What's the difference between the Unique Identifier List and the Coordinated Access module?

TL;DR: Don't use the Unique Identifier List report, use the Coordinated Access module and export it to Excel.

Communities are often confused about the Unique Identifier List (UIL) which is found in the HIFIS Reports section of the Report Manager, and the Coordinated Access module, which is labeled as the Coordinated Access - Unique Identifier List and can be accessed through the Front Desk > Coordinated Access.

A while back, HIFIS was on version 4.0.58 and they were working on developing coordinated access functionality. Version 4.0.59 introduced many features that are essential to coordinated access, such as the Inactivity Threshold, automatic calculations of who is housed, homeless, and chronically homeless based off of the Reaching Home housing continuum, and housing history and admissions data. But it takes longer to modify software than to develop a report, so as an interim measure, ESDC (now Infrastructure Canada) released a report called the Unique Identifier List.

The Unique Identifier List report was based on a version of HIFIS that did not include any important features, such as knowing which clients were active/inactive, or knowing which clients were homeless/housed. So this report made up its own rules, and hard-coded those rules into the report. What that means is that the report would not account for future software updates. For example, the list of things that make a client active or inactive is written directly into the report itself, and is not based on the actual client status in HIFIS. For the Unique Identifier List Report Guide, click here.

Then, in December 2020, HIFIS version 4.0.59 was released, which was a major update that included functionalities such as the Inactivity Threshold, coordinated access consent, and the client housing status. This also introduced the Coordinated Access module, which now provides a list built-in to HIFIS that serves essentially the same purpose as the UIL. Now, instead of running a report to get a list of clients, one could go to the Front Desk > Coordinated Access module, and get a list of clients. This could subsequently be exported to Excel and manipulated. For more information about the v59 release and the Coordinated Access module, click here.

However, the Unique Identifier List report stayed in the software, and so communities that were updating from a previous version (say, they started in 57, skipped 58 and went straight to 59), or communities that were just starting to use HIFIS, saw two different things that seemed the same. Whenever that is the case, people do what is easiest or more obvious to them, so a fair number of people are now using the UIL and assuming that the data it pulls is consistent with everything else in HIFIS. That is not the case.

Activity Differences

The UIL prompts users to pick a date for the purposes of determining activity. Most communities have an inacitivity threshold of 90 days or so, so let's say that we pick a date that's 90 days ago. The UIL will show only clients that have received a service since that date. In contrast, the Coordinated Access module uses the client's status (Active / Inactive / Archived / Deceased). The client's status is informed by actions that a user has taken in the client file recently, but importantly if there's a software update that modifies these rules, the Coordinated Access module would use the most recent rules.

At the time of writing, here is a list of the differences in things that count towards activity:

Consent

Version 59 also included a new type of consent called Coordinated Access, which is intended to indicate which clients have agreed to participate in the coordinated access system. Here is how the different sources handle consent:

Housing Status

When the Unique Identifier List was written, the Reaching Home housing continuum did not yet exist. Partially due to that, the client's housing status did not exist either. The UIL therefore specifically excludes the clients who have a current housing history record of a type from the list below, which count as housing. Meanwhile, the Coordinated Access module excludes clients with a current housing status of "housed," which is derived from a list of housing types that are in the Reaching Home housing continuum corresponding to the category of housed. Furthermore, however, you could choose whether the transitional category counts as "housed" in which case clients with a transitional status would be excluded from the CA module, or whether it counts as "homeless" in which case clients with that status would be included.

(Notice that some of these labels sound the same, but are different? Yeah. Version 59 changed the labels too.)

Other Differences

The most notable other difference comes from a difference in columns. Some columns may be present in one version and not present in the other. Some columns that are present in both versions may be calculating things slightly differently.

Typically, when communities don't like the columns available, they turn to a custom report. Most are choosing to write a custom report that is built off of the CA module, and then simply making some adjustments.

Going Forward

At the moment, the differences between the UIL and the CA module are the smallest they are ever going to be. In the future, with subsequent releases of the software, the gap is going to widen. We recommend that you make use of the Coordinated Access module, or a report built off of it. If you're using the Unique Identifier List, you should be aware that it is not going to benefit from any future enhancements to HIFIS, including those to the Coordinated Access module. If you are sure you want to use it, then at least do so with a full understanding of the implications of that decision!