Getting to Know the DD Suite

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Getting to Know the DD Suite
2
Welcome and Overview

• What is the DD Suite?
• Why do we use it?
• What can it do for me?
• How does it work?

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What is the DD Suite?

• The DD Suite is
• A tool to help state Councils on DD manage
  grants, prepare Federal, State and Council
  reports, and monitor performance and expenses.
• It is a web-based application that is designed to
  be as user-friendly as possible.

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What Does It Do?

• The DD Suite has four main components
• Grant Management Collects and stores
  information about grant applications, awards,
  expenditures and performance.
• Council Activities Collects and stores
  information about activities undertaken by
  Council staff in furtherance of state plan goals.
• Reporting Aids in the preparation and filing of
  Federal financial and performance reports, as
  well as reports for Council members, Council
  staff, policymakers, and media.
• Fiscal Management Helps Councils track
  expenditures from Federal allotments and other
  sources, and provides information on categories
  of expenses, expenses by area of emphasis, and
  other detailed reports of expenses.

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Why Do We Do That?

• Councils are required to report information about
  their activities, how well they performed those
  activities and how much money was expended to
  their Council members and the Administration on
  Developmental Disabilities (ADD). The DD Act
  (Public Law 106-402), the Government Performance
  Results Act of 1993, certain Federal rules and
  regulations, and, often, the Executive Order
  creating the DD Council in your state set out the
  requirements for these reports.
• In addition, your state may have additional
  reporting requirements for all entities housed in
  state government, regardless of their funding
  source.

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Why Use the DD Suite?

• Councils have been preparing these reports for
  years without the DD Suite. Why start now?
• The DD Suite helps Councils to keep track of the
  information on an ongoing basis, instead of
  trying to recreate the information at the end of
  the year. This allows for greater accuracy (you
  are more likely to remember your activities
  better the sooner you record them), and for
  easier reporting (once the data are stored in the
  DD Suite, it only requires the push of a button
  to file the reports).
• Having all of these data on hand also allows
  Councils to make better decisions about which
  grants to fund, how to expend Council funds, and
  decide which programs and activities are
  effective.

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What About Me?

• But what will it do for me?
• If you manage grants, the DD Suite will take some
  of the paperwork burden off you and place it on
  your grantee. It will also help you to collect
  reports from your grantee and remind your grantee
  to submit their reports in a timely fashion. In
  addition to that, it will provide you with an
  overview of how your grant is performing, and
  help to highlight any barriers a grantee may need
  help to overcome.
• The DD Suite will help to publicize the good work
  that your organization does. With the ability to
  generate press releases, information packets,
  reports on performance and other items, the DD
  Suite aims to get the word out about the DD
  Councils.
• The DD Suite also helps to improve the
  performance measures you do report. Many Councils
  do not record information about activities that
  staff undertake in furtherance of state plan
  goals, meaning that much of the work of the
  Council goes unseen. The DD Suite provides an
  accessible framework for all staff to record
  their activities and report their performance
  measures to ADD.

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What do Performance Measures Have to do With
Anything?

• Performance Measures are often seen as a
  burdensome requirement imposed by an out-of-touch
  bureaucracy. While this is true, they are also
  useful in the sense that they can provide
  lawmakers with information about how well we are
  doing our jobs, prompting them to vote to renew
  the DD Act, or sparing us in the next round of
  budget cuts.

9
Okay, Im Sold Now What?

• The DD Suite has been designed to be as
  user-friendly as possible. The Suite is based on
  the same theories and technology that operate
  behind online banking, online shopping, and
  social networking sites like Facebook and
  MySpace. If you have used any of these, you
  should have no trouble grasping the operation of
  the DD Suite.
• Even if you have not used any of the sites listed
  above, you shouldnt have much trouble learning.
  We will be providing additional training for all
  staff that need it, and your local administrator
  is always available to answer questions.

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What Does it Look Like?
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What are all of those boxes?

• The DD Suite is what is known as an information
  dashboard. Each of the boxes displays a certain
  category of information, either expenditures,
  progress, tasks, or performance measures.
• Each of the categories, except for tasks, is
  accompanied by a progress bar.

The length of the bar indicates the total amount
being tracked e.g. The total budget or the
expected performance measures
The green area indicates the total reported so far
The grey tick mark indicates what the expected
amount is.
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So What do I do with those Boxes?

• The main screen allows you to see the status of
  your projects at a glance, but it also provides a
  link to more detailed information about those
  projects. Each item is linked to its project,
  whether it is a Council activity or a grant.
• Clicking on an item brings you to another page
  where you can either see more detailed
  information or update the information in the DD
  Suite.
• The overview screen is also useful to others if
  they need to step in to monitor your projects
  temporarily, or for managers to get an overview
  of how your projects are doing.

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Questions?

• Questions now?
• Questions later Email me at edward.p.morgan_at_state
  .ma.us or at ddsuite_at_ddsuite.org.