Slick CAD software message handling

[Guest guest]

Our CAD system leaves a lot to be desired, but it works, and it serves our

purposes rather well. It's outdated, text-only, no mapping, and command-line

driven, but it does a danged good job for us. (Doesn't stop us wishing for

better stuff..)

Anyway, 21 of our 24 Comm Centers have CAD systems (the remaining three still

use handwritten cards). Although it's the same system, they are not all running

on the same servers; there are 11 different CAD hosts. We can sent messages to

any of our Comm Centers - or Area Offices - but we can't manipulate CAD logs for

another Comm Center unless it shares the host server.

If we get CAD log routed to us from a Comm Center on another server, it's simply

a screen message, rather like a " teletype " message, and we have to turn around

and create a whole new CAD log on our own server to handle it as a call with CAD

functions. Otherwise it's just a message about something.

Well, there's this relatively new toll-free telephone number for reporting

anything to the CHP, from anywhere: 1-800-TELL-CHP. That number is answered in

Sacramento, and until recently, they've had to transfer the call or relay the

information via telephone to the appropriate Comm Center after it's been

determined where the call needs to go.

Just a couple of weeks ago, software was developed for the Sacramento

1-800-TELL-CHP system that actually sends a message in CAD format to the main

CAD terminal (listed in the system as being staffed 24 hours a day regardless of

the Center's staffing level) to the other 20 Comm Centers. (The person staffing

the TELL CHP position in Sacramento has choose the correct Comm Center.)

These messages appear on the screen, formatted with default beat assignments - a

" drop " beat, if you will - as an incomplete CAD log. The recipient then changes

the drop beat to the correct one, edits the location line as necessary, and then

hits " enter " to make it a (local) CAD incident. From that point on, it's just

like any other CAD log we created, with all attendant functions.

Pretty danged slick!

This means calls can be received for our agency from ANY phone anywhere in the

nation, and the information can be routed to the appropriate CHP Comm Center

without excessive call-transferring or fuss for the caller. It also encourages

the use of an alternate number for reporting NON-emergency incidents so maybe we

won't get quite as many wireless 9-1-1 calls that should have come in on some

other line.

A guy visiting Monterey County from some other part of the state just used it to

report a NON-emergency, reached Sacramento where they took the call and routed

the incident to us for processing in CAD, and we created a CAD log without

having to re-type everything, and we're off to go take his report.

I'm thrilled it worked, thrilled that the guy didn't use his cell phone to call

9-1-1, and thrilled that a CHP dispatcher (way over there in Sacramento) handled

his call instead of getting it sorta-kinda processed via an allied agency

dispatcher. (No complaint about allied agencies, but we know our departmental

procedures and y'all don't, so there are bound to be differences in some things,

right??) No transfer and Repeat-Everything-You-Just-Told-Somebody-Else, either!

Now, don't ask our dispatchers in Sacramento if THEY like handling these calls!

Somebody waaaay upstairs cooked up this scheme and there's been a lot of

struggle to make it work even this well.

But, having just watched one o' them calls show up on the #1 console CAD screen,

walking the dispatcher through the steps (I think this is only the second one

we've received since the software was developed), and our officer made contact

with the caller at the scene, I'm pretty jazzed.

Service to the public - that's what it's all about.

... now, about that squirrel......

Happy to be here, proud to serve.