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!

JTAC began the pilot phase of the POR Odyssey interface in March 2010. The interface between the two systems was designed to save time and effort.  DeKalb County has processed 208 transactions on 46 separate orders.  This includes adding parties, creating cases, issuing orders, showing service, and setting hearings.  Technically, those 208 transactions were processed only once, rather than in both systems.  “I have found that it has worked very well and I am already seeing significant advantages to having everything come over from the Protection Order Registry to Odyssey,” said Laura Marchus, Assistant Court Reporter in DeKalb Superior Court II.

According to Marty Grimm, DeKalb County Clerk, “DeKalb County proclaims it a successful interface.”

The Warren Township Small Claims Court  earned the distinction of becoming the fifth small claims court in Marion County  to implement the Odyssey case management system when they opened for business on Monday, April 12.

The addition of the Warren Township court, under the direction of Judge Ricardo Rivera, brings the total number of Odyssey  courts statewide to 54.

JTAC would like to take this opportunity to thank Judge Rivera  and his staff for the effort they provided to make the transition to Odyssey such a success!

Carroll County has the distinction of becoming the 20^th county to implement the Indiana Supreme Court’s Odyssey Case Management System when they opened for business Monday April 5th.

With the addition of Carroll Circuit Court, presided over by Judge Donald Currie, and Carroll Superior Court, under the direction of Judge Jeffrey Smith, the total number of courts using Odyssey statewide is 53.

JTAC thanks Judges Currie and Smith along with Clerk Nancy Mattox and their respective staff members for the tremendous effort they put forth to make the transition to Odyssey such a success. 

Carroll County court records will be available on Odyssey Public Access on or about May 1^st!

A new child support calculator—designed for use by judges, court staff, attorneys, and other practitioners familiar with the Child Support Guidelines—is now available on the Indiana Courts website.  The calculator for parents was launched on January 1, 2010, and was the first of a new series of calculators based on the 2010 Guidelines.  Both calculators have been developed with guidance from the Domestic Relations Committee.  The child support calculator website was visited over 80,000 times during the first quarter of 2010.

The new Calculator for Practitioners was designed to meet the needs of busy courts, legal professionals, and social workers.  Some features include:

• Two keyboard-friendly pages of data entry: Children information is entered into a table on the first page, and all other information is entered on page two.  Users can tab through from field to field for most of the inputs.

• Calculate support for cases with third party custody: The number of overnights need not total 365 as in the Calculator for Parents.  In these cases, both parents are assigned an obligation on Line 8 of the Child Support Obligation Worksheet.

• Get all forms in one document: The calculator generates only the forms that are required based on the information entered, and now you can open, print, and save all forms in one document, called the All Forms Package (available on the summary page).

• Open a saved calculation in either calculator: If you have previously used the Calculator for Parents to create forms, and you saved those calculations, you can open them in the Calculator for Practitioners using the transaction number assigned when you saved.

To access the new Calculator for Practitioners go to: https://mycourts.in.gov/csc/Practitioners