Record and Manage Complaints – Centro ASSIST Support Portal

This help article is split into six sections. Click the links below to navigate to the relevant section:

Applicable to	Centro QMS, Centro KMS
NOT applicable to	Centro ESSENTIALS, QMS Starter

Complaint management features within the Centro web app allow employees to report complaints and give managers the ability to review, track and close complaints using a complaint register.

IMPORTANT

Although any user can report complaints, only users that are allocated Incident and Improvement Manager OR Administrator/Model Administrator permissions can edit/delete complaints and view the complaints register. Permissions can be changed by going to People > Users. For more information, please see Manage Users.

The steps built into complaint reporting and management are as follows:

Employees will lodge a complaint using a standard complaint report form.
Once submitted, the form will be saved in the complaint register and managers will receive a notification email.
Managers can then open the complaint within the complaint register and review or update the details provided by the employee.
Managers then update the appropriate fields in the Actions section of the form to track the progress of the complaint and close the complaint.
If required, complaint register data is exported to Microsoft Excel for further analysis and reporting.

Each step is described in more detail below.

For the purposes of this article:

‘Employees’ are users with ‘Process Viewer’ permission.
‘Managers’ are users with ‘Incident and Improvement Manager’ permission.

1. Lodge complaint (employee)

To report a complaint, employees must complete the steps below:

1. Access Home > Report & Improve.

2. Click Lodge a Complaint.

3. Complete the complaint report form. Fields marked with a red arrow are required. All other fields are optional.

Field	Description
Complaint summary	A brief summary of the complaint.
Category	The type of complaint. See a summary of categories below: Other Administration Billing and Pricing Employee conduct Physical premise Privacy and confidentiality Provider communication Provider decision making Service delivery
Applies to Business Unit	The part of the business that is affected by the complaint (e.g. Sydney office). Applies only if you have Business Units implemented, see Business Unit Basics for more information.
Service recipient	The participant affected by the complaint. If the complaint relates to a participant, tick the box in this field and enter the participant’s name.
Complaint (in detail)	A full description of the complaint.
Person making complaint and relationship to the organisation	The person that is making the complaint and their relationship to the organisation.
Phone number (complainant)	The phone number of the complainant.
Email address (complainant)	The email address of the complainant.
Lodge by	The person lodging the complaint
Method complaint received	How the complaint was received (e.g. in person).
When Complaint received	The date and time on which the complaint has been received
When complaint acknowledged	The date and time on which the complaint was acknowledged.
Helpful material	Any photos, evidence or supporting materials that will help to provide further detail about the complaint.

4. Click Save.

2. Notification email

When an employee submits a complaint, assigned users (usually the managers) will receive a notification.

For assistance with setting up email notifications please see Set Up and Configuration.

3. Review complaint (manager)

Upon receipt of the notification, managers can then open the complaint within the complaint register and review or update the details provided by the employee. The steps to do this are described below:

1. Access Home > Report & Improve.

2. Click Open.

3. Double click the complaint you want to review and update.

4. Click Edit and make all required changes to the Details section. Click Save when editing is completed.

4. Update complaint progress (manager)

Once the initial details of the complaint have been reviewed and updated, the manager can complete the Actions and Resolution sections in the complaint report form.

Some of the fields in the Actions and Resolution sections appear as columns of data within the complaint register, which allows the manager to track and close the complaint.

Filter	Description
Status	The progress status of the complaint.
Priority	The urgency of the complaint.
Position responsible	The position/role that is responsible for managing the complaint.
External parties notified	Information about any external parties that were notified of the complaint (e.g. the participant’s advocate).
Outcome from external parties	Information about any outcomes/decisions that have been passed on from external parties.
Investigation process	Details of different steps taken during complaint investigations.
Investigation outcome	Findings of any investigation undertaken.
Actions taken	Any actions taken because of the investigations.
Comments	Any additional comments, details and explanations.
Resolve by	The date by which the complaint must be resolved.
Related to	Relevant incidents, feedback and other complaints.
Improvements	Improvements that relate to the complaint or that are designed to address the incident.
External identifier	Reference number or another external complaint.
Relevant policy/regulation	Policies or regulations that relate to the complaint.
Closed on	Date and time on which the complaint was closed.
Closing comments	Any final comments.
Satisfactory resolution	Whether the complaint was resolved to the satisfaction of all parties.
Resolution approved by	For users with positions in the system, the position that approved the resolution.

5. View and use complaint register

The complaint register is an important tool for managers to track and close complaints. Selected complaints can be exported to Excel for further analysis and reporting as described below.

View complaint register

1. Use the filtering options on the ribbon above to view and search complaints.

Filter	Description
Complaint	Complaint title.
Category	Complaint category.
Business Unit	Business Unit affected by the complaint.
Service recipient	The service recipient affected by the complaint.
Received on	Date on which the complaint was received.
Closed on	The date on which the complaint was closed.
Priority	Complaint priority rating.
Status	The status of the complaint.

In addition, you can use the options above the search ribbon to view current and archived complaints.

Current view shows the complaints that are currently being managed.
Archive view shows complaints that have a status of Completed or Cancelled.
All shows both current and archived items.

Download complaint register

All information relating to activities recorded in the complaint register can be downloaded as a spreadsheet for reporting purposes.

Complaints can be downloaded individually or in bulk as either the complete register or in a group e.g. by category or business unit.

1. Access Home > Report & Improve.

2. Click Open.

3. If required, filter and select the content you want to download.

Tip

To download multiple (but not all) items, hold down Ctrl, click once on each relevant item and click Download.

For example, if you want to download complaints from a specific category, write the name of the category in the Category search bar, hold down Ctrl and select the relevant complaints.

4. Click Download.