Upshot is used to manage projects which give vital support to communities and vulnerable individuals. We are aware that many organisations using the system may face new challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This guide aims to explain some ways Upshot can be adapted or used to help you meet these challenges.
Upshot Support is operating as normal – if you need any help with managing your work please contact
support@upshot.org.uk or call 020 7842 8899.
Using Upshot for tracking and tracing participants in your programmes
If you are returning to delivery Upshot can be used to support tracking and tracing participants in your programme.
By keeping on top of registers once you are delivering you can use the reporting tools to aid you in this process.
As a first step, if you simply need to find out the sessions and activities one individual has attended recently, this can easily be done from the
Session Report on their profile.
An Attendance Report based on this can identify which other participants the individual may have encountered at certain sessions.
The
Attendance or the
People Report could then be used to find individuals who may have used the same physical spaces subsequently.
Once you have identified relevant individuals, if you hold contact details for these participants these can be accessed individually on their profile, or for a larger group via the
People Report download.
Identifying vulnerable service users
We are aware organisations may look to identify where their resources and efforts should be based in terms of individuals most in need and specific locations that may require additional support.
People Report
The People Report allows you to identify individuals and communities most in need of support, using filers such as age, medical conditions etc.
It can also be used for urgent admin tasks such as identifying attendees who do or don’t have emergency contact details in place.
Once the filters are chosen you can download the details of attendees who match the selected criteria into a spreadsheet. This download can be useful for response teams either digitally or as a print-out.
You can also choose to
Email these attendees directly (e.g. to quickly inform them of changes such as moving to online).
COVID-19 Example
Identify attendees who are at risk – e.g. over 70 and have specific medical conditions (see screenshot below).
In addition, to save yourself time, you could also create your own Attendee Data Field (please refer to the section on
Custom Attendee Fields below) such as
COVID-19 support required. This would allow you to filter your People Report using this to easily identify relevant individuals.
Please refer to the
People Report guide for more information.
Custom Attendee Data Fields
You can create your own Attendee Data Fields alongside the standard ones in Upshot. Go to Admin > Attendee Data Fields. Here you can Add a new data field for extra information you may collect via your registration form or via head count sessions. This new field can be any kind of information you
collect. In the current situation this field can be used to help identify individuals that need additional support quickly and easily via your
People Report.
COVID-19 Example
Create your own custom field called for example
COVID-19 support required. This can help to identify individuals that need this additional support quickly and easily on your account.
Note: If data such as this needs to be added to a large number of attendees this can be done via a Bulk Edit. Please contact support@upshot.org.uk for assistance– it can save a lot of vital time.
Please refer to the
Admin guide for more information.
Map
The Map plots all attendees and locations according to their postcodes. Overlays can be applied to view where they are in relation to the Index of Multiple Deprivation and Population density. All data is taken from the Office of National Statistics and the overlays can be broken down into Lower Super Output Areas, Medium Super Output Areas and Local Authority.
COVID-19 Example
Filter your attendees (or all those on your database) to plot where those over 70 live – this is useful in co-ordinating volunteer support for example. Then add the overlay of population density to assess the relative risk level of those people aged over 70.
Communication to Service Users
In difficult times, clear and easily accessible communication is essential. Upshot consolidates all data in one place and enables quick accurate sharing of information. The Email and Media features are highlighted below.
Email
Upshot has an inbuilt email tool. This will allow you to communicate on mass with service users any changes to your delivery, opening or contact hours in the current pandemic. In addition, emailing individual users can be a vital way of tackling social isolation during this period.
COVID-19 Example
Use the
People Report to define the list of attendees you would like to email – e.g. all those suffering from Asthma and email them directly with the latest health information and your support services.
You can also go directly to the
Email option (under the
People tab and then select recipients).
Media
Use the Upshot Media Library to store forms or documents, e.g. scanned documents, photos and videos. These can be then be downloaded, filled in and uploaded quickly. This enables you to maintain a central, shared file space for staff and volunteers, especially useful when working remotely.
Use appropriate tags such as COVID-19 and
Media Associations to easily identify these files within the
Media Library.
COVID-19 Example
Documents such as forms which need to be filled in, can be shared via the media library. These are then, for example, accessible to volunteers in the field providing urgent services. Documents can also be printed, edited, scanned and re-uploaded to the
media library.
