Mobile Software

Rocktown Police Department (RPD) is in the suburbs of a major city in the USA. Although RPD is fictional, it is typical of thousands of police departments across the Country. Homicides and other violent crime while occurring every few years, remain rare. This does not mean the RPD is not busy, they are. Residents of Rocktown have a high expectation that their streets, homes and children will be safe. When a traffic accident, vandalism or a burglary occurs the police are expected to handle it in a prompt, professional manner and for the most part they do.

At the same time, the RPD is expected to respond to a politician’s request to close off a street for a special purpose, be visible in the community and handle incidents at the local high school at a moments notice. Of course, all of this needs to be done while keeping overtime costs down.

It is now 1500 at RPD and the phone is starting to ring with the Shift Supervisor. Officer Mike Jones is sick and will not be able to make his shift. A dispatcher calls to say her car has broken down and she will be late. A detective needs approval for overtime to follow up on leads he is working on last night’s car break ins that happened at the local mall. When the officer called in sick, this will put the department below minimum staffing levels. The Supervisor will need to get an officer in to cover the shortage,but who? There are union rules that must be followed to determine which officer is offered the overtime.

All of the above activity must be recorded, often in multiple places. Employee records, payroll input and schedules must all be updated to reflect this information. Accountability and audit trails are becoming increasingly important as tax dollars become tighter. It is not unusual for a shift supervisor to spend 25% or more of his/her time dealing with this type of activity. This is time that is not spent out in the community, not spent supervising officers and not spent providing the service the tax payers expect.

RPD has had Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) software, a Records Management System (RMS) and Mobile software for many years. In some ways it makes sense; CAD, RMS and Mobile are the “core applications” of a police department. The shift scheduling, time off/overtime tracking and payroll processing remains a manual operation or a series of disparate systems often consisting of spreadsheets and word processing documents that have been created by officers in the Department.

Today, Departments need police shift scheduling software that will assist them in managing the schedule in a real time and efficient manner so their Supervisor’s time can be spent on higher value tasks.

By: Michael J McGuire