Social Solutions Keeps Track for You with Time-Based Alerts 

Social Solutions is excited to announce the arrival of a highly anticipated feature for Apricot 360 customers: Time-Based Alerts! 

Our new Time-Based Alerts feature allows nonprofit organizations and government agencies to create alerts for events bound in time. This means organizations are now able to schedule triggers to notify staff about key deadlines, follow ups, and other time-based milestones, enabling the automation to free up even more time and confidence in a worker’s day.  

For example, if staff want to ensure they can intervene proactively to support a participant’s journey, they can set up a Time-Based Alert in their Apricot 360 solution for a check-in. Time-Based Alerts can also be used for slightly more complex scenarios like, say, two days after a check-in. Here are some other examples of how Time-Based Alerts can be used: 

• Compliance periods. 
• Birthdays. 
• Upcoming deadlines. 
• Deadlines past due. 
• Service milestones. 

Time-Based Alerts are all part of our effort to enhance processes within and between your programs in the following ways: 

• Create automation in communication in order to cut down time on emails and phone calls between staff members in different programs and departments. 
• Help workers quickly act on the needs of participants exactly when they need it and build a stronger relationship with them. 
• Simplify the way staff work by providing workload visibility with alerts that help team members manage their day and set priorities. 
• Bolster compliance efforts by providing support to staff to meet important deadlines and collect the correct data for participants’ needs. 

Why is Now the Time to Use Time-Based Alerts? 

The benefits of Time-Based Alerts affect many layers of your organization: Your staff, your services, and your participants and community.  

Now more than ever, your staff’s workload is heavy, and manual processes and a lack of resources put undue stress on them. Automation like Time-Based Alerts is a key solution. Automated Time-Based Alerts also reduce your organization’s risk of being susceptible to human errors, ensuring your caseworkers and their participants meet due dates.  

Taking this administrative burden off your staff allows them to focus on measuring their impact, thereby expanding and improving programs within your organization. 

Ultimately, it’s about keeping your participants on track and providing more services to your community. Time-Based Alerts help raise red flags before participants slip through the cracks and their holistic needs go unnoticed or unmet. 

Frequently Asked Time-Based Alerts Questions 

In February 2023, the Social Solutions product team held a webinar to unveil its product roadmap for the first half of 2023. Of course, we spent some time covering Time-Based Alerts, and Social Solutions customers had questions. Here’s the Q&A from the webinar: 

When will the new Time-Based Alerts be available for Apricot? 

Time-Based Alerts are available to Apricot 360 customers now. 

You mentioned that Time-Based Alerts will be available to Apricot 360 customers. Is there a timeframe for when this new functionality may be available to Apricot Core customers? 

We don’t have plans to release Time-Based Alerts to Apricot Core customers at this time. If you’re interested in upgrading to Apricot 360 to utilize Time-Based Alerts, contact your account manager. 

Are alerts available on Apricot core? 

Yes, the Rules & Alerts feature is available in Core. Time-based events and multi-form conditions are on Apricot 360 only. 

Will it ever be possible to create Rules & Alerts based on multiple fields in multiple forms on Apricot Core? 

Yes, this is the direction we are heading toward. In late September we released multi-form conditions to Apricot 360. Now, an alert’s logic can look across two forms. 

With Time-Based Alerts, will I be able to create alerts for yearly recurring dates, such as birthdays? 

Yes! Birthday notifications are a great way to use “day of” events in the rule creation. 

What about Time-Based Alerts for something slightly more complex, such as three days before a birthday? 

Yes! When building the rule’s logic, for example, you can select the “Upcoming” event type and select three days before Use Record Date Field > Date of Birth. 

Will Time-Based Alerts consider the user’s time zone? 

Yes, Time-Based Alerts respect each Apricot instance’s time settings. 

Will the Time-Based Alerts allow participants’ ages to auto-update? 

No, but it could prompt users when to make those updates. We recommend upvoting this submission in the Ideas Portal. 

With Apricot Rules & Alerts, will all staff members be able to create and set their own alerts? 

Not yet, however, this is a great idea. In this first iteration, all alerts are system-generated based on admin-defined logic. 

Can Rules & Alerts be structured to notify only the currently-assigned staff member once a case meets certain criteria? 

Great question. We are actively working on this. There are currently three popular ways staff are assigned to records: Staff Linking Fields, User List Fields, and Caseloads. Our plan is to start with User List Field. Reach out to Support to get started using User List Fields if that is currently not in your form design! 

When building Rules & Alerts, are there any tips you would recommend to ensure the best experience for my organization? 

We recommend starting slow and being very thoughtful when building new alert logic. Alerts should be targeted and timely to have the greatest effect. It is important to avoid creating more alerts than your staff can easily manage and avoid alert fatigue. Too many complex Rules & Alerts may unintentionally slow a workflow. 

Ready to Be in the Know with Time-Based Alerts? 

Discover how Time-Based Alerts in Social Solutions’ Apricot 360 software can create efficiencies and give staff the peace of mind of knowing that their case management software will remind them of important events and anniversaries so they can better serve and connect with their participants. Discover how Time-Based Alerts can elevate your organization or agency in a live group demo or personalized demo of Apricot 360 case management software today. 

If you are a Social Solutions customer who has questions about Time-Based Alerts, reach out to your Account Manager.