As we kick off the new year, we’re excited to share the latest enhancements to Binti. This month’s updates bring a range of enhancements aimed at improving usability, streamlining workflows, and ensuring data consistency across Binti. Refer to our full release notes for additional detail and screenshots where applicable.

📑 Workflow Enhancements

• Licensing Binti now provides caregivers with fillable PDFs for all Supporting Documents, allowing them to complete forms digitally on their devices. Caregivers can download, fill out, and re-upload the completed forms, eliminating the need to print and streamlining the process. Please note that Supporting Documents requiring a signature will still need to be printed for signature.
  
  
• Licensing When caregivers add a Reference or Other Adult without an email address, a clearer message now instructs them to work directly with the agency, instead of displaying worker-facing language.
  
  
• Licensing If the youngest age a caregiver is approved to care for is higher than the oldest, a clearer error message highlights which field needs correction.
  
  
• Licensing Agency workers can now set the default language for the Caregiver Portal, ensuring a more accessible licensing process. This feature is available for customers with Spanish forms or AI translation enabled.
  
  
• Licensing Automated email notifications like “Applying to Approved” are now automatically logged as case notes, ensuring a comprehensive case history. Contact your Customer Success Manager if you do not yet have automated email notifications set up.
  
  
• Licensing Agencies can now require a Family ID before updating an application’s status, helping maintain data consistency.
  
  
• Family Finding & Engagement When authoring bulk relative notification letters, you are now directed straight to a page with printable letters, eliminating the need for a new tab that could be blocked by pop-up settings.
  
  
• Family Finding & Engagement  Page breaks can now be added to bulk relative notification letters, offering greater flexibility in formatting and outreach.

📊 Reporting & Data Enhancements

• Licensing The Time to Approval Report now displays all sub-agency data by default, with filter options for further refinement.
  
  
• Licensing The Time to Approval CSV Download now includes Application Template, Family ID, and Caregiver Name as columns, improving external data analysis capabilities.
  
  
• Licensing The Days Since Application Signed report is now available for private agencies, offering insights into licensing process timelines.

🔄 Simplifying Household & Applicant Management

Please Note: These features are only available to agencies with Caregiver Documents 2.0. We are actively working to enable them for all of our customers.

• Licensing Easily swap primary and co-applicants or Other Adults and Co-Applicants without contacting support. Roles in the household can be switched with a single click on the Applicant Data page. Binti will automatically generate role-based requirements.
  
  
• Licensing Customer Support can now remove co-applicants from an application, without deleting the user’s historical data. Simply contact Customer Support for assistance.

🔧 Bug Fixes

• Family Finding & Engagement Names with apostrophes now load correctly in Family Finding & Engagement, preventing errors that previously disrupted certain pages.

These updates are part of our commitment to making Binti more efficient and user-friendly. Stay tuned for more improvements, and as always, let us know how we can support your work by providing feedback below this post!

Agencies can now add custom dates to track key milestones not tracked by default in Binti. 

These dates appear on the Caregiver Applications dashboard and in CSV downloads, helping meet legal requirements or streamline processes. For instance, tracking the date initial training is completed allows agencies to monitor average completion times.

There is no limit to the number of custom key dates you can track, and they are easily managed on the Edit Application page. If you are interested in using this feature, contact your Customer Success Manager today!

Since the beginning of 2024, we have introduced over 180 feature enhancements to help you work more efficiently and stay connected with the children and families you support. We also launched our latest product, the Family Finding & Engagement module, designed to improve outcomes in locating kin and developing supportive networks for children. Stay up-to-date with our latest enhancements by subscribing to our Release Notes.

Read on to discover our top 10 enhancements so far this year. If you have any questions, feel free to contact to your Customer Success Manager or our Customer Support team.

Licensing

• Targeted Email Campaigns: Reach caregivers more effectively with targeted email campaigns based on Family Tags or specific application templates. This enhancement ensures your communications are highly relevant, saving you time and increasing engagement.

• Insightful Reporting: Gain critical insights with our new Barriers to Licensing and Recruitment Sources reports. These tools streamline your application process, speed up licensing, and optimize recruitment strategies with graphs, data tables, and CSV download options.

• Child Turning 18 Notification: Ensure your licensing files are compliant by receiving timely email notifications when the child of a licensed caregiver turns 18. This ensures you can promptly handle necessary documentation.

• Automatic Status Change Notifications: Keep caregivers informed with custom notifications for status changes such as approvals or denials. This improvement streamlines communication and enhances the caregiver experience. For setup assistance, please contact your Customer Success Manager.
• HEIC to JPEG Conversion: Photos uploaded in HEIC format (iPhone default) are automatically converted to JPEG, ensuring you can view any photo that is uploaded by a caregiver.

Caregiver Management

• Respite Placement Tracking: Placement searches can now be conducted for respite without disrupting the active placement. When closing a respite search, you are redirected to the Add Respite page, streamlining the process and ensuring accurate placement records.

• Provider Not in Binti: A new placement type lets agencies manually enter information for providers not listed in Binti, such as unlicensed kin, simplifying the placement process.

• Multiple Case Workers Assignment: Multiple permanency/case workers can now be assigned to a child, offering greater flexibility and support.

• Improved Ordering of Child Requirements Page: Quickly access the most critical tasks with our updated child Requirements page, now sorted to display the most recently generated requirements at the top.

Family Finding & Engagement

• New Module Launch: Our Family Finding & Engagement Module streamlines family finding workflows, helping you track and identify supportive relationships, and engage key individuals in a child’s life to assist with placement decisions and build strong support networks. With integrated Thomson Reuters CLEAR search capabilities, Binti offers a comprehensive solution for conducting thorough family finding efforts. Connect with your Customer Success Manager to learn more!

