Paragon Software International, Inc.
June 15, 2004
June 15, 2004
A method for advancing into the realm of the paperless office has been added to the C.R.I.M.E. system. Text documents can now be approved or rejected at various points in the process of handling an incident. When an incident text document (part 8) is added to the system, it is marked as a new document. Supervisors can then search for the new documents and review them. Upon review the documents can be either approved or rejected. In either case an incident activity log entry is made and optionally an email sent automatically to the filing officer or clerical staff that entered the document. If the document is approved, its status changes to an approval level. If the document is rejected, its status changes to a “requires changes” level.
There are three basic statuses a document can be assigned: Requires Changes New / updated Approved – Final
There are more approval levels available if your agency has a more complex approval process: Approved – Level 1 Approved – Level 2 Approved – Level 3 Approved – Final
In the sections that follow, examples of the new or changes screens will be presented. There are also sections of procedures to follow for the various groups of staff involved in handling the incidents as they flow through the department.
C.R.I.M.E. Release Announcement Letter
This is the enhanced “Incident Text Search” screen. “Review status” search criteria field has been added and the jurisdiction field is now based on the filing officer jurisdiction for the document instead of the service call. The jurisdiction field will be filled in with a default of the current user’s jurisdiction. So by default, you will normally search just your agencies documents. The list now shows the review status, filed date and changed date. The options available to apply to the documents in the list now include “A” (approve) and “R” (reject).
C.R.I.M.E. Release Announcement Letter
This is the new “Approve Incident Document” screen. This program will assign a new review status to the document and optionally notify the participants in the document of the approval. Comments can optionally be added during this step. The approval step will be documented in the incident activity log (shown later). F5 is used to perform the update instead of ENTER. Hopefully, this will convey the importance of this step and reduce accidents.
C.R.I.M.E. Release Announcement Letter
This is the new “Reject Incident Document” screen. This program will assign a new review status “Requires Changes” to the document and optionally notify the participants in the document of the rejection. Comments can optionally be added during this step. The rejection step will be documented in the incident activity log (shown later). F5 is used to perform the update instead of ENTER. Hopefully, this will convey the importance of this step and reduce accidents.
C.R.I.M.E. Release Announcement Letter
Almost no changes to the way clerical staff operate are necessary. The system will mark new documents as “NEW / UPDATED” and any documents being corrected will be marked “NEW / UPDATED” also. So any document touched by anyone will be marked as “NEW / UPDATED”. This status is what supervisors will be looking for to review.
Clerical staff may receive an email from a supervisor advising changes needed for a document. When the changes are made, it will restart the process by placing the document back into the “NEW / UPDATED” status.
Additionally, clerical staff can use the search program to find documents that require changes. The incident activity log can be used to determine what changes are needed. Perhaps from the prior shift.
Supervisors can use the “Incident Text Search” program (in inquiry mode) from the Inquiry Menu to search for new documents that require review. Supervisors can search for documents in the “NEW / UPDATED” status, review them and then approve/reject them. Documents can also be searched by filing officer, so if supervisors wish, they can review only the officers on their shift.
C.R.I.M.E. Release Announcement Letter
After reviewing a document, on the “Incident Text Search” program use the option “A” to approve the document. The “Approve Incident Document” screen will appear. The new review status of “Approved – Final” will already be shown on the screen. By default the officer will be notified of approval and the entering person will not. This can be overridden if desired. There is an area for comments if desired. The comments will be emailed to whomever is elected to be notified. The comments will also become part of the incident’s activity log.
C.R.I.M.E. Release Announcement Letter
After reviewing a document, on the “Incident Text Search” program use the option “R” to reject the document. The “Reject Incident Document” screen will appear. The new review status of “Requires changes” will already be shown on the screen. By default the officer will be notified of the need for changes and the entering person will not. This can be overridden if desired. There is an area for comments if desired. The comments will be emailed to whomever is elected to be notified. The comments will also become part of the incident’s activity log.
C.R.I.M.E. Release Announcement Letter
This screen shows the results of the above approval and rejection steps. They are added to the incident activity log like any other maintenance activity. The do however have special “Group” code entries. This allows for search the activity for just these types of entries including searching for them without an incident number. Which could also be a way of reviewing what activity has been generated by whom.
The “Reference” label found in the description column contains a snippet of the actual text from the document being approved or rejected. It is followed by the “Comments” label which will contain the comments from the approval or rejection screen.
Officers are able to enter documents from the car when they clear from an incident and are able to dictate documents that will later be entered by clerical staff. Both methods will cause a new document to be added to the system and marked as “NEW / UPDATED”.
Officers may receive an email from a supervisor advising changes needed for a document. The officer will then need to dictate, email, or otherwise communicate the information needed to complete or alter the document. When the changes are made, it will restart the process by placing the document back into the “NEW / UPDATED” status.
Additionally, officers can use the Incident Text Search program to find documents of theirs that require changes. The incident activity log can be used to determine what changes are needed.
Officers may also use the Incident Text Search program to locate the current status of all their documents for the day, prior day, or some other date range.
C.R.I.M.E. Release Announcement Letter
At some agencies the path of work flow through the agency may be more complicated. There may be several levels of approval required before the document is considered approved. For this environment we have created a system that can handle many levels of approval. Each level is requires a person to mark the document as approved, to move it to the next level. If your department has officers review their documents first, then on to district supervisor, and then on to shift supervisor, then this method will work.
Each successive reviewer would search for completed work at their review status, and approve it to move it forward to the next level. So in the above example the officer would be reviewing first and would search for his documents that are at the “NEW / UPDATED” level, then approve them to move them on to “APPROVED – LEVEL 2”.
The district supervisor would then search for documents that are at the “APPROVED – LEVEL 2”, review them, and approve them to move them to “APPROVED – LEVEL 3”.
The shift supervisor could then search for documents that are at the “APPROVED – LEVEL 3”, review them, and approve them to move them to the “APPROVED -FINAL” status.
Each of these levels can also have their description changed to make them easier to remember and use. For instance, “APPROVED – LEVEL 3” could say “APPROVED BY DISTRICT SUPERVISOR”.