New Carrollton Police Department Puts Alpha Five on Patrol New Carrollton Police Department

“Our officers can’t believe how much easier life has become thanks to Alpha Five. Tedious and imperfect paperwork is now a thing of the past. And the best part is, we were able to build this application ourselves, without having to hire consultants or programmers.”

Lieutenant Richard Hartnett,,
Director of IT, New Carrollton Police Department

Customer Situation

The New Carrollton Police Department needed a way to computerize their incident reports. Their paper forms were repetitive, tedious, time consuming, and at risk for errors or misfiling. Lieutenant Richard Hartnett, Director of IT at New Carrollton Police Department, wanted a database that would let officers write an electronic incident report using the mobile computers in their squad cars. He wanted the reports available to other officers in the field, at the station, and from other counties, all in real time. He also wanted to eliminate time wasted due to repetitive entries. Every time a person was involved in an incident, their information would have to be re-entered on a new paper form. Lt. Hartnett wanted officers to enter information once, then pull up the appropriate database record and update it as necessary. Lastly, computerized forms would solve the problem of space limitations that the current paper reports presented. Lt. Hartnett knew the answer was a Web-based database, but like most cops-turned-IT pro, he didn’t have the programming skills required to build it from scratch. Or so he thought.

Partner Solution

Lt. Hartnett had some IT experience through his previous position at the Berwyn Heights Police Department. He had previously used OmniForm to computerize Berwyn Heights’ incident reports. But that old platform wasn’t Web-based, wasn’t programmable, and required information be batch transferred from officers’ vehicle computers to the station at the end of each shift. After experimenting with several tools without success, Lt. Hartnett discovered Alpha Five. He quickly got up to speed with Alpha Five’s visual approach to application development, and had an initial version of New Carrollton’s database operational in short order. By using Alpha Five’s Action Scripting, component builders, Genies, and built-in Web security framework, Lt. Hartnett didn’t have to write a lick of code. And because the application lived on the Web, he could deploy it once, and provide access anywhere there’s a secure IP connection. He didn’t have to install any software on individual PCs or in officers’ vehicles.

Benefits

The result: a high-performance, intuitive Web database that is now addressing all of the requirements the department established for it. Its design lets officers enter an electronic report in the field, and have that report immediately accessible by other officers in the field or back at the station. And because it’s Web-based, no special software, hardware, or other components need to be installed in officers’ computers or cars. They simply fire up a Web browser, enter the URL of the database, key in their credentials, and get instant access to the entire incident records management system. Alpha Five’s powerful yet easy-to-use tools made it possible for Lt. Hartnett to achieve the lofty goals he established for the database, without having to learn a computer language or writing a single line of code. As a result, New Carrollton and five other municipal police departments are now tied into the system, giving hundreds of local officers access to critical incident information in real time. In fact, the system has been so successful with the six police departments, Lt. Hartnett hopes to expand that access to law enforcement agencies throughout Maryland and beyond.

For More Information

Alpha Software, Inc.
781-229-4500
www.AlphaSoftware.com

New Carrollton Police Department
301-459-0142
www.NewCarrolltonPD.com