: The 'To Date' would be the same as the 'From Date' e.g. Monday 10/01/2022
To Time: Keeping the start and end times of the Activity to the same day, the 'To Time' would therefore be 11.59 pm
Activity - Activity (name), Location, and Program
Add the Activity (name): e.g. Accommodation 24/7, Location: e.g. Smith House, and (if relevant) the Program: e.g. Housing:
N.B. A list of Programs will only be available to select from if this has been configured for your organisation. Please see the Activity Program List article linked below for more information.
Once all Activity details have been entered, select '> Next: Add Staff':
Staff - Number of shifts per week
Enter the total number of Staff Shifts required for the duration of the 24 hour Activity period in the 'Add' field for 'Staff positions to be filled later' e.g 4:
Some considerations to be mindful of when calculating the number of required Shifts:
- 24-hour Activity - enter the relevant number of shifts for this period, including permanent, changeable/casual, split, or crossover shifts.
- Overnight shifts - will need to be split into 2 separate shifts with midnight being the finish time for the first part of the Shift and the start time for the second part in order to activate the 'Active Night Shift' functionality in SupportAbility.
- Week-long Activity - If your organisation has chosen to create weekly Activities to manage this Service, calculate the number of Staff shifts per day (e.g. 5) x the number of days per week (7) = 35 shifts, taking into account any differences between weekday and weekend shifts.
If however, the number of shifts per day varies between weekdays and weekends, the number of required shifts might be calculated something like the following: the number of shifts per weekday (5) x the relevant number of weekdays (5), plus the number of shifts per weekend day (3) x the relevant number of weekend days (2): 25 + 6 = 31 shifts.
N.B. Individual Staff will be added to the relevant shifts once the Activity has been created, and all Shift times have been customised. Additional Staff shifts can always be added from the Staff section of the Activity if required.
Clients
Next, add the relevant Clients who participate in this Service at this residence:
N.B. Only those Clients who have this Service and Site listed in the 'Client Service Participation' section of their Client record will be visible for selection. Clients can also be added once the Activity has been created.
Client Conflicts
When adding Clients to a week-long Activity it is not uncommon to see Client Conflict alerts (e.g. Clashing Activities) displayed in the 'Availability' column if the 'Client Conflict Detection' setting has been activated for this Service e.g. for Client Jim Bob:
This is due to the fact that Clients participating in the Accommodation Service are often also participating in other Services (e.g Day Services) during this week-long period.
Client Conflicts can be reviewed by selecting the down arrow to display the relevant Activities:
These can generally be ignored when creating an Activity for the SIL Service and do not prevent you from adding the Client to the SIL Activity.
'Client Conflict Detection' can be deactivated for the SIL Service on the Services tab in System Preferences, to prevent these alerts from displaying when creating SIL Activities.
More information is available in the Client Conflicts article, linked below for your reference
Once the relevant Clients have been added to the Activity wizard, select 'Next: Confirm':
Review the Activity configuration
Once 'Next: Confirm' has been selected the 'Add a new Activity' window will open displaying a preview of the previously selected configuration:
This is an opportunity to review all Activity Details, number of 'Staff positions to be filled later,' and participating Clients. If any adjustments need to be made, you may go back to a previous step in the workflow, using the 'Prev:' button.
N.B. All pre-selected settings are retained when navigating back through each of the steps of the wizard.
Once all details have been reviewed and deemed correct, select the 'Add Activity' button.
The 'New Activity Created' confirmation window will display:
Selecting the 'View/Edit new Activity' button will navigate you to the Activity record:
N.B. The Warning bar at the top of the page will display Warnings regarding the Staff Roster e.g. '4 Staff Positions to be filled'. Any Client Conflicts will also display if relevant. Whilst these Warnings appear there is no immediate action required, it is for informational purposes only and the Shifts can be populated with the relevant Staff when completing the Roster for this period.
Customise Staff Shifts
Once the Activity has been created the number of Staff shifts (e.g. 4) as entered in the Activity wizard during the setup process, will be listed in the Staff section of the Activity.
The 'Staff Member' for each Shift will display as 'TO BE FILLED' and the 'Working From-To Times' for each Shift will match those of the Activity, as displayed when the 'Customise Time' button is selected:
Once the Activity has been created, the first step is to customise the Times for each Shift to match the Roster for that Activity period.
Following this, any permanent Staff or those who work a regular Shift can be added to the relevant Shifts, and the Activity is then replicated to create a set of similar Activities for future occurrences.
