Use Cases
=========

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This page is *non-normative*, which means that it doesn't form part of the standard; if there is any ambiguity, the standard takes precedence. This page may be updated at any time in response to community demand.
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Open Referral's agenda is shaped by the prerogatives of four types of users: 

* help seekers;
* service providers;
* researchers/analysts;
* database administrators. 

Read more about each of these types of users in [the User Personas documentation](../about/users-and-personas). 

In practice, we find that the primary type of user for HSDS and its associated tools are *Database Administrators*. It is still important for us to understand the needs of other types of end users – however we often process this understanding through the lense of Data Administrators to support them directly meeting the needs of end users.

**Current Human Services Data Specification Capabilities**

The specification supports:

* Provisioning the minimum amount of data needed to implement some method of search and discovery of services provided by organizations.
* Provisioning 'recommended' fields to describe additional elements of data that may be relevant for various purposes related to service delivery and/or analysis.
* Importing machine-readable data into a relational database
* Exchanging resource data between different information-and-referral systems.
* Viewing and editing data using commonly available software such as a spreadsheet or a text editor.