On April 1, 2017, Continuum of Care (CoC) Program grant recipients will stop reporting their CoC Program Annual Performance Reports (APRs) in e-snaps and will begin submitting them in Sage HMIS Reporting Repository (Sage). Sage is an online repository that allows greater flexibility to recipients, CoCs, and HUD to report and search CoC Program APR data.
Who Must Submit CoC Program APRs in Sage?
Communities will no longer submit APRs in e-snaps. This change in systems will apply to all CoC homeless assistance grants (e.g., Supportive Housing Program, Shelter Plus Care, Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy Program, CoC Program) administered by the Office of Special Needs Assistance Programs (SNAPS) – regardless of when they were initially funded. This includes recipients that submit APRs due to a 15-year or 20-year use restriction.
- Recipients will be required to upload CSV data from their HMIS to fulfill the APR reporting requirement in Sage. Recipients will not be able to manually enter data about who they served. HUD expects all HMIS softwares and all comparable databases to be able to support this requirement.
- HMIS Dedicated grant recipients will also have a new APR that will not require a data upload or report generated from the HMIS.
- For SRO recipients, HUD is changing the reporting requirements. Instead of a full APR, SRO recipients will report basic information about the recipient and its appropriate contact, answer some basic questions, report the total number of persons served, and the total units it funded. More information will be provided in the APR guidebook on what exactly the SRO recipients need to report.
- HUD will not be updating anything in e-snaps to support APRs for grants funded in FY2015 and later CoC Program Competitions. APRs in process in e-snaps should make every attempt to be completed by March 30, 2017.
- The reason HUD is requiring all recipients, regardless of funding year, to begin using Sage is because local HMIS softwares are also changing and will no longer support the APR that is submitted in e-snaps beginning in April. Recipients need to contact their HMIS Administrators to find out when exactly this change will occur in their local HMIS. If recipients have an open APR in e-snaps on April 1, 2017 or need to amend an old APR, they need to work with their HMIS Administrator to determine if they are able to report the data about clients for those updates.
When Should Sage Users Create Their Accounts?
In anticipation of these APR reporting changes, HUD has now opened Sage for recipients to create their Sage accounts.
- Recipients must identify the persons they want to access the Sage portal and have them create an account by going to www.sagehmis.info and entering the contact information and the recipient affiliation (i.e., CoC). HUD is requiring the CoC Primary contact to approve the users for their CoCs. The Primary Contact, who is the person identified by the Collaborative Applicant in the FY2016 CoC Program Registration as the Primary Contact, will be able to designate someone else in their CoC to authorize users but until they do that they will be required to approve all users. HUD is requiring this because CoCs should know which recipients should be reporting and they should also have access to APRs, which has historically been limited. HUD has prepopulated Sage with the contact information of all of the CoC Primary contacts. If the Primary Contact information submitted to HUD via e-snaps is out of date CoCs need to notify HUD immediately via the Ask A Question (AAQ) portal and also update the Applicant Profile in e-snaps. The CoC Primary contact will be notified when a user requests access and the user will be notified when the CoC authorizes that user’s access.
What Training Resources Are Available?
- HUD will host a webinar on March 16, 2017 at 3:30 PM EDT to provide a basic overview of Sage, demonstrate how to access Sage, and answer questions. You will receive a separate listserv message with registration information.
- HUD will release a short training video to show users how to create a Sage account next week. We anticipate that it will be ready prior to the webinar.
- HUD will host another webinar in April to provide more information about using Sage along with other training resources.
This is an exciting change that should make reporting easier for recipients and expand the ability for CoCs to access and use APR data.