Changeable Shifts can be filled with the relevant Staff at a later date as required.
Customise Shift Times
Each Shift will need to be customised to reflect the Dates and Times that match the Roster for this Activity period, and therefore the first and last Shifts for the period do not have to align completely with the From and To Dates/Times of the Activity.
To customise the Shift Time select the 'Customise Time' button:
Once the 'Customise Time' button has been selected, the From and To Date and Time fields will display:
By default, all Staff Shifts align with the From and To Dates and Times of the Activity e.g 12.00 am 10th January 2022 - 11:59 pm 10th January 2022.
Enter the From and To Dates and Times to accurately reflect each Shift:
Overnight Shifts
Overnight Shifts may need to be split into 2 separate Shifts, to activate the 'Active Night Shift' hours functionality.
The first of these Shifts would end at 12.00 am, and the second Shift would commence at 12.00 am, generally finishing at the commencement time of the following Shift e.g. 7.00 am:
Overlapping Shifts
Occasionally Shift times may overlap for a period to provide an opportunity for a handover:
Add Staff to Shifts
Once all Shift Times have been customised, the relevant Staff can be added to these Shifts.
Permanent Staff
When Staff are regularly working the same Shifts, these Staff can be added to the relevant Shifts in the Activity, prior to the Activity being replicated. This means that all future-dated Activities will automatically include these Staff for the relevant Shifts.
For example, Staff Member Felipo, regularly works the 7.00 am to 3.00 pm Shift on a Monday for this residence. To add him to the Shift select the 'Change' button.
The 'Change Activity Staff' window will open displaying a list of both Service and Non-Service Staff. Any Staff 'Clashes' or 'Availability' issues will display in the relevant columns. Select the 'Add' icon for the relevant Staff Member e.g. Felipo.
This Staff Member will now display for this Shift in the Activity:
N.B. Remember to select 'Save Activity' to save the addition.
Casual or changeable Shifts
Changeable Shifts where the Staff Member continually varies e.g. for Casual Staff are recommended to be left as TO BE FILLED prior to the Activity being replicated. These shifts can then be filled later as required prior to each Roster cycle.
The 'TO BE FILLED' functionality is helpful for managing Rosters in several ways:
- providing flexibility to add Staff to shifts prior to each Roster cycle
- helpful for restricting or limiting Staff visibility of future shifts, if and when required.
Activity Staff Report
The Activity Staff Report is a useful report to help identify Staff shifts that are set to 'TO BE FILLED':
Please see the Activity Staff Report article linked below for more information.
Programs of Support
Programs of Support is an option in conjunction with the SIL Supports introduced in the 2020/21 NDIS Price Guide. A feature is available in SupportAbility to record the relevant Clients' participation as part of a ‘Program of Support’ (PoS) in the Activities they are scheduled into:
When set, Short Notice Cancellations are not triggered for the applicable Support Items. Given Programs of Support are only relevant for specific Supports, this feature is configurable by Service in System Preferences as required.
If your organisation is choosing to use Programs of Support, we recommend reviewing the Programs of Support article, linked below to understand what functionality is available to assist with this in SupportAbility for the applicable new SIL and other Group Supports.
Client Funding
In order for the SIL Supports to be available for selection in the NDIS Support Allocations window in the Activity record, either the related Flexible Category Budget - 0001 or the relevant stated Support Items must be listed in the Client's NDIS Direct Funding record.
For Client's with Support Item Budgets, the relevant Supports required for Allocation will need to be added to their Funding record e.g.
- 01_801_0115_1_1 - Assistance in Supported Independent Living - Standard - Weekday Daytime
- 01_802_0115_1_1 - Assistance in Supported Independent Living - Standard - Weekday Evening
- 01_804_0115_1_1 - Assistance in Supported Independent Living - Standard - Saturday
- 01_805_0115_1_1 - Assistance in Supported Independent Living - Standard - Sunday
- 01_832_0115_1_1 - Assistance in Supported Independent Living - Night-Time Sleepover
Which Supports are available will depend on the Price Guide in use, relative to the Price Guide Transition settings in the Client's Funding record.
It is important to note that if a defined Budget is not available due to the transition, then these Supports can be set up with a $0 Budget in order to be utilised as required given Support Items must include a Budget if no Flexible Budget is available in the Funding record for the parent Category e.g. 0001 in order to be available for Allocation:
The 'Adding a Support Item' section of the Adding an NDIS Direct Client Funding record article may be of further assistance in regards to adding these Supports to the Client's Funding record as required. This has been linked below for reference.