Please refer to the
Media guide for more information.
Surveys
Organisations might find it helpful to receive feedback from service users (or the wider community) at this time. This information could be collected via Upshot Surveys. Surveys on Upshot can be sent out via email to known participants or information could be collected via a Public Survey Link which anyone could access. Please refer to the Creating Surveys guide for more information.
COVID-19 Example
An organisation creates a survey to be sent to individual service users to find out their needs in this period so they can adapt delivery and try to meet these where possible.
Or after a session a public survey link could be put into the Zoom/Teams chat to gather feedback. Please refer to the
Public Surveys for more information.
Changes to Delivery & Collecting new types of information
Delivery may continue for your organisation during the COVID-19 pandemic, if so, continue recording in the same way.
In other instances, delivery may change (e.g. online rather than face to face sessions), new
activities may be delivered, or you may need to record new types of information such as the needs phone calls or deliveries made.
It is possible to identify this work within the activities and sessions that already exist if appropriate.
Sessions
Please refer to the Sessions guide for more information on the options discussed below.
Adding Session Tags
If existing Activities continue to run and the method of delivery has changed you might want to record this by using Session tags to identify these specific sessions (as opposed to those run for the same activity last month) that relate to your work on the COVID-19 Pandemic.
COVID-19 Example
Add any
Tags that will help you report or filter sessions. For instance, you could tag a community session with the fact that ‘
COVID-19’ information was shared. As an organisation you can agree a set of consistent tags that will be useful in reporting on the activities and sessions you delivered during this time, via the
Attendance Report.
Adding Session Information to view on Public Calendar
When creating or editing existing sessions Add session information: can be used to provide additional details for your attendees/session leaders e.g. instructions to access an online session.
If you want to share a live link to this calendar publicly or embed it on your website, you can copy the link from the Tools section in the calendar view.
This can be done on a per project basis or across all projects by using the Organisation Calendar which is found by going to Project > Projects Calendar.
COVID-19 Example:
This session below informs attendees of the relevant information for their upcoming session – this could include web addresses, dial-in details etc.
Adding Notes (to sessions or individuals) when adding registers
Alongside recording who participated in a session, you may find it helpful to record additional information. This can be done either against the session overall or individual participants.
Notes on the
session overall could be used to record the content of the session, how the session was structured, any online issues, group comments or any other additional information.
Notes on the individual attendee could detail any specific feedback or comment that individual had, or how you felt they interacted with the session.
Both types of notes can be reported on in the Attendance report by selecting
notes and additionally the
Session report for the individual.
COVID-19 Example
Add comments or notes from individuals during a session to keep track of any issues with an online technology or as a group the agreed actions or needs within the community.
Recording abandoned sessions
During difficult times organisations are unfortunately likely to need to cancel or abandon sessions. The Sessions abandoned feature enables you to report on the sessions that have been scheduled but may not have taken place. To mark a session as abandoned, locate the relevant session from the Sessions List and click Edit session. There are two abandoned session options to choose from; Session abandoned and counted and Session abandoned and not counted.
COVID-19 Example
An Outdoor Fitness session may have been scheduled but could not be delivered due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. However an organisation may still want to count the session in their statistics.
Once you have selected one of the abandoned session options click SAVE. The session will appear on the
Sessions List with a message related to the option selected.
You can also run an
Attendance report to view your abandoned sessions.
Deleting Sessions
Rather than abandoning sessions you may want to delete future sessions permanently.
COVID-19 Example
Future sessions that can no longer take place at a facility shut down by the pandemic. These sessions can be
deleted individually from the Sessions
List or on mass via
Edit draft sessions and ticking the
Remove option.
Adding New Locations
All sessions on Upshot are recorded against a Location and your list of locations can be added to at any time. Anyone with Project Manager access can add new locations by going to Admin > Add Location.
COVID-19 Example
Your delivery may now have changed and the existing location options in your account may no longer reflect the fact you are delivering online for example. Add generic locations such as
online, phone etc.
There are several required address fields when adding a location. If not needed in your generic location these can be navigated by adding an asterisk or one character in those fields.
A valid UK postcode must be entered, and we would suggest entering either the postcode of the individual hosting the online session or your office postcode.
