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Ramsey County, MN Goes Live on RiteTrack Juvenile Justice Facilities Solution

July 6, 2015/in Juvenile Facilities, Juvenile Justice, News /by Ben McKay

The Ramsey County Community Corrections Department went live on its new RiteTrack Juvenile Justice system in March of 2015. Ramsey County originally partnered with Handel IT after selecting RiteTrack through a competitive bid process in 2014 to replace two separate systems that had managed their juvenile detention facility and residential facility, respectively. The project was begun with aggressive goals not only to combine the two facilities onto one system, but also to analyze business processes and then synthesize them between the two facilities, convert and merge data from the two previously disparate databases, maintain accurate JDAI reporting, and integrate with a data warehouse hosted by the State of Minnesota.

“This project has been a great test of RiteTrack’s powerful security model” says Even Brande, President and CEO of Handel. “It has accomplished one of the key goals of this project which was to reduce duplicate data entry since many of the youth spend time in both facilities at different times. Yet RiteTrack’s security ensures that staff in each facility can only see the data that is pertinent to what happens in that facility, yet shares common data between the two.”

“The outcome of this project has been of great benefit to both my users and myself as a system administrator,” according to Dan Merth, the Customer Project Manager for the software implementation. “We have accomplished all of the goals we had for the initial roll-out of RiteTrack. Two obsolete systems were combined into one intuitive web-based design that is capturing all of the critical client information our case managers need on a daily basis, as well as the high level data our management uses to track trends and focus resources such as staffing levels. The project was completed on time and on budget and I am eager to work with Handel on future customization and enhancements to Ramsey County’s RiteTrack application.”

Throughout the project, Handel’s standard process for implementation of a software system was utilized. This process began with business and systems analysis and was followed by a formal system design. After the design was officially signed off by both Ramsey County and Handel, customization was added on top of RiteTrack’s standard Juvenile Justice Facilities system. Data migrations and the subsequent data merge from the two legacy systems, report development, and the integration with the State of Minnesota data warehouse all happened in parallel with the software customization.

“Large and complex projects such as the Ramsey system have an incredible number of points where a project can run into problems. Especially when large numbers of tasks are running in parallel to each other the complexity of large enterprise-level systems can almost seem overwhelming. The key to project success is clear communication and synergy between the Project Managers and other key staff members on both sides. Ramsey County is a perfect case study in how software implementations should happen; it has been a huge pleasure working with Dan and his team and I am looking forward to a long and lasting relationship with their office,” said Ben McKay, Handel’s Project Manager for the Ramsey software solution.

“The design and development process went better than any other large scale software project I have been involved in,” said Dan. Handel’s design model includes screen mockups and descriptions of each function to ensure that there are no surprises when development begins. Additionally, Handel’s customer support has been excellent, it is nice to know that Ramsey County Corrections has partnered with a responsible vendor who cares just as much as I do about data and reporting accuracy, system functionality, and customer service.”

Ramsey County is currently pursuing a second phase to their RiteTrack project to add additional functionality to further enhance their ability to serve youth in the juvenile justice system.

“We are very thrilled to having had the opportunity to work with Ramsey County on this project” says Even Brande. “Not only are we looking forward to many years of working with Ramsey County but we also believe this solution will be a model for other communities who are in a similar situation.”

For more information on a selection of the technical processes that were incorporated into the Ramsey project and Handel’s Juvenile Justice Solution please see:

Packing Up and Moving Your Data

May 27, 2015/in Juvenile Facilities, Juvenile Justice, Tribal Government, Tribal TANF /by Ben McKay

In our age of technology and communication it is common that our customers are adopting RiteTrack after using another data management system, often for a substantial amount of time. One of the largest concerns that we deal with is, “Will we get to keep our data and will it be complete?” At Handel, we understand that historical information is invaluable to spot trends, maintain reporting requirements, and increase interdepartmental communication. That is why we have developed proprietary software to quickly and accurately convert legacy data into RiteTrack.