Allocating Supports
Once these Supports are available in the Client's Funding record, and that Funding record has been selected as the Funding Source for this Client in the Activity, these Supports can be allocated in the Activity.
NDIS Supports may prepopulate in the NDIS Support Allocations window with a zero quantity and be displayed in grey when:
- the Client's NDIS Direct Funding record has been set up to include NDIS Support Items, or
- Supports have been Allocated in Activities for this Client historically
The 'Add Support Item' field allows you to search for the Supports you wish to allocate. Simply type in the name or the 'Reference Number' of the Item required e.g. 01_801_0115_1_1
Select the relevant Supports, enter the 'Quantity' for each, and select the 'Portion' as required:
N.B.
The NDIS Support Allocations displayed above is for demonstration purposes only. We understand that the allocation of Supports for this Service will in reality be further nuanced for each Client and provider.
Only Staff with the 'View Financial Information' Security Privilege will see the 'Price' of the Support and the calculated 'Value' based on the Price and Portion, displayed in the NDIS Support Allocations window:
Portion of Price
The relevant portion for these SIL Supports must be selected for each Client in the NDIS Support Allocation window of Activities when 2020/21 and later NDIS Price Guides are in use.
Once the Portion has been selected, this automatically apportions the Price of the Support and calculates the Value (e.g. $382.00) based on the apportioned Price (e.g. $19.10) and the Quantity entered (e.g. 20.00):
Please see the Apportioning the Price of the required Group Supports article, linked below for reference, for more information.
Charging for different Claim Types
A single Support Item e.g. 01_801_0115_1_1 can be allocated multiple times to ensure different Claim Types can be charged, such as Standard Service, Non-Face-to-Face Support Provision (NF2F), and/or any Irregular SIL Supports that need to be claimed.
Select 'Duplicate' from the Actions menu next to the relevant Support:
The newly added Support will display greyed out:
Enter the relevant Quantity, Claim Type and Portion for each listing of the Support:
In the above example, 01_801_0115_1_1 - Assistance in Supported independent Living - Standard - Weekday Daytime has been added four times, but each Allocation has a different Claim Type.
- Covers the Standard Service delivery component for the duration of the Activity.
- Reflects the Non-Face-to-Face Support Provision component of the service delivery, given it is now a requirement to separate out the NF2F charges when using these Supports.
- Please see the Non-Face-To-Face Support Provision article linked below for more information regarding this.
- Reflects the hours for Irregular SIL Supports needing to be claimed (however, you may wish to include these in a separate Activity if you wish to keep these separate)
- Reflects the Provider Travel component of the service delivery which occurred during the Activity period.
Adding Irregular SIL Supports
As mentioned above, the 'Irregular SIL Supports' Claim Type can be selected for the relevant Supported Independent Living NDIS Support Allocations as required:
N.B. The 'Irregular SIL Supports' Claim Type can be selected for the relevant Supports, provided the '2020/21 - December 1st Update', or subsequent NDIS Price Guide is in use for the Client as per their Price Guide Transition settings. Please see the NDIS Price Guide Transition article linked below for more information regarding this.
This can be added to existing Activities by adding the relevant Support Item again and then changing the Claim Type. Alternatively, Irregular SIL Supports can be managed in separate Activities as deemed required.
Replicate Activities
Once Staff Shifts have been customised as required, the Funding Source set and NDIS Supports allocated for participating Clients, the Activity can then be replicated to create a set of future occurring Activities with the same settings.
Depending on the structure of your organisation's Roster for this Service e.g. repeats or there is a rotating roster, and the period being utilised for these Activities e.g. daily or weekly, will determine how Activities are replicated.
N.B. When replicating Activities each recurrence pattern option has a limited timeframe in which a single set of Activities can be created:
- Monthly - 12 months
- Weekly - 6 months
- Daily - 3 months
However, should you wish to replicate beyond these limits, then this is possible by creating the initial set up to the date limit, navigating to the last recurrence in the set, then repeating the process to replicate a new set of Activities again from here.
Detailed information about how to replicate Activities is outlined in the Replicating Activities article linked below for reference.
Replicating Repeating Rosters
Daily Activities
For daily Activities, if the Staff Roster is the same every weekday for instance, then this Activity can simply be replicated for the required period as follows:
- Repeats: select 'Weekly'
- Repeats Every: '1' Weeks
- Repeats on Days: select each of the days of the week which have the same roster structure e.g. Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr
- Replication End Date: using the calendar functionality select the relevant End Date for the replicated set e.g. Friday 29/04/2022. The Activity Replications dates will populate in the box to the right
N.B. If the weekend roster varies from the weekday roster, daily Activities can be created for Saturday and Sunday and then replicated similar to the process for the weekday set.
