Paperless Productivity

With over 100 users in its Circuit and Family Courts, Prosecutor’s Office and throughout its contract signing process, Michigan’s Washtenaw County experienced the charms of TrueSign’s seamless, digital signing process and workflow before the pandemic – but, as staff continues to work remotely from sporadic locations, it’s been a relied-upon necessity.

Joining us for a conversation about their “signature” success is Jeff Arbogast, Application Specialist at Washtenaw, which has been recognized several times as a Top 10 Digital County. Walking us through three key areas where TrueSign exercises some heavy lifting, Jeff illustrates the various use case opportunities now at play thanks to this one, Cloud-hosted application. From the scope of their current implementation, Jeff’s favorite capability (hint: it’s the ease of external signing) and the low-stress of a straight-forward pricing model to zero end-user footprint, seamless integrations with existing systems and what Washtenaw’s HR department currently has its eye on, this short chat takes eSignature opportunities beyond the dotted line to solve for many of today’s pain points in an increasingly remote world.

A few years back, ImageSoft trekked through the same IT journey we now walk most of our clients through: moving our infrastructure and systems to the Cloud. To quote Tom Hansel, ImageSoft’s Director of Customer Care and episode host, we’ve “eaten our own dog food,” so we fully understand the significance of the migration. On the same token, we also continuously see this investment pay off – most notably when launching ImageSoft’s entirely remote operations at the onset of the 2020 pandemic and easing staff through the shift.

Join our own Senior Business Systems Administrator Bill Lussenheide and Cloud Services OnBase Admin Mark Hamilton, the pioneers of ImageSoft’s Cloud Hosting journey, as they discuss our company’s transitional experience and all the intricacies in between, including how to plan for the move, what to expect from an administrator’s perspective, security and compliance concerns, end-user benefits, best practices and more.

In Michigan, a Friend of the Court (FOC) is the regional name for a Child Support Enforcement office. Also in Michigan is the Ottawa County FOC – one of the state’s highest performing child support enforcement entities, and a leader in configuring automation and workflow technology to meet constituent needs, achieve state and federal statutes and safeguard trusted practices.  

In conversation with Ottawa County FOC’s Assistant Director Kathy Winston and Technology Specialist Amy Debault, we see how one, comprehensive platform can iron out even the most intricate of processes. After designing a workflow that mimicked the office’s historically manual processes, catering to the individual needs of case investigators, judicial clerks, support staff, and custody and bench workers, the Ottawa County FOC eliminated time wasted on manually retrieving a case and melted down turnaround time to one day. Succeeding with such a high case volume naturally qualifies their office for more federal incentive criteria.  

Join Kathy and Amy as they explore the numerous, realized benefits of digitalized child enforcement practices, including: integrations with Clerks and the Court for streamlined order creation and processing, automating much of the customer’s communication with electronic filing, greater accountability and transparency (including document redactions and the ability to block staff from certain documents), payment allocations and much more.  

Resources relating to the podcast can be found here:

Court Technology Standards - Application Component Model

As we continue navigating through the fog of curing novel Coronavirus, the practice of contact tracing has been a sturdy lighthouse for nation-wide public health departments.  

Many of us have heard about the concept of contact tracing in the news but, because of its rapidly evolving nature, aren’t entirely certain what it means or how it can help us. As we continue doing our part in flattening the curve and protecting our communities, and especially as schools and universities strategize the safest reopening protocols, it’s vital that we understand not only just the opportunities available to us, but what is actually working.  

To date, hundreds of millions of dollars have been poured into state-wide contact tracing initiatives only for the systems to crash and burn. Here at ImageSoft, we’ve dedicated a team to understanding what exactly is going wrong and how we can overcome it. Joining us for this bonus episode are two members of that team, Vince Hanson and Terry Chaudhuri, who have been on the frontlines of our contact tracing research. Tune in for this conversation as we define contact tracing and the tracers, explain how this concept differs from proximity tracing, deconstruct the most obstructive challenges to successful contact tracing and “trace the success” of what actually is working in several public health departments.  

“We’re tearing down your storage facility. Please find another place to keep your files.”    This was, essentially, the message that Washington’s Yakima County District Court received when it had over one-hundred thousand files warehoused at a soon-to-be-diminished storage facility. Receiving an excess of 2 million filings a year, Yakima County’s District Court Administrator Therese Murphy and Office Supervisor Tamara Williams knew they needed a long-term, safeguarded process for filings and storage, and they needed it yesterday.     Join Therese and Tamara as they journey us through their process of implementing, learning and, ultimately, succeeding with the electronic filing system TrueFiling. Not only did it transform their court operations, but it kept everyone up-and-running from home during the unforeseen Coronavirus pandemic.    A measure of their 2018 analytics revealed a return of: 

1. A 70 percent time saving in processing new civil suits (65,850 minutes down to 19,755 minutes) 
2. Overall cost savings of $15,000 
3. 40 extra hours of filing returned to volunteers 
4. Positive, feedback from the public, staff and especially the Judges!  

Picking up from Part I of our component model conversation with Kevin Bowling, current Chair of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Global Advisory Committee, we’re talking through the court’s biggest challenge post-pandemic: an urgent need for trusted court technology, and scarce funding.  

Join us as we journey with Kevin through the court manager’s gold-mine resource, – the Integrated Justice Information Systems Institute, or IJIS, – how the component model fits into your goals and your budget, and other creative workarounds for funding.  