Our data conversion process starts at the very beginning of our project management process; Handel views data conversions as a key and central part of our software implementations, not as an afterthought. Our trained project managers begin by explicitly mapping out each column in every table in the legacy database and define a place for it to go in the new RiteTrack system. This process takes place alongside the creation of the system design so that the mapping is completed before we start developing the system in order to make certain that no crucial data is left behind. During this process your project manager will highlight areas where the legacy data may not be clean or accurate so that no dirty information finds its way into the new system.

While on the initial site visit, your project manager will sit down with you and your staff to walk through your legacy system to gain a full understanding of its functionality, how your staff uses it, and any potential difficulties that may arise in the conversion process. Since every system is different we make sure to take the time to get to know it. This practice gets to the core of how Handel does business; each project and each customer is unique and we dedicate ourselves to forming a relationship based upon communication, transparency, and honesty.

Once a conversion map has been completed and approved, the data will begin the process of being moved into RiteTrack. Our skilled developers have built software to assist us in the conversion process. Using this single core technology reduces errors, speeds up the conversion process, and lowers cost. Our data conversion experts work side-by-side with our project managers throughout the entire project to make sure that this process is as streamlined as possible.

Much like our software development, our data conversion process involves multiple rounds of testing and validating to make sure that the end product is exactly what it should be. You and your staff will be able to see and test the converted data in a sandbox version of RiteTrack, this will even include any custom fields that have been added. For larger systems this is often done in phases to ensure that nothing is missed in the sheer volume of information we work with.

Handel’s Conversion Process (Click to Enlarge)

We have utilized this process on databases of all sizes, from a few thousand rows of data up to millions of rows. To gain a more complete understanding of how our data conversions fit into the entire software implementation process please read Problem Solved: A Story of Vanquishing Risk and Complexity.
Finally, when the entire data conversion has been tested and approved, Handel will pull a final and current copy of the legacy database for conversion. This information will be what eventually comprises your initial RiteTrack system. At the end of this process your users will have a new, friendly, and easy-to-use software solution complete with all of the data that has been tirelessly entered by users in the legacy system.

This simple, yet powerful, methodology, when paired with our proprietary software, takes the often frustrating and error-prone process of converting data and turns it into an efficient and organized procedure. What is more, our data conversions are fully supported just like our software. If there is an issue found after RiteTrack has gone live our data conversion experts will rectify the error, often with zero downtime for users. Our philosophy for data conversions is the same as it is for building software; we center everything on our clients and their needs in our pursuit for the best product possible.

Problem Solved: A Story of Vanquishing Risk and Complexity

March 30, 2015/in Child Protective Services, Enrollment, Foster Care, Indian Child Welfare, Juvenile Facilities, Juvenile Justice, Tribal Court, Tribal Government, Tribal TANF, Tribal Treatment Services /by Ben McKay

I was told growing up that when you experience success you should act like you’ve experienced it before. Don’t flaunt your touchdown reception or first place finish; act like you’ve been there before. However, I quickly realized that there is a huge difference between simply acting like one has done something and actually having done it.

So, what does this all have to do with software implementations and case management? The simple answer is that there is a large collection of companies out there that claim to be able to take on massive projects to design, develop, and implement a large enterprise-level software solution. How should project leaders with large and complex projects choose a vendor from the plethora of options available to them?

Most people know that in enterprise-level software implementations, risk is proportionally tied to the complexity of the project. If the complexity goes up the risk does as well. With that in mind, what are we to think of projects on the extreme end of complexity? What if we are taking multiple legacy systems and want to put them into one single and comprehensive system? What if we also want to bring multiple departments together onto one single system in that same project? What if there are federal and state reports that must justify from the moment the system goes live? What if we need to integrate with other systems at the same time that everything else is happening? If risk of failure is directly proportional to the complexity of a project, should we even bother attempting such bold initiatives?

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The answer to that final question is a resounding ‘yes’. It is worth pursuing because of the benefits that it can lead to. Bringing multiple systems together reduces complexity and duplication of data entry which, in turn, reduces errors. Having multiple departments or facilities operate on one common platform increases communication and improves outcomes for clients. The risk, in other words, is worth the potential rewards that a system that can do all of those things could bring. However, that one question still lingers… What if it fails?

