Portal Brings Manatee County Sheriff's Office and Community Together

Description

  • Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Portal

Business Needs

  • Make public records more accessible
  • Increase productivity
  • Provide 24/7 service to the community

Software

  • IBM WebSphere Portal Express
  • IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory

CLIENT BACKGROUND

Manatee County was created in 1855 and is located in the state of Florida. Serving over 300,000 residents, the Manatee County Sheriff's Office’s mission is to provide service to the community and respond to crime in the best tradition of professional law enforcement; also to “provide for the safety and security of the citizens and visitors of Manatee County, and to the greatest extent possible, to fulfill the constitutional requirement to ensure domestic tranquility.”

BUSINESS PROBLEM

With an ever increasing population, the Sheriff’s Office was looking to improve its ability to serve the community. Getting public safety information, such as breaking news and amber alerts, released as quickly as possible was vital toward the protection of lives. So many of the departments have critical and constantly changing information; the Sheriff’s Office set a goal to make public records more accessible. Following in the footsteps of others in the state, the Department decided to overhaul its existing internet site that consisted of only static pages. They envisioned a unified interface that would provide self-service functionality, interactive content, real time updates, and integration with back-end systems.

SOLUTION

The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office investigated various solutions for their needs ranging from Microsoft to ColdFusion to homegrown. They ultimately chose Prolifics and IBM to help them build a dynamic website that not only brings them “up-to-date” but provides a solid foundation for future growth. IBM’s Portal Express software provided the ability to get dynamic data released to the public real-time, effectively manage their large volumes of content, and provide them with a robust, scalable and secure infrastructure. The stable environment also benefited their small IT team – there was less administration overall and they gained the ability to surface data without having to code in Java. With Prolifics at their side they gained confidence that success with the new software was within reach.

The portal (http://manateesheriff.com) offers the residents of Manatee County several key features including publishing Dispatched Calls and enabling Arrest Inquiries. The Dispatched Call feature integrates with a 3rd party software application in order to surface information from 911 within the portal. The Web Arrest Inquiry enables families and friends to gain information about recent arrests immediately online. The booking department, who previously received up to 10,000 calls per month about bail costs and charges filed, can now refer the public to the website instead. The reduction in workload for the Sheriff’s Office and the benefit to the public is tremendous making the new portal an instant success.

The portal also encourages community involvement with the ability to sign up for eWatch public interest programs. Its self-service functionality also includes the ability to file incident reports without having to go down to the police station, apply for job opportunities online, and download forms to hire off-duty police officers for security for private functions and events.

And the portal does not just benefit the public. The Sheriff’s Office is now able to grant the “courts” full access to all required information for a case including mugshots which are stored as binary data in a 3rd party application. The local media has benefited by having immediate 24x7 access to arrest information without having to submit requests via email or in person on Monday through Friday, from 9 to 5.

The Prolifics team provided project management, architecture and development services, and mentoring. They guided the Sheriff’s Office from design through deployment following best practices to ensure compliance with privacy laws, and a robust and maintainable solution. The Content Management software is cleverly being used to maintain the site as well as to allow the directors and PR officers to update the site with their own announcements such as press releases.

The trusted solution, architected for high performance and scalability to its 300,000 users, has Departments ranging from the court system to crime prevention lining up to request their features within the portal. The talk of the town, the Sheriff’s Office has delivered significant benefits to their community and they are only just getting started.

“In a word - impeccable. The Prolifics team were highly professional and followed best practices with project management with daily updates providing 'white glove' treatment from start to finish. We are all thrilled with our solution.” — Valerie Griest, Manatee County Sheriff’s Department