Resources from the podcast are included below: 

1. IJIS (Integrated Justice Information Systems) Institute - The IJIS Institute is a nonprofit alliance working to promote and enable technology in the public sector and expand the use of information to maximize safety, efficiency, and productivity.  The IJISCourts Advisory Committee developed a Provider Directory that includes vendors for the court components - https://icacprovdir.ijis.org  
2. CA Court Stack - a practical application of the court component model 
3. Ultimately, we need to leverage our resources (including technology) to improve access to justice and provide a better customer service experience.   https://courts.michigan.gov/News-Events/press_releases/Documents/Justice%20for%20All%20Media%20Release%20FINAL-3.pdf 

             https://courts.michigan.gov/News-Events/Pages/Justice-for-All.aspx 

“We’re trying to open, adaptive and innovative, because that’s all we can do to do our part.” – Judge Amy Meachum, 201st District Court of Travis County, TX 

Around March 2020, courts across America abruptly switched from in-person hearings to Zoom-hosted verdicts. For most, this was a scramble of uncertainty and a steep learning curve. Finding their way with Zoom, aiSMARTBENCH and other digital tools, virtual court proceedings have become familiar, comfortable and, especially, productive. Now, with the opportunity to start reopening, Judges, Clerks, Court Admins and other justice personnel are questioning the benefits, if any, of returning to a completely in-person court. 

We handed the mic to three Judiciaries, all with diverse jurisdictions across the nation, for a panel discussion road mapping a more productive, secure and – dare we say – virtual future for the court. Tune in for their conversation on: the features of post versus pre-pandemic courts, which virtual courtroom tools are and are not working, using virtual courts as a staple process or a back-up plan, lessons learned so far, and much more! 

“Somebody wiser than me once said that you should ‘never waste a good crisis,’ and it seems like this pandemic has been a crisis for many of us in the court world.”

For 42 years and counting, Kevin Bowling has been serving the needs of justice administration and public service. Currently chairing the U.S. Department of Justice’s Global Advisory Committee, Kevin is now calling on his experience with the evolution of the court system to support next steps for the post-pandemic court. Speaking right into the heart of court administration, Kevin unearths all the relevant fruits of the component model, especially its role in sustaining a more inter-connected court and providing the opportunity to “plug-and-play” with various technologies that support the court’s adaption to a new normal, including litigant portals, jury management systems, and how to walk the fine line between access to justice and CJIS compliance.

 

Resources relating to the podcast can be found here:

1. Joint Technology Committee - JTC was established by COSCA (Conference of State Court Administrators), NACM (National Association for Court Management) and NCSC (National Center for State Courts).  For more info on JTC - https://www.ncsc.org/about-us/committees/joint-technology-committee
2. JTC develops and promotes technology standards - e.g., Court case management functional requirements; e-filing standards; jury management system requirements; ODR technical interface standards; https://www.ncsc.org/about-us/committees/joint-technology-committee/jtc-court-technology-standards
3. In addition to developing standards, JTC recognizes information sharing initiatives and standards developed by the Global Advisory Committee (GAC), e.g., National Information Exchange Model (NIEM), Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) Clearinghouse, Global Reference Architecture, Global Service Specification Packages (SSPs)
4. Court Component Model (CCM) - In 2017 JTC's work on the NextGen Court Technology Standards led to the development of the Court Component Model   https://www.ncsc.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0034/18979/nextgen-court-component-model-2017-12-08-final.pdf. 
5. The Court Component Model paper (JTC Resource Bulletin) describes each component, including its purpose and features.   https://www.ncsc.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0034/18979/nextgen-court-component-model-2017-12-08-final.pdf

Operating from our customer-centric value system means we approach every client interaction with great care. But to ensure world-class customer care means we also need a world-class approach and, up until about three years ago, that wasn’t always the case.    Journey with us as we map our Customer Care department’s transition from Microsoft CRM to the comprehensive case manager, OnBase WorkView. Sharing the mic today are a handful of ImageSoft originals: Patrick Dreyer, Senior Technical Support Engineer, Steve Michelin, Customer Care Lead, and our fearless OnBase Administrator Nathan Armaly. Each having unique OnBase user experiences, their conversation is fruitful in a range of WorkView capabilities, including its rapid development environment, consistent data presentation and relationships, rich resource database, incident management, ticket generation, its malleability in building out role-based dashboards for end users versus OnBase Admins, and so much more.  

Fun fact: Did you know that ImageSoft tends to speak from experience, sharing our own internal stories of success from being powered by OnBase? That’s right – we “toast our own champagne,” so to speak, and it all started in our Accounting Department.   

Join Director of Finance and HR Mary Beth Eddy, OnBase Administrator Nathan Armaly, and Business Systems Analyst Teresa Kobish as they discuss overcoming our accounting department’s most obstructive challenges with the highly-configurable capabilities of OnBase. Journey with us as we detail our accounting department’s process renovation, from perspectives of both the OnBase Admins and users, that expanded process visibility, enabled easier, more secure information sharing and transcended into an organization-wide transformation, including: 

• Automating the purchase requisition process 
• Managing unexpected costs for accounts payable  
• Struggling through inter-departmental content sharing via email  
• Developing a strict, auditable internal process for credit memos  

• Leveraging Unity forms and automated workflows  
• Comparing your data in OnBase with the Accounting ERP 
•  Safeguarding our ability to prevent fraud and clerical errors 
• Staying on top of subscription costs  

And much more!