This is where proven success comes into play. It is not enough to know that a company could potentially complete a project. These projects need a company that has been there before. The type of system described above with multiple data conversions, bringing previously disparate departments together on one system, reporting to federal and state agencies accurately from day one, and integrating with other software systems describes most of Handel’s customers. We have proven success on every single one of our solutions, from unifying government agencies of a Tribe to providing a system that unifies detention and residential facilities for a county.

Large and complex projects require the devoted attention of software professionals who have repeated success and a strong, standard solution. We have devoted countless hours to designing, testing, and refining each of our solutions to meet the needs of our clients with our standard functionality, whether it is for a CPS Department, Juvenile Detention Facility, TANF Department, or a multitude of other systems. This standard functionality not only brings down cost, it also lessens risk.

While most systems require small changes, we have found that our standard platform will accomplish most of the needed functionality within the markets that we serve. Completely custom solutions that are built from the ground up may sound wonderful at the beginning of a project. However, these projects are the most likely to end up over budget, behind schedule, and outside of scope. We at Handel know this because that is how we used to build software solutions. We built our latest version of RiteTrack to combat all of those things; we provide a common framework to all of our customers, thoroughly test and refine each one of our software modules, and send updates to all of our systems whenever we make something better or fix the rare bug we run into. This means that not only is your project more likely to be successful on the front end, but also that our customers never have to worry about having a system that nobody knows how to fix or update five or ten years down the road.

And what of those things that will always be custom to an individual software solution? We handle (yes, pun is intended here) data conversions, systems integration, custom reporting, attaching custom modules to our standard framework, training and system documentation, and everything else imaginable on a regular basis. All of our staff, from our sales personnel to our project management staff to our software developers, are trained to create custom alterations and additions to make our software work for you in the most optimal way possible.

This combination of our standard software offering and our staff’s familiarity with providing insightful and accurate consulting creates a unique environment where we can reduce the risks imposed by time, cost, and scope of a project as a whole while also building a software solution that keeps your legacy data, communicates with other systems, and improves upon your organization’s reporting abilities. Handel’s ability to accomplish all of these extremely complex things comes from our more than 17 years of corporate experience and our tireless efforts to make the best standard software for each industry we serve. Our experience and work makes it possible for organizations to dream big about what their case management software can do for them.

Though these types of projects are large, complex, and sometimes even scary, Handel can help mitigate all of that. We have been there before and our customers have experienced great success using our system. Our track record shows that our methodologies, standard software offerings, and innovative technologies work. So, go ahead and dream big and know that if Handel is your partner your project, no matter how big, will be a success.

PREA: Tracking Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Personal Identification

February 2, 2015/in Juvenile Facilities, Juvenile Justice, Training /by Ben McKay

One of the core focus areas of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) is the concept that each individual deserves to be protected and that one of the best ways to ensure that is through data collection and management. Handel has built RiteTrack to go beyond simply checking a box to designate a person as a female or male. Included as standard in our juvenile justice software is the ability to track not just a person’s actual gender, but also what they personally identify as and their sexual orientation. All of this information is tracked right on the Face Sheet of a resident in RiteTrack.

PREA requires special protections for intersex and transgender youth in a detention environment. Handel has taken this to heart and has designed, as standard product, functionality to track these data points.

Tracking Gender

There are instances where the labels of female or male simply do not encapsulate the reality of each individual resident. PREA recognized this and has set new requirements for working with intersex residents. RiteTrack has been built to scale to each facility’s unique requirements for tracking the gender of each resident. Below is an example dropdown list with three selection options; female, intersex, and male.

The above image is just to provide an example list of gender options. Each facility may custom design this dropdown list to suit their individual needs with as many options as they desire. What is more, if a facility needs to add an additional option in the future an administrator of the system may add the option through RiteTrack’s Admin Dashboard. The average time it takes to do this is under 30 seconds. This means that RiteTrack users can access very powerful functionality, with high degrees of flexibility, with no system down time.

