Achieving intermediate information systems capability

For most not-for-profit organisations, there are six areas of information systems capabilities that should be developed:

1. Service delivery systems
2. Digital service delivery
3. KPI reporting and business intelligence
4. Impact measurement
5. Human Resources systems
6. Finance systems.

To achieve intermediate level information systems capability, organisations should aim for the following:

Service delivery system(s)

• Staff use one (or more) different systems to support service delivery
• Systems are generally reliable, can be accessed from anywhere and capture comprehensive information about clients/stakeholders and services/interactions
• While some system limitations may exist, these are not too critical. Examples may include the requirement to enter some data more than once, or manual processes to track funding targets, workloads or waitlists.

Digital service delivery

• Key elements of some programs/services are delivered online – for example, referrals are received electronically, appointments can be made online by clients, staff and clients meet via videoconference
• Staff are comfortable using these technologies.

KPI reporting and business intelligence

• Staff use online KPI dashboards to monitor key targets including service volumes, waitlists and client satisfaction
• Managers can filter, interrogate and explore relevant data to support service improvement.

Impact measurement

• We have a Theory of Change, program logic model or similar that describes the services we provide and their impact
• While the model doesn’t yet cover all our services (or doesn’t effectively articulate service impact), we are working to improve this, together with the quality of our data and reducing the effort required to collect the data.

Human resources information system (HRIS)

• We use a functional, reliable HRIS to maintain personnel records, including annual/performance review documentation, leave, job descriptions and employee information
• Our HRIS, payroll system and timesheet/client management system are linked so information is accurate and doesn’t need to be double-keyed.

Finance systems

• Our finance system is appropriate for our current size and complexity
• The financial performance of our services, programs and projects are easily monitored
• Expense claims are easily processed
• Payroll is seamless and requires minimal manual effort.