We have made significant improvements to our ability to track the background check exemption process!

Now, when creating an exemption in Binti, users will experience a new interface that robustly captures information relevant to the exemptions process. This includes details about the individual requiring an exemption, arrest and conviction records, interview and record request tracking, recommendations, and the final decision.

Alongside this enhanced functionality, we have also released the Background Check Exemptions Report. The report allows administrators to view and export agency-wide data on exemptions, offering valuable insights and supporting informed decision-making.

Learn more in our Help Center

Finding caregivers in Binti is now easier and faster. We are excited to announce that caregiver search is now available in the navigation bar!

Our caregiver search feature enables you to search using a caregiver's name or family ID. Results are optimized to include similar-sounding names or closely matching family IDs, ensuring you can quickly locate the correct caregiver.

Previously, searches could be performed via the homepage, but this update allows you to initiate a search from any page in Binti. The search bar will still be available on the homepage for one more week, after which it will be replaced with a prompt encouraging you to use the navigation bar.

Try out caregiver search today by clicking on the magnifying glass in the navigation bar!

We are excited to introduce License Appeals Management in Binti! When a caregiver's license is denied or revoked, an option to initiate an appeal will display on the Change Application Status page. Agency workers can track various stages of the appeal process, including appeal submission, hearing details, and final outcome specifics.

In addition to this feature, we are also rolling out a License Appeals report to enhance agency-wide oversight. This report consolidates appeal data across the agency and can be conveniently exported to a CSV file for customized reporting.

With these updates, we provide a robust solution that enhances your agency's ability to analyze and manage appeals on a broader scale.

Learn more in our Help Center

We have improved the ability to communicate with current and potential caregivers! Over the years, our Customer Success Managers have sent hundreds of email campaigns to caregivers on behalf of agencies. We are thrilled to announce that this feature is available immediately as a self-service option! Please note that only Agency Admin users have access to this tool (this does not include Approvals Admins).

Email campaigns can target caregivers based on their status in Binti and primary language. Using our powerful content editor, you can style text, insert images, and attach files to your messages. Messages are automatically saved in a case note for each recipient, eliminating the need to spend time on documentation.

Learn more in our Help Center

Last Wednesday, our team successfully completed 30 updates aimed at refining the user interface, improving data management and display, as well as enhancing documentation and record keeping features. These updates will roll out to all Binti users this week and next.

We will highlight a few of our favorite enhancements below. We also encourage you to visit our Release Notes Hub to learn about all of the improvements in detail as they are released. If you have any questions or want additional information, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

User Interface

Easier to understand background check information on the Caregiver Applications dashboard
Release Date: 10/05/23

In the past, you may have seen "0/?" in the background checks column of the Caregiver Applications dashboard and wondered what it meant. We have replaced this with clearer messaging that describes the necessary action to calculate a total number of required background checks.

Documentation & Record Keeping

Record date of birth for applicants and co-applicants
Release Date: 10/05/23

We now allow agency workers to record a crucial piece of information: the date of birth for applicants and co-applicants. This information will auto-populate to caregiver and agency forms, saving time in data entry. Additionally, we have included this data point in our API, which ensures that the information remains consistent across your systems.

Data Management & Display

Family Tags in the Placements module
Release Date: 09/27/23

At the beginning of this year, we introduced Family Tags, enabling agencies to assign customized labels to caregivers. Since then, you have been using this feature to categorize families based on various criteria such as their location, participation in programs, specific characteristics, and more. We are thrilled to let you know that these tags are now accessible within the Placements module, and you can utilize them to on the Placements Options and View Matching Families pages.

Clickable Time to Approval Report
Release Date: 09/27/23

We have made an exciting improvement to our most popular report, Time to Approval. Now, every dot on the plot graph is interactive, allowing you to click on it. When you click on a dot, it will take you directly to the Applicant Data page for the respective caregiver. This enhancement is designed to streamline the process of uncovering applications with approval times that deviate from the usual or expected timeframe, making it quicker and more straightforward for you.

See which filters you have applied to the Caregiver Applications dashboard
Release Date: 10/05/23

We provide many robust filters on the Caregivers Applications dashboard that enable you to organize your data. Now, when you apply select filters, we will indicate the criteria you have chosen to filter by. This enhancement is aimed at making it simpler for you to understand precisely what you are viewing.

When approving a caregiver's application, you might sometimes receive a notification about missing data. To prevent this, we've introduced a new column on the Applications dashboard called "Applicant Data." This column shows a green checkmark when all necessary information on the Edit Application page is provided. The required information includes:

• Household capacity
• Approved age range
• Availability for community placements (if the applicant is a relative/kin)
• Medical training status
• Primary language
• Phone number
• Address

Ensuring these details are complete will make the approval process smoother and more efficient.

We have released exciting updates to the Time to Approval report and the applicant sign-up process. We have also added the ability to change approval dates. You can see all of these changes live in the product. As always, if you have any questions about these updates, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or our friendly support team!

Time to Approval Report

We have made enhancements to the Time to Approval Report, making it easier to understand and more informative. There are now two graphs: a line graph and scatter graph. This makes visualizing your data easier. You can also download a CSV of your data which contains details of the time to approval by application ID.

Learn more in our Help Center

Collect Address During Sign-Up

During the self sign-up process, we now ask applicants to provide an address of residence. This is particularly helpful for agencies that assign families based on location. It also saves time by auto-filling the address field in all applicant documents.

Change Application Status Date

Sometimes an incorrect approval date is entered on an application. Previously, our Customer Support team needed to assist with fixing the date. Now, you can change the date easily from the Change Application Status page by clicking 'Update status date'.

Learn more in our Help Center