Tracking Gender Identification

PREA defines transgender as, “A person whose gender identity is different from the person’s assigned gender at birth.” While tracking gender is, and will always be, a necessary requirement for juvenile facilities, that physical gender may not be how the resident personally views him or herself. In order to meet this new requirement, RiteTrack has built out additional functionality to track gender identification separately from a person’s physical gender at birth.

Much like the Gender dropdown box, the Gender Identification list may be altered by a facility to encapsulate as many options as is desired. This list can potentially get quite expansive; Facebook currently has 56 gender options. While a juvenile facility may never need to track that many options RiteTrack has been built to scale to that many, just in case.

Tracking Sexual Orientation

While tracking sexual orientation is not an explicit requirement in PREA, RiteTrack has been built with the philosophy that we don’t stop at just the minimum requirements. In working with juvenile facilities and other juvenile justice departments we have found that a person’s sexual orientation can have a great impact on how the juvenile interacts with other residents, interacts with staff, and experiences their stay at detention or residential facilities. This dropdown box works exactly like the two discussed previously; the list may be custom managed, added to at any time, and provide the flexibility that each facility deserves to have.

Accessing Advanced Functionality

While tracking data points is a great concept and a requirement that must be fulfilled, Handel believes that what we can then do with that data is much more important. Once users have access to a system that goes beyond check boxes that can only track if a resident is a female or a male and they are given the additional power of having more comprehensive gender choices, the ability to track how a person identifies him or herself, and the option to track sexual orientation we can begin to leverage that information to lead to better outcomes and track legislative requirements in a more robust manner.

Examples of this include PREA’s requirements to limit cross gender searches and viewings and to only allow trained staff the ability to search intersex and transgender youth. Once we track these three data points, it is then possible to build immensely powerful business logic off of those pieces of information and we can begin to, as an example, reduce the incidence of disallowed searches. Additionally, those fields can be paired with other modules in RiteTrack, such as Treatment Planning to be able to provide analytics on how gender, gender identification, and sexual orientation can play into that process.

Data can be powerful. Talk to a Handel Sales Representative or Project Manager today about how we can make your data work for you.

To learn more about the PREA requirements discussed in this post please go to the PREA webpage for Juvenile Facility Standards.

Room Management: Assigning Rooms to Residents

January 26, 2015/in Juvenile Facilities, Juvenile Justice, Training /by Ben McKay

Whether a facility is secure or unsecure, detention center or residential home, being able to quickly and intelligently assign a resident to a room is something that every organization needs to be able to do. RiteTrack not only is able to create a virtual model of your facility’s layout, it also offers users an interface to manage room assignments with ease.

RiteTrack displays a facility’s layout in a tree that is able to be customized to suit each facility’s needs. Sections of this tree can quickly be expanded and collapsed to increase the speed at which users can navigate through the various areas of a facility. RiteTrack provides counts of the number of vacancies for each area and rooms are displayed in different colors to identify them as vacant, not vacant, or closed. Please see the Building Your Custom Facility Layout blog entry for an in-depth discussion of customized room layouts and how it can benefit your facility.

The example shown below displays a resident who has had two separate room assignments during his stay at our demonstration facility. To display the power of RiteTrack’s Room Assignment Module, we are going to temporarily move this resident to a new room, keep his current room assignment open to make sure that his room is not accidentally assigned to another resident, and then close out his temporary room assignment.

As seen below, our example resident, Ben, is assigned to Room 103 in Living Unit 100. However, a co-defendant of Ben’s needs to be housed in that Living Unit during a court hearing and Ben must be moved to another unit. We don’t want to evict Ben from his room, just temporarily move him. This will keep his room from accidentally getting assigned to another resident while he is temporarily placed in another area of the facility.

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A simple click of the Green Plus Sign button will add a record and navigate us to our Room Assignment Tree. By clicking on the arrow next to Living Unit 300 we can quickly see what rooms are available in that area of the facility.

Creating a Room Assignment for a Resident

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As can be seen at a quick glance, there are 10 rooms in Living Unit 300, only one of which is currently occupied. RiteTrack automatically populated the current date and time into the Start Date for the new room assignment to assist in speeding up data entry. This date, however, may be changed if the information needs to be back dated. All the user must do to complete the new room assignment is click the save icon and the room assignment is added to the previous list of entries for this resident.

