Shelter Manager

Documentation

A complete guide to using Shelter Manager.

Getting Started

When you log in, you'll land on the Dashboard. Every account has a role — Admin, Case Manager, or Staff — and what you can see and do depends on that role. Your name and role are shown at the top right of every page. You can switch the interface between English and Burmese at any time using the EN | MY links at the top right.

Understanding Roles

There are three roles:

  • Admin: full access, including managing staff accounts, running system updates, and everything Case Managers and Staff can do.
  • Case Manager: can manage shelter sites, families, repairs, distributions, reports, and confidential case notes and protection flags — everything except managing staff accounts.
  • Staff: can manage day-to-day work — families, occupancy, repairs, distributions, and standard (non-confidential) case notes — but cannot see confidential case notes, protection flags, reports, or staff accounts.

Dashboard

The Dashboard gives you a quick overview:

  • Total Families and Total Beneficiaries: counts of currently active families and everyone in their households.
  • Occupancy Rate: how many beds are filled out of total capacity across all shelter sites.
  • Pending Repairs: repairs that are not yet marked Completed.

Below the summary cards, a per-site occupancy list shows how full each shelter site is.

Shelter Sites and Rooms

Go to Shelter Sites to see all your locations. Admins and Case Managers can add a new site (name and address) and mark it active or inactive.

Open a site to see its details. From here you can:

  • Add rooms to the site and set each room's bed capacity.
  • See how many beds are occupied in each room, and who is currently staying there.
  • Report a repair for that site directly, or view repairs already logged.
  • Upload and view photos for that site.

Families

Go to Families to see and search your full list of families. You can search by name or family code, and filter by status (Active, Transferred, Exited).

To add a new family, click Add and fill in the head of household's details — name, origin, arrival date, contact phone — and add household members with their name, relationship, age, and gender. A family code (like F-2026-0001) is generated automatically.

Opening a family record shows several tabs:

  • Overview: core details and current housing location.
  • Household Members: everyone in the family.
  • Occupancy History: every shelter/room assignment and transfer this family has had, with dates.
  • Distributions: items given to this family.
  • Photos: photos related to this family.
  • Case Notes: dated notes from staff. Anyone can add a note; Admins and Case Managers can additionally mark a note "confidential," visible only to Admins and Case Managers — Staff will not see confidential notes at all, even that they exist.
  • Protection Flags (Admins and Case Managers only): sensitive protection concerns such as GBV risk, trafficking risk, or child protection concerns. This tab does not appear at all for Staff accounts.

To edit a family's details or mark them Exited, use the Edit button on their record. Marking a family Exited requires an exit date and reason, and automatically ends their current housing assignment.

Assigning Housing

From a family's record, use the "Assign Housing" (or "Transfer," if they already have housing) button. Choose an available room — full rooms are shown as unavailable — and a date. If the family already has housing, their previous assignment is automatically closed out and recorded in their Occupancy History.

Repairs

Go to Repairs to see all reported repairs across every site, with filters for site, status, and priority. Click Add to report a new one: choose the site, describe the issue, set a priority (Low, Medium, High, Urgent), and who it's assigned to.

Opening a repair shows its status pipeline — Reported, In Progress, Completed — with buttons to move it forward. Marking a repair Completed automatically records the date.

Item Distributions

From a family's Distributions tab, log items given to that family — what was given, how many, and when. This builds a running history useful for reporting on what support a family has received over time.

Photos

Photos can be attached to shelter sites, families, and repairs. Wherever you see a Photos tab, you can add a photo (JPG, PNG, or WEBP, up to 5MB).

Case Notes and Protection Flags

Case notes are the everyday written record of what's happening with a family. Anyone can add one.

Admins and Case Managers can mark a case note "confidential" so it is only visible to other Admins and Case Managers. Separately, the Protection Flags tab lets Admins and Case Managers record structured, sensitive concerns — this tab and its contents are completely invisible to Staff accounts, not just hidden behind a click.

Reports (Admins & Case Managers)

The Reports page shows totals — active and exited families, total beneficiaries, occupancy rate, pending and urgent repairs — plus an occupancy breakdown by site. You can also download CSV files of your Families, Occupancy history, and Repairs.

Staff and Users (Admins Only)

The Staff & Users page lets Admins add new staff accounts, assign their role, reset a password, or deactivate an account.

System Updates (Admins)

When a new version of the system is released, a notice appears on the Dashboard. Applying an update automatically backs up your database first, then updates the system safely.

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