# How to Create a Circle of Care Creating a Circle of Care is how you set up a profile for each person or participant you support in Comm.care. We've made this process as straightforward as possible with a guided workflow. **Before you begin:** Please note that the ability to create circles depends on which products you have activated. Everyone can view circles, but you'll need QMS or CMS activated to create new ones. We'll walk through each step together, and you can take your time, there's no rush! ## Understanding Your Workflow The circle creation process adapts to the products you have activated. Here's what to expect: **If you have CMS activated**, you'll go through 5 steps that let you set up everything from basic details to roadmap supports and appointments. This complete workflow helps you manage all aspects of care delivery, including service planning and scheduling. **If you have QMS activated without CMS**, you'll follow a streamlined 2-step process focusing on the essentials: setting up basic participant information and building your care team. You'll be able to view circles and manage quality aspects like incidents and risks, but roadmap planning and appointments require CMS. Don't worry—no matter which products you have, we'll guide you through each step that's relevant for you. The workflow will only show what you can actually use, so there's no confusion about what's available. ## Getting Started When you're ready, you can navigate to **My Organisation > Circles** and click the **Add New Circle** button in the top right corner. This will open a step-by-step workflow that guides you through the setup. You'll be able to save and continue at each step, so please don't feel like you need to complete everything in one go. ![[help/features/circle-of-care/Attachments/Comm.care (1).gif]] ## The Steps You'll Follow As you go through each step, you can select **Save and Continue** when you're ready to move forward. Here's what to expect: ## Step 1: Basic Info This is where you'll add the basic details about the circle and the participant. ### About the Circle - **Name:** This is usually the participant's name, though you can use a nickname if that's easier to remember - **Snapshot:** A brief summary that helps introduce who this person is. Feel free to include helpful context here - **Image:** We find that adding a photo makes it easier to identify people at a glance. If you'd prefer not to use a photo of the person, any image that represents them works just fine ### About the Participant This is an important step—adding participant information is what allows you to create invoices and statements later on. > **Quick tip:** If you plan to create invoices, please make sure to add a Care Recipient first. You can always add other people (like carers or guardians) afterwards. ![[Comm-care-12-15-2025_07_52_PM 1.png]] **First, you'll choose what type of participant this is:** Care Recipient, Carer, or Plan Manager. Based on what you select, you'll see different fields to fill in: - **Care Recipient:** NDIS number (if applicable), gender, date of birth, and whether they have a carer - **Carer:** Their relationship to the client and gender - **Plan Manager:** The institution name > **Working with DSS clients?** You won't see a specific option to mark them as DSS at this stage. Simply fill in the information that DSS requires (you can hover over the question mark icons to see what DSS needs). When you add a DSS-funded service to the roadmap later, Comm.care will automatically show the fields you need. ### General Information You'll Need - **Title, Given Name, Surname:** These are required fields - **Email address(es):** You'll need this if you want to send statements or invoices - **Phone number(s):** These will appear on your statements and invoices - **Address(es):** These will also appear on statements and invoices Please feel free to add multiple emails, phone numbers, or addresses if needed—for example, you might want to include both mobile and landline, or both home and work addresses. ## Step 2: Participant Details This step is where you can add any additional information about the participant that might be helpful for reporting or record-keeping. ![[Comm-care-12-15-2025_08_27_PM.png]] You might include things like: - Whether their date of birth is estimated - If they're CHSP funded - Consent to provide details to DSS - Their NDIS number (if they're NDIS registered and you need it for reporting) > **Please note:** If your participant is funded through NDIS, CHSP, or another program, some of these fields will be important for your reporting requirements. When you're done, you have two options: - Click **Save and Add Another** if you'd like to add more participants to this circle - Click **Save and Continue** when you're ready to move to the next step ## Step 3: Care Team This is where you'll set up who works in this circle and what their roles are. Don't worry—you'll be added automatically as a Coordinator when you create the circle. ### How It Works You'll see a table showing everyone who's part of this circle's care team. Each person can have one or more roles: - **Admin** - **Coordinator** (that's you, by default!) - **Aid** - **Provider** You can select as many roles as appropriate for each team member. ![[Comm-care-12-15-2025_08_59_PM.png]] ### Adding Colleagues At the bottom of the screen, you'll see **"Add a colleague that will work in the circle."** Here's how to add someone: 1. Start typing their name in the search box (you'll need to type at least 2 characters) 2. You'll see a dropdown list of matching users 3. Click on the person you want to add 4. They'll be added to the circle with the default role of **Aid** 5. You can then change their role(s) if needed ![[Comm.care (2) 2.gif]] > **Can't find who you're looking for?** If you've typed a name and don't see any results, it might mean all your users are already added, or the person doesn't exist in your system yet. You can visit [How to create new users](../../setup-and-configuration/staff-management/creating-users.md) if you need to add someone new to your organisation first. ### Finding and Filtering If you have a lot of team members, you can use the search bar at the top to filter by name. This makes it easier to find who you're looking for. ![[Comm.care (1) (1).gif]] ### What Happens Next When you're done setting up your care team: - If you have **CMS** activated, you'll see **Exit** and **Save and Continue** buttons - If you have **QMS** activated, you'll see **Exit**, **Save Changes**, and **Save and Add Another** buttons For more information about what each role can do in a circle, please visit [Circle Roles](roles-and-access.md). ## Step 4: Roadmap Support This step is where you'll add the services your organisation offers to this participant. Think of the roadmap as a way to keep track of everything important—budgets, contract dates, objectives, and all the details you need for quality service delivery. ![[Comm-care-12-15-2025_09_20_PM.png]] ### What You'll Need to Select You'll choose the **Related Service** from the dropdown menu, and set the **State** (you can pick from Plan, Active, or Inactive), along with a few other details. > **Want to learn more?** For a complete explanation of how roadmap supports work, please see [Add Group Support Services to Roadmap - Day Programs](adding-group-services-roadmap.md). ## Step 5: Add Appointment (Optional) If you'd like, you can create appointments for when support will be provided. This step is optional—you can always add appointments later if you prefer. > **Need help with appointments?** For more information about creating and managing appointments, please see [Create or Delete Appointments](../scheduling-rostering/appointments.md). ![[Comm-care-12-15-2025_09_22_PM.png]] ### Finishing Up When you're ready: - Click **Save and Add Another** if you'd like to add more roadmap supports or appointments - Click **Save Changes** when you're all done And that's it! You've successfully created a Circle of Care. Well done!