SBF5 BAR - Who are my Unknowns?

How to use the Report Builder to find who is being counted in your BAR Unknown column

Angela Lim avatar
Written by Angela Lim
Updated over a week ago

This article is meant to help Santa Barbara First 5 users of VerticalChange understand how to find unknowns that are counted in the BAR.R

For information on how each table is calculated, see SBF5 BAR: Details on Calculations.

Criteria for a Contact be Included in the BAR

  • The report includes all contacts who have had at least one First 5 SBC activity during the reporting date range.

  • Those contacts will be included in the various tables of the report based on fields from Intake Form Part 1.

If contacts have activities within the date range, but no Intake Form Part 1, they will show as "unknowns" in the various tables.

Table 1: Child Counts

A child is counted in the 'Unknown age' column when they have 'Type of Client' - Child selected on the Intake form, but are missing their Date of Birth.

To find out which clients are being counted, click on the Reports button in the lefthand navigation menu, then click "+ add new report".

In the Report Builder, click the + next to the Person option on the left. This will bring up the categories of data you can add to the report. Click the + next to Basic fields, then click the checkmark next to Unique ID, First name and Last name to add it to the report. 

Close the Person tree by clicking on the - button, then click the + next to Assessments.

Find the Intake form that is currently being used (if you are not sure, ask your supervisor which is the correct Intake form). 

Click the + next to the name of the assessment form, and click the checkbox next to the field Type of Client. Then click the checkbox next to Date of Birth.

Return to the main report area, and in the Type of Client column, click on the filter icon and type Child into the text box. Then click done.

Click on the filter icon next to the Date of Birth column, then select 'Is empty'. Then click done. 


We now have a list of each contact that has been marked as a Child, but has no Date of Birth. You can further filter this list by pulling in the Intake Form's Date of Assessment and setting a date range in the column's filter settings. 

Table 3: Client Count by Ethnicity

Unknown Client Type
The Unknown column for a client type indicates that there are contacts who have an intake form, and have either Type of Client - Child/Adult selected, but they are missing the Date of Birth field in the Intake form. 

To find out who these contacts are, follow the same instructions from Table 1: Child Counts instructions above, but instead of filtering for Type of Client - Child, click on the filter icon for Type of Client and select Is not empty

This will give you a list of all contacts that have the Type of Client field filled out (either as a Child or Adult), but are missing a Date of Birth

Unknown Ethnicity
The Unknown column for a client's ethnicity means that the contact has an Intake Form, but the Ethnicity question wasn't completed on the form.

To find out which clients are being counted as unknown, navigate to the Report Builder and add in the Person's basic fields (Unique ID, First name, Last name). 

Close the Person tree by clicking on the - button, then click the + next to Assessments.

Find the Intake form that is currently being used (if you are not sure, ask your supervisor which is the correct Intake form). 

Click the + next to the name of the assessment form, and click the checkbox next to the field Type of Client. Then click the checkbox next to Ethnicity.

Click on the filter icon next to the Ethnicity column, then select 'Is empty'. Then click done. 

We now have a list of each contact that is missing the Ethnicity field on their Intake form. You can further filter this list by pulling in the Intake Form's Date of Assessment and setting a date range in the column's filter settings. 

Table 4: Client Counts by Community Area

Unknown Client Type
The Unknown column for a client type indicates that there are contacts who have an intake form, and have either Type of Client - Child/Adult selected, but they are missing the Date of Birth field in the Intake form. 

To find out who these contacts are, follow the same instructions from Table 1: Child Counts instructions above, but instead of filtering for Type of Client - Child, click on the filter icon for Type of Client and select Is not empty

This will give you a list of all contacts that have the Type of Client field filled out (either as a Child or Adult), but are missing a Date of Birth

Unknown Community Area
The Unknown column for a client's community area means that the contact has an Intake Form, but the Zip Code question wasn't completed on the form.

To find out which clients are being counted as unknown, navigate to the Report Builder and add in the Person's basic fields (Unique ID, First name, Last name). 

Close the Person tree by clicking on the - button, then click the + next to Assessments.

Find the Intake form that is currently being used (if you are not sure, ask your supervisor which is the correct Intake form). 

Click the + next to the name of the assessment form, and click the checkbox next to the field Type of Client. Then click the checkbox next to Zip Code.

Click on the filter icon next to the Zip Code column, then select 'Is empty'. Then click done. 

We now have a list of each contact that is missing the Zip Code field on their Intake form. You can further filter this list by pulling in the Intake Form's Date of Assessment and setting a date range in the column's filter settings. 

Client Counts by Services

A client is counted in the 'Total Unduplicated Unknowns Served' column when they have the service form completed, but not an Intake form.

To find out which clients are being counted, click on the Reports button in the lefthand navigation menu, then click "+ add new report".

In the Report Builder, click the + next to the Person option on the left. This will bring up the categories of data you can add to the report. Click the + next to Basic fields, then click the checkmark next to Unique ID, First name and Last name to add it to the report. 


Close the Person tree by clicking on the - button, then click the + next to Activities

Look for the name of the activity form that the unknowns are listed for in the BARs list of services. (Example: If you have 5 unknowns for Referral, Linkages and Follow Up, look for the activity form named "Referral, Linkages and Follow Up").

Once you have found the correct activity form, click the + next to the name, then add Date of Activity to the report.

In the main area of the report, find the activity's Date of Activity column. Click on the gray filter icon next to the column name to open up filter options.

In the From and To fields in the Date of Activity filter, type in the start and end date of the fiscal year that you are pulling for the BAR report. Then click done. 

You now have a list of all activity form results that were filled out during the same fiscal year as the BAR report. Now we'll pull the information for the Intake form so we can see who has an activity form, but is missing an Intake form.

On the left of the main report area, click the + next to Assessments. Find the Intake form that is currently being used (if you are not sure, ask your supervisor which is the correct Intake form). 

Click the + next to the name of the assessment form, and click the checkbox next to the field Type of Client. This field needs to be filled out on an Intake form for a contact to be counted in the BAR Report. 

Return to the main report area, and in the contact's Unique ID column, click on the filter icon and check Group by this field. Then click done.

We now have a list of each contact and the number of form results they have for each type of form (our service form and intake form). With this information, we can pull this report into Excel and use Microsoft's amazing sort and filter feature to narrow this list down even more.

At the top-right of the report, click on the green Export button, then select 'Export to CSV'.

A CSV file will begin downloading to your computer. Once it has finished downloading, open up the report.

Highlight the two form result columns (the activity form and intake form) by clicking and holding the column letter at the top and dragging your cursor over to the second column.

Find the Sort & Filter options in your Excel program and click Filter. This should add drop-down arrows on each of your columns allow you to filter out responses.

You are looking for rows where the number of results in the activity form is one or more, and the number of results in the intake form is 0. 

Click on the drop-down arrow for the activity form and unselect the 0 option. Then click on the drop-down arrow for the intake form and unselect all but the 0 option.

You now have a list of contacts that need an Intake form in order to be counted correctly in the BAR report. 

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