Factors are used to assess, track, and account for client, family, community or agency progress toward the objective of an assessment. Typically, a factor is considered either a Need or a Barrier. Needs are things that a person or family require to be self-sustaining but currently lack. Barriers are conditions that prevent or complicates a person's ability to obtain or achieve something. The factors being measured as part of an assessment will help determine the services that will benefit a client or family.
Each assessment has a set of factors which describe performance standards for that assessment. Factors are unique to individual assessments. This means that factors cannot be reused across assessments. This is because each assessment will have unique characteristics and while some factors may look similar between assessments, the details of factors such as classifications, thresholds, etc., will differ across assessments. There must be at least one factor defined for an assessment in order for the assessment to be run.
A threshold value can be configured for a factor. Threshold values are used to indicate a level of functioning for the assessment factor. Factors can be re-ordered. This allows the administrator to configure the order in which factors are displayed to the case worker, for example, the order of factors on an assessment results graph. CDA outcomes can be assigned to factors that use a CDA matrix to derive the assessment results. This section outlines factor configuration options in detail.