PLANO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tyler Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: TYL) announced recipients of its 2016 Tyler Public Sector Excellence Awards for the Odyssey® courts and justice solution and its