Best Practices for Scheduled and Unscheduled Downtimes

Definitions

• Scheduled downtimes – System downtimes that are planned and are communicated five business (5) days in advance to all system users that will be impacted to allow appropriate preparation.
• Unscheduled downtimes – Unanticipated system downtimes.

1.   Scheduled Downtime

Web Portal Users

Scheduled Downtime

• AlayaCare Help Desk communicates the upcoming downtime to the designated personnel via status.io five (5) days in advance. Please ensure that all necessary personnel are subscribed for updates through alayacare.status.io by clicking .

 Designated personnel should:

• Communicate the downtime and initiate appropriate downtime activities.
• Coordinate and prepare your organization’s internal manual processes to reference and collect AlayaCare data during the downtime.
• Prepare to use a staging environment as backup during the scheduled downtime.

If the downtime period exceeds the allocated time, the process for unscheduled downtime is initiated.

For longer periods of downtime, staging environments will remain operational throughout the maintenance window and will be refreshed with the previous day's production data prior to the downtime.

The refresh of staging environments with the previous day's production data is completed each day by 2:00 am EST for USA/CAN environments and 9:00 am EST (around 11:00 pm AEST with some variance due to daylight saving times) for AUS/INT environments. Scheduled downtime will only begin for each region after staging environments are restored.

Mobile Users

Scheduled Downtime

• In the event of a scheduled downtime, mobile users are instructed to enable offline mode and download their offline data to be used (assuming the Offline Mode feature flag is turned on in the environment and the necessary configuration is complete). Please contact AlayaCare Support if you need assistance setting up Offline Mode.
• Once the maintenance window is lifted and the user has internet service, their data will upload as per usual. Please see Section 3 for supporting documentation on AlayaCare Mobile Offline Mode.
• If the downtime period exceeds the allocated time, the communications process for unscheduled downtime is initiated.

2.   Unscheduled Downtime       

Web Portal Users 

Unscheduled Downtime                                       

In the event of an extended downtime or unscheduled downtime, we understand the importance of still being able to access essential client information.

• Coordination teams can still provide field workers with the information they need through the staging environment (yourorganization.staging.alayacare.ca). Coordination teams are instructed to begin your organization’s internal manual processes for collecting AlayaCare data during the downtime.
• Once the system is restored, the designated personnel is responsible for entering into Production all the information collected during the system unavailability.

Important notes about Staging environments:

• READ ONLY – Staging environment (excluding Data Exploration) is reset every night with a replica of your production environment. Staging is valuable for viewing necessary client information, but completion of documentation must be done in Production.
• CAUTION – Data in the Staging environment is always a copy of production data from the night before.  The copy of production data is captured at approximately 11:00 pm EST the night before for US/CAN environments and 8:00 am EST (around 10:00 pm AEST the night before) for AUS/INT environments and will become available in Staging environments by 2:00 am EST for USA/CAN environments and 9:00 am EST (around 11:00 pm AEST with some variance due to daylight saving times) for AUS/INT environments. Any changes or updates made in Production earlier in the current day will not be reflected in Staging. Note that this excludes Data Exploration. Data Exploration is not necessarily a copy of Production from the previous day.
• NOTIFY MOBILE USERS – Retrieve the visit information report from staging and send relevant information to staff for reference.
• RETURN TO PRODUCTION – Please advise all team members to return to your Production environment once the down time has ended. This will prevent work from mistakenly being completed in Staging.

Mobile Users

Unscheduled Downtime

In the event of an extended downtime or unscheduled downtime, we understand the importance of still being able to access essential client information.

• Coordination staff will retrieve schedule information from the staging environment and distribute that to field staff.
• To track time, attendance, and notes, it is recommended that field workers/mobile users document on paper. Once the system is restored, the designated personnel is responsible for entering all the information into Production collected during the system unavailability.

3.    Mobile Offline Mode

It is possible to view caseload information by downloading your caseload in advance of downtime or before going to a place with a poor internet connection.

Step 1: Open the side menu and select Settings.

Step 2: Click on Settings to select Offline Settings option.

Step 3: Select and click on Offline mode is disabled which will change the status to Offline mode is enabled and ask you if you wish to download offline data now or not. 

Step 4: Select OK to download caseload schedule and client data. Your caseload will be available even if your device has no internet access or system is down. 

Step 5: When clocked in under Offline Mode, your device will have all your client visit information and you can continue with your visit.  When your device comes back online, all the cached data (visit start/stop, tasks, progress notes etc.) will be uploaded to the office automatically.

Step 6: Once Offline mode is active, you don’t need to Sign Out of AlayaCare. You will be required to enter your password to reactivate the last session and click OK to download offline data daily.

Step 7: If you experience an unscheduled downtime and are unable to log in to the mobile application, you can switch yourself into Offline Mode to continue working. To switch yourself into Offline Mode, Navigate to the Offline Settings, click on Network Type, and select None. It is important that you have already downloaded your data for the day before this point.