JTAC is pleased to welcome Judge James J. Joven and his staff to the growing number of courts operating on the Odyssey Case Management System. Tuesday August 24^th marked the first day the Lawrence Township Small Claims Court was operational as the 62^nd court statewide on the Odyssey CMS provided by JTAC.

Lawrence Township Small Claims Court processed over 7,100 new filings in 2009. Before this transition to Odyssey, Judge Joven and his staff used two separate case management systems for a number of years.  Data from the legacy system containing the most current case information was converted over the weekend of August 21^st.  The second legacy system’s data was converted on Wednesday evening August 25^th, and this completed the full conversion for the township.  Lawrence Township Small Claims Court data will be available this Friday through Odyssey Public Access.

Also, the Posey County court records are now available on Odyssey Public Access at mycase.in.gov.

Posey County officially transitioned to the Odyssey CMS on Monday August 16, becoming the 22^nd county in the state to do so.   With the addition of the Posey Superior and Circuit courts, the total number of courts operating on the Odyssey system statewide is now 61. Judges Almon and Redwine along with Clerk Butler and their respective staffs are to be commended for the effort they provided to ensure that the move from their legacy system to Odyssey was a seamless one.  Public access to Posey County court records should be available on or about August 30th.  The new system benefits not only the court and clerk users, but the public as well.  Attorneys and the public will be able to search court records online and avoid a phone call or trip to the courthouse.

Also, JTAC is training staff in the Posey County Prosecutor’s Office on Monday, August 23^rd so that they can review electronic traffic tickets in the eCWS Central Repository.  Once approved, these tickets will be electronically filed to Odyssey.

Harrison County Adult Probation Department Joins the Juvenile Probation Department in Using Odyssey Supervision

During the last week of June 2010, JTAC worked with the Harrison County Adult Probation Department to deploy the Odyssey Supervision product center within their organization. The first adult probation case in Harrison County was entered into Odyssey Supervision on July 2^nd. Over the last few weeks, the staff has worked diligently to add many more probation cases into the supervision program, prepared Pre-Sentence Investigation Reports, and entered contact notes on their individual clients’ records. They will begin utilizing the financial component of Odyssey Supervision on September 1, 2010.

JTAC thanks Chief Probation Officer Diane Harrison and all of the Harrison County Adult Probation staff for volunteering to be a pilot county for the Odyssey Supervision module. Their feedback has been invaluable and has significantly contributed to a successful deployment of the product.

DeKalb County Becomes the Third Pilot County to Use Odyssey Supervision

On July 28, 2010, Odyssey Supervision was successfully deployed to the DeKalb County Probation Department. Over a three-day period, JTAC worked with the adult and juvenile probation officers as well as the administrative staff to provide hands-on training and support.

During the next few weeks, the DeKalb County Probation staff will input their probation cases into Odyssey Supervision and will make preparations to begin using the financial aspect of Odyssey on September 1, 2010. Thank you to Chief Probation Officer Tim McAlhany for his leadership and guidance and to the rest of the DeKalb County Probation Department for their hard work in making this deployment such a success.

In the coming months, JTAC will be working with the Floyd County Superior II Probation Department and Alcohol and Drug Program, the Adult Probation Department, and the Juvenile Probation Department in order to fully deploy Odyssey Supervision in Floyd County.

Indiana Supreme Court Justice Frank Sullivan Jr., officially unveiled the Clark County Odyssey website on Monday when he visited Jeffersonville. 

Current and retired judges, along with state representatives and law enforcement officials, attended the presentation.

Judge Vicki Carmichael led the efforts for the courts, and Clerk Bratcher Haas provided leadership for the Clerk’s Office.  The new website is at mycase.in.gov.

Clark County went live with Odyssey on June 21^st.  The County has welcomed the change to a new case management system with open arms!  The judges in Clark County, Clerk Haas, and key court and clerk personnel have worked hand in hand with the JTAC staff on the implementation of Odyssey — through data clean up, conversion mappings, business process changes and training.  

JTAC thanks the entire County, especially Judge Carmichael and Judge Weber, for their leadership during this process.  Over 520,000 closed and pending cases were converted into the Odyssey case management system.  This is the first step that will allow the County to discontinue the maintenance and support of their legacy database.  The Clark County case information will be available to the public at mycase.in.gov in the coming weeks.