Head Count sessions for recording your help to people not registered with you
Head count sessions allow you to capture number of attendances without having the profile of people attending. Please refer to the Head Counts guide for more information.
COVID-19 Example
If you are providing services to new people not registered with you and they do not wish to be on your database, you can create a
Head Count session for each specific interaction and add notes if needed. It is also possible to record the gender of the person on that session, as well as other
attendee data field information if created as a head count field.
Activities
Organisations might start undertaking completely new Activities (Delivery Service, Online Meetings) during this period and new activities can be added at any time. These could sit under an Activity Group called COVID-19 which would allow you to report on these activities all together or individually if you would prefer.
It might not be necessary to separate out all your COVID-19 related work into separate activities as above, so you could just input all sessions into one
activity called COVID-19 response if you would prefer.
Both these options can sit within your existing Upshot projects if relevant.
Do get in touch with the team if you would like someone to explain these different options and work out what is right for your organisation.
COVID-19 Example
An organisation starts
Deliveries, Online Activities and
Weekly Phone Calls and wants to be able to record and report on these activities separately and all together, so their activity structure would look as below:
Please refer to the Activities guide for more information.
Timeline Events
You can track anything that has happened or changed with individual attendees using
Timeline Events. This can help you to record the work you are doing related to COVID-19, without needing to create specific sessions or add information or tags.
Timeline events can be added to each individual or in bulk when adding a register to a session. All those options can be used separately or in conjunction with each other.
COVID-19 Examples
Add a Timeline event e.g. Call Received (COVID-19) - Yes/No. When you go into the individual attendee’s profile select
Timeline and add when you receive a call from them related to COVID-19. This is automatically date-stamped in the system (date can also be amended). Notes can also be added which can be useful to ensure continuity of service and awareness of your attendee’s specific needs.
Adding a timeline event to an individual attendee:
Adding Timeline Events to multiple attendees at once:
This can be done from a session register. On the
Session Register at the top of the screen click
Timeline event.
You will be presented with the list of
Timeline Events.
Once selected – in this example a
COVID-19 questionnaire completed, the following pop up screen will appear:
Once you have finished click
Save.
Custom
Timeline Event types can be added by System Administrators or Upshot Support or if you want to be less specific use
Notes.
Use the new
Timeline Events Report (
Reports > Timeline Events) to find either the number of times a certain Timeline Event has been recorded
or the number of attendees who have this Timeline Event recorded against their profile.
For each Timeline Event type shown a figure will be represented for both
Events and
Attendees.
•
Events - show the total number of times this timeline event has been recorded (e.g. there are 18 Covid-19 Deliveries recorded).
•
Attendees - show the number of unique attendees who have this timeline event recorded on their profile. One attendee may have multiple events recorded (e.g. 14 different individuals have had Covid-19 Deliveries).
This can then be broken down further to see the different types of Deliveries.
Use the filters on the right-hand side to narrow down your report to the amount of
Deliveries within a certain time period for example.
Please refer to the
Timeline Events guide for more information on how to add events to attendee profiles and report on them.
Registering New Participants Remotely
Attendee Sign-up Form
Registration of attendees can be completed by new participants themselves using the external
Attendee Sign-up Form. This provides a
Public form URL that can be added to your website or sent out via email, WhatsApp, text etc. or alternatively an
Embeddable form URL allowing you to embed this onto your website.
On completion of the form these individuals sit on an Attendee sign-up waiting list where you can review the information they have entered, accept and add their profile to the system and consequently add them to registers.
COVID-19 Example
Organisations are likely to reach out, or provide services to, new attendees during the pandemic, who are not already registered on their Upshot account. You may want to add these participants’ details to the system, but it may no longer be possible to have a physical registration form completed and returned by these individuals. By supplying a link anyone can complete the link and share any level of information so they join your database and the interaction can be recorded.
Please refer to the Attendee Sign-up Form guide for more information. If of interest, please do get in touch with Upshot Support to activate this feature for your organisation and we will then help to create your external registration form.
Webinar
As part of the Upshot Community Webinar series in 2020 a thirty minute webinar was delivered called ' Using Upshot for COVID-19 response work' and this can be seen below:
Chapters
05:18 - Recording different delivery (Activities, Sessions & Registers)
13:44 - Recording different delivery (Timeline Events)
Adding Timeline Events to multiple attendees at once: 
