Management Tools

Shelter Locator & Status

Integrated map displays to inform the public about shelter locations, current status, and capacity. GIS coordinates are ready for export and use via APIs for data integration and sharing with other emergency management officials and partners.

Resident self-check-in can be as simple as scanning a QR code.

Facility Management

Management of physical spaces is crucial for a range of shelter residents: general population, medically vulnerable individuals, staff, volunteers, and pets. The system is smart enough to understand when one facility may be used for two different sheltering operations or events. We’re ready for just about anything that disasters can throw at us.

Emergency Supplies

Water, cots, blankets, and comfort kits are types of critical shelter supplies that can be prepositioned. Once those items arrive, this solution lets you track burn rates and coordinate with other partners for resupply. Basic tracking capabilities such as these are part of the shelter profile for ongoing operations. Connect with our In-Kind Goods and Services Donation module to engage the community in resupply. All of this is trackable and searchable to help the logistics team manage resources.

Issues Tracking

The shelter log (for each shelter, for each event, at each location), tracks routine issues and more serious incidents, as may be referred to law enforcement. Each shelter operation has its own discreet logbook which is only visible to the assigned staff. This tool can be used to log issues, assign action steps, and indicate whether the issue is complete, unresolved, or requires no further action. Manage your liabilities, proactively.

Background Checks & Security with Sterling Volunteers

Visionlink has partnered with Sterling Volunteers to integrate its world-class badging and background check services to make every shelter safer for residents, guests, staff, and volunteers. Badging may be deployed for staff or volunteers, as well as guests for extended events. Sterling offers both digital and physical badging solutions depending on your preference. Background checks are integrated seamlessly for screening and deploying shelter staff and volunteers working closely with shelter residents - especially with children or other vulnerable populations.

Multi-Lingual or Localized

The entire solution can be supported by web browser-based translation tools. Or, our Language & Localization module lets you quickly define translations for every field and form. The Localization module also includes the keenly useful ability to return specific information in a common language (e.g. English) for single-language reporting, even if the data was captured in multiple languages.

Continuity & Case Management

The needs of shelter guests and residents often merits case tracking to manage resources such as mental health counseling or over-the-counter medications. Visionlink’s Client and Case Management module provides a rapid and easy-to-use intake and referral solution. From within the shelter, or as residents leave the shelter, their cases can be shared with recovery agencies for continuity of care. You control how much information is shared with whom.

Role-Driven Access

We include pre-defined user roles that control which staff members have access to specific components of the shelter management system, as well as disaster-specific controls to ensure that different sheltering operations are managed properly. Roles and workflows can be adjusted in real-time to meet virtually any workflow you choose to support.

Multiple agencies can coordinate service delivery across multiple disasters and locations all from one platform—reducing costs and simplifying reporting, while improving outcomes.

Staff Scheduling

Staffing shelters for multiple weeks involves a tremendous amount of coordination and planning. The Shelter System Manager is pre-built with a Shift Scheduling tool, with links to our volunteer solution (part of the same platform), and for more advanced scheduling capability we can integrate with third-party workforce schedulers depending on your needs.

Operational Reporting

Gaining understanding of trends, challenges, and resources related to managing shelter, resource, and volunteer activities is critical. This solution offers Visionlink’s new on-platform ResultsOS reporting solution, one-click import and export, bulk update tools for any component, and Visionlink’s proprietary API builder so you can build your own API endpoints in real-time to share data with partner agencies and organizations. We also connect to our partner Domo for high-end analytics, on-platform ETL tools and scheduled, deliverable reports and dashboards.

Technologically Reliable and Secure

Shelter System Manager is supported on current versions of all major browsers, including support for built-in saved entries, spellcheck, and multi-lingual data entry.

The entire platform is mobile responsive—including the capacity to build your own mobile forms and tools on your smartphone. Your data is secure and we operate at or above 99.99% and have operated at 99.9% for every single month of every year for the past 17 years. We will be there when you need us the most.

Support & Training

We provide complete support with training, documents, and videos. Our Help Desk team is responsive, knowledgeable, and friendly—and they actually return your calls and emails. Our leadership team has extraordinarily deep experience in disaster relief and operations, having been involved in nearly 300 named disasters. We can review your operational readiness and provide implementation support to better ensure your success.

Ask about our Implementation Services where we can join with your staff to help launch operations immediately after an incident.

Make it Your Own

While these pre-built solutions are expertly crafted based on years of experience, every field, tab, form, role, permission, menu, logic branch, search, csv export, and API endpoint (to name a few) can be configured by you and your staff for ultimate configurability and customization. Our Solutions Team is happy to make these adjustments as well. The bottom line? The solution can adapt to new opportunities and challenges as they arise without expensive custom development or delays. See more about Future Ready.