On June 1, 2010, Warren County became the second county in Indiana to begin using the Odyssey Supervision Product Center for Probation.  JTAC would like to thank Judge John Rader and the Probation staff for their willingness to help pilot this initiative!  By working side-by-side with Judge Rader, Chief Probation Officer Stacy Miley and Probation Secretary Kathy Jordan, training was completed over a four-day period and culminated in the successful deployment of the software.  During the next few weeks over 250 adult and juvenile cases will be entered into Odyssey Supervision by the Warren County Probation Department. 

JTAC is also working with the Harrison County Adult Probation Department and the DeKalb County Probation Department to deploy Odyssey Supervision in those counties.

On Monday, May 24^th, the Roanoke Town Court located in Huntington County became the 55^th court in Indiana to implement the Odyssey Case Management System.   Kudos to Judge Turpin and his staff for their successful deployment of Odyssey.  Following several weeks of technical and business process review by JTAC, Judge Turpin and his court staff received Odyssey training last Thursday and Friday. 

Odyssey deployment teams continue to work in Clark, Madison and Allen counties. 

Mark Rodriguez and Mark Harvey of Paperless Business Solutions, consultants to JTAC, began working with the Harrison County Juvenile Probation Department a few months ago in order to pilot Odyssey Supervision.    Odyssey Supervision pulls case and financial data from the court and clerk side of Odyssey and allows probation officers the ability to enter and track the following:  drug screens and medications, report on case activity, sanctions and administrative hearings, juvenile referrals, contact management and the ability to add documents to the case such as pre-sentence and pre-dispositional reports.

On Tuesday, April 27^th, the first supervision case was entered into Odyssey Supervision!  To date, the staff of the juvenile probation department have entered active cases, updated party info, added scheduled appointments, added contact notes, added referrals, assigned cases to a juvenile officer, posted charges on a new case, received payment and printed a receipt, reconciled the till, and printed a Receipt Journal Report and delivered it to the county auditor. 

Melani Kerr, a juvenile probation officer, was able to view her scheduled appointments (entered by Karen Melton, administrative assistant) and view the cases that have been assigned to her on her individual “Workspace” in Odyssey. 

The Juvenile Probation Department staff intends to enter over 154 active cases into Odyssey Supervision.  JTAC thanks Juvenile Probation Department Chief Elizabeth Day, Melani, Karen, Christa Manus and Judge H. Lloyd Whitis for piloting Odyssey Supervision!  JTAC will continue to pilot Odyssey Supervision with the Harrison County Adult Probation Department and the Warren County Probation Department in the coming weeks.

After receiving federal funding awarded by ICJI through the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, the Indiana Public Defender Council in partnership with JTAC are moving forward with the development of the Public Defender Information System.  A Working Group meeting, attended by representatives from the public defender community including attorneys, a PD office administrator and an investigative paralegal, was held last week at JTAC to test and review the first of six product builds. 

Attendees of the working group provided input regarding the functionality of system requirements and requested several modifications.  The first build consists of organizational and individual security features as well as importing case information from the Odyssey case management system.  Working group meetings for builds two and three are scheduled for June and July. 

The attendees (from left to right) are Deborah Outcalt (Monroe County), Kenneth Williams (Marion County), LaJuan Epperson (JTAC), Curtis Johnson (Shelby County), Don Murphy (IPDC) and Rand Lennox (JTAC consultant). Doug Long (Madison County) and Mary DePrez (JTAC) also attended the meeting.

JTAC’s Marriage License application will soon undergo two big changes.  An improved version will move to the new INcite framework, where it will join the Odyssey Data Warehouse, Mental Health Adjudication and the Protective Order applications.  Users can look forward to some new time-saving features, better screen layout, and enhanced data security.

In addition, a separate Public Pre-Application website will be available for individuals to initiate their own marriage licenses online.  Couples will be able to fill out virtual forms in the comfort of their own homes (or anywhere with Internet access) and spend much less time at the courthouse.  The Clerk would only need to ask four required questions in person, check the couple’s valid IDs and complete the application.  By using this system, we predict it will require only a few minutes at the Clerk’s counter, saving over half an hour on average!

Three counties have agreed to pilot the Public Pre-Application:  Allen, Tippecanoe and Vanderburgh.  We are grateful for their interest and look forward to working with them on this new release!