Introduction

Zac Grulke (Housing Director at DeForest CDA, WI) and the team were seeking training on their previous software. Instead, they noticed an opportunity they could take advantage of – a new cloud-based system was available. Zac, self-described as a “former marine, former autism therapist, former grad student for autism research and pretty good at checkers,” turned his eye for service toward his team and jumped at the opportunity to upgrade their housing software.

The Story of DeForest CDA: The Opportunity for Self Sufficiency and Ease of Use

Zac further explained: “In HDS WIN, as much as we liked it, it wasn’t super fluid. You had to cancel out of screens, go back, and go into other areas, and accomplish everything linearly.” He noticed “a lack of connections between features or processes once you’ve gone into a given area. I had to make sure I closed out of other windows before proceeding. Originally, we wanted training for HDS WIN, but Rich (Kanso Software Representative) let us know about Doorways and that it had a training system and automated guides built into it.” Zac and team “didn’t want to have to call into the Support line just to solve their training questions that could instead be answered quickly with the embedded guidance system.” Zac sometimes “gets into the office at 6 am Central and may not be working during times when the support lines are running.”

Why They Chose Doorways

They ended up choosing to go with Doorways because of the ease of use and accessibility: “The header bar, for instance, is always shown no matter what screen you’re on, and the search function is there – so at any time I can search for literally any person or unit and that information pops up quickly. You even have various options to select from, so as I type, it starts to give me those, and I don’t even have to type in the full name or address of what I’m looking for.”

He went on further: “The updated UI looks very contemporary, and because it’s cloud-based, many more people on my team can use it. Before we had Doorways, it was just me, and I handled things in a separate building for all of Jefferson Square (retirement community). Now everyone from my team at the Village Hall (where all the city officials work) can access and complete work in it or view information. HDS WIN was just run on one computer – if you needed to do anything, you had to be on-premise on that one computer. Doorways lets us use any computer, anywhere.”

Zac liked that the embedded training systems were included for free. But in addition to the training systems, he’d noticed that even when he did have to call in to speak with someone, the customer support service was “through the roof.” Someone at Kanso even made a personalized video recording that walked him through what he needed to do. When he was sent a link to a video, he first “thought it could be a generic video for the kind of issue I had – and then I was stunned when the support team member mentioned my name! They created an entirely new, personalized video to help me.”

The Results

“I’m still learning, and I came into this with no background in finance/accounting before working at DeForest CDA. I think that someone who was an accountant who does this for a living would have an even easier time – they’d better! The trainings are in the system, it’s easy to navigate, and everything has its area that can be accessed quickly. Overall, I’m pleased we made the jump to Doorways.”