Manage Client Notes
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Draft and edit client notes.
- Find specific client notes using tags and other criteria.
- Print client notes.
Let’s Get to Work
No More Homelessness (NMH) Case Manager Rosa—like most case managers—is very busy. She’s not only working with client Tim but also managing a full caseload, and there are always more referrals and intakes to process.
Fortunately, Case Management includes the tools she needs to manage her day-to-day work, such as recording notes attached to a client record. Let’s follow along as Rosa uses Salesforce to make the most of her day, starting with a meeting with Tim.
Draft a Note on a Client Record
Tim is progressing through his case plan, and Rosa catches up with him every week like she tries to do with all of her clients at this point in their work together. She jots down her notes on paper while they meet, but she needs to connect her observations with his client record in Case Management, too.
Rosa opens Salesforce, goes to Tim’s contact record, and then navigates to the Client Notes tab on the contact record and clicks New Note. Let’s follow along.
- Name the note. Rosa types
Tim Hill weekly check-in. - Leave the Draft toggle on, with an Active label underneath it. This setting makes the note easier to find later when we want to review it before marking it complete.
- Select the related client record. Because Rosa started this note from Tim's contact record, it's already related in the Client field.
- Select the related program engagement. With Tim in the Client field, Case Management filters the Program Engagement field to only his engagements. Rosa selects his Transitional Housing engagement. It’s best to connect notes to program engagements (and optionally, other related records, as well) to make everything easier to find.
- Set the Interaction Date to today.
- Leave the Type of Interaction as an In-Person Meeting, the default.
- Optionally, click Add Quick Text to select from predefined templates for your notes. If you take the same types of notes often, this tool can save time and effort. Rosa clicks Add Quick Text and then selects one of her quick text templates. In this case she uses her Standard Weekly Meeting template.
- In the Tags field, you have the option to enter tags to make this note easier to find later. Depending on your role and permissions, you could create a tag or pick from a predefined list. Rosa enters the first few letters of
progress check-in, selects it from the list, and clicks Assign Tag.
The system autosaves Rosa’s notes as she writes, which allows her to focus on her work and not worry about losing time.
But Rosa is not able to finalize her notes yet because she needs to prepare for her next client meeting right away. She leaves her notes in Draft mode, and uses Client Search to find her next client.
Finalize Notes
Later, it’s time to revisit Tim’s notes. Rosa navigates to Client Notes in Case Management. Remember how Rosa left Tim’s notes in Draft mode? She clicks Filter and selects Draft to see all of the notes—including Tim’s—that she needs to revisit and clean up.
Rosa clicks the note from Tim’s meeting, fixes a few typos and formatting, and adds a few more tags. Optionally, she can click Add Files to quickly upload files and relate them to these notes and Tim’s contact record.
When she’s done she deselects Draft, marking the notes as complete.
Find and Print a Client’s Notes
If you want to view all of a client's notes in one place, navigate to the Client Notes tab on the client's contact record. If you're looking for something specific, change the sort order and filter notes by date, program engagement, tags, and keywords.
Plus, if you click Print you can apply the same filters to a printer-ready and PDF-friendly display.
Notes are a helpful tool to record information about a client for access later, but sometimes you need anyone who views a client’s record to have some important information right away. In the next unit, we explore those tools.