N.B. If the weekend roster varies from the weekday roster, daily Activities can be created for Saturday and Sunday and then replicated similar to the process for the weekday set. Weekly Activities
If your organisation is creating weekly Activities for this service and the Staff Roster structure repeats each week, then this Activity can simply be replicated for the required period as follows:
- Repeats: select 'Weekly'
- Repeats Every: '1' Weeks
- Repeats on Days: leave the day of the week already selected e.g. Monday, which will be the first day of the weekly Activity being replicated
- Replication End Date: enter the relevant end date for the replicated set e.g. Monday 04/07/2022. The 'Activity Replications dates' will populate in the box to the right
Replicating Rotating Rosters
If your organisation's SIL Service operates on a rotating Roster basis, i.e. alternating fortnightly or monthly, this can be managed as outlined below.
Begin by creating separate daily or weekly Activities, as per your organisation's preference for managing SIL Activities, that reflect the different Rosters for each period i.e. for the fortnight or the month.
These Activities can then be replicated to create parallel sets of Activities that collectively reflect the correct fortnightly or monthly Roster cycle across all future weeks, whilst maintaining continuity of Service for each Client.
Daily Activities
For organisation's utilising daily Activities where the Roster cycle rotates on a fortnightly basis, begin by creating a daily Activity that reflects the Roster for each day of the week for week one.
Repeat this process to create daily Activities that reflect the Roster for the second week in the fortnight period.
All these Activities can then be replicated to reflect the rotating fortnightly Roster by selecting Repeats Every 2 Weeks in the Replicate Activity window:
Where the Roster cycle rotates on a monthly basis, begin by creating daily Activities to reflect the different Rosters for each day of the week for each week in the monthly cycle i.e. for weeks one, two, three and four.
These Activities can then be replicated to reflect the rotating monthly Roster by selecting Repeats Every 4 Weeks in the Replicate Activity window:
Weekly Activities
For organisation's utilising weekly Activities where the Roster cycle rotates on a fortnightly basis, begin by creating a weekly Activity that reflects the Roster for week one.
Repeat this process to create a weekly Activity that reflects the Roster for the second week in the fortnight period.
These Activities can then be replicated to reflect the rotating fortnightly Roster by selecting Repeats Every 2 Weeks in the Replicate Activity window:
Where the Roster cycle rotates on a monthly basis, begin by creating weekly Activities to reflect the different Rosters for each week in the month i.e. weeks one, two, three and four.
These Activities can then be replicated to reflect the rotating monthly Roster by selecting Repeats Every 4 Weeks in the Replicate Activity window:
Operations
Viewing Staff Rosters
Once Staff shifts have been filled with the relevant Staff, this information will be available and visible to Staff working those Shifts, and to Staff with high-level access to these Activities.
Staff can view their own Roster by navigating to the Dashboard and selecting Roster:
The individual Staff Member's Roster only reflects the shift times they have been added to. For instance, if they have been added to a week-long Activity only their shifts in this period will display:
The Activity may be directly accessed via the Activity link in the Roster, where Client Journals may be added for each participating Client related to the Staff Member's Shift.
Print, Email or Subscribe a Roster
The Roster may be printed, emailed, or subscribed to via webcal for Outlook, iCal or Gmail. The print and email versions of the Roster have the option to include additional information which is not displayed onscreen, such as the Activity Location, Replicating Staff Notes, and non-Replicating Staff Notes as entered in the Activity.
Adding Client Journals
Multiple Client Journals can be added for Clients, thereby facilitating Journal evidence to align with the different Staff Shifts throughout the week-long Activity.
Pertinent information such as the authoring Staff Member's name or initials, along with the subject area of the Journal content can be added in the Journal Title so it is readily identifiable at a glance:
N.B. The authoring Staff Member's name is automatically recorded in the 'Author' field within the 'Journal Notes' section, however, it may be helpful for your organisation for Staff to include their initials in the Journal Title as well. The date the Journal was written will automatically display in the Journal Summary.
Journal Templates for specific Journal Types can be configured in System Preferences to encourage the inclusion of relevant and important data when Staff are entering information in the Journal 'Notes'.
More information relating to configuring Journal Templates and Journal Types is outlined in detail in the Client Journals article, linked below.