Click to Enlarge

Notice, this resident currently has two open room assignments. The new room assignment information will be reflected automatically on RiteTrack’s reports and the original room assignment will be preserved. Once our temporary room assignment is completed, all we need do is enter an End Date for Ben’s temporary room assignment in Living Unit 300 and Room 301 will become available again for another resident.

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RiteTrack provides flexible data entry to users in an environment that is fast and intuitive to use, yet maintains the strict data integrity that is required by juvenile facilities. Handel designed RiteTrack with the philosophy that the tasks that must be done every day by users should be made easier, not more difficult, by the software that they use. We designed the Room Assignment Module around that philosophy. Ask for a demo today to see just how easy and intuitive it is.

Reaching Your Clients: The Importance of Address Verification

January 5, 2015/in Child Protective Services, Enrollment, Indian Child Welfare, Juvenile Detention, Juvenile Facilities, Juvenile Justice, TANF Reporting, Training, Tribal Court, Tribal Government, Tribal TANF, Tribal Treatment Services /by Ben McKay

Often one of the most frustrating experiences a user of enterprise software can have is the inability to track address information in a consistent and reliable way. This arises mostly due to the fact that most software systems don’t verify address information, which leaves the formatting of an address up to each individual user. This “free form” system of entering data can seem to make a system more flexible, but in reality it creates a large amount of unusable data.

To provide an illustration, below are some examples of the issues that we have run into in our data conversions when organizations upgrade to RiteTrack:

Incomplete, invalid, or missing zip codes
Street address with no street name
Descriptive text that is not an address such as ‘Incarcerated’, ‘Unknown’, or, my personal favorite, ‘I Do Not Know’

All of these issues lead to one common problem; addresses in most databases cannot be readily trusted to be accurate. During data conversions from legacy systems to RiteTrack, we often identify that up to 50% of addresses that were entered into an outdated system are incomplete, inaccurate, or not even an address. Luckily, there is one common solution to solve this problem. That answer is address verification.

RiteTrack utilizes the power of Google Maps to verify addresses, help complete missing information, and keep consistent formatting in the addresses that users track. This single solution, using Google’s API, leads to more accurate reporting, reduced data entry time, and, most importantly, a database that can be trusted.

What is more, by using Google Maps, RiteTrack also can provide all of the advanced functionality that users have come to expect from technology in other areas of their lives. If a person’s personal cell phone can provide them directions to their destination, then surely an enterprise software solution should be able to. Sadly, most systems don’t. When we developed RiteTrack we set out to change that. Below are a series of screenshots to show how easy it is to use our advanced address functionality to provide an unprecedented user experience.

Even with a poorly formatted address, as seen below, RiteTrack is able to make suggestions about the addresses that closely match a search.

Using the incomplete and poorly formatted address above, RiteTrack identifies potential addresses that have been verified as actually existing.

With a single click of a button a user can select the correct address, which will also be correctly formatted automatically for users. The data validation that was once was impossible in older systems takes two clicks in RiteTrack.

What is more, with a single click RiteTrack can access a Google Maps search of the address in a separate browser tab and users instantly have access to the power and functionality of Google’s software. No retyping the address; no copy and paste; it just works.

By being able to access Google Maps from inside of RiteTrack, users can not only view a map and a street view of a location, but can also get directions there, export those directions to their smart phones and other devices, or use any of Google’s other functionality. The power that users have come to expect from their personal devices can now also be brought to their offices. Handel believes that if your smart phone can do it, your enterprise software should as well.

Posts

Ramsey County, MN Goes Live on RiteTrack Juvenile Justice Facilities Solution

Packing Up and Moving Your Data

Problem Solved: A Story of Vanquishing Risk and Complexity

PREA: Tracking Gender, Sexual Orientation, and Personal Identification

Tracking Gender

Tracking Gender Identification

Tracking Sexual Orientation

Accessing Advanced Functionality

Room Management: Assigning Rooms to Residents

Reaching Your Clients: The Importance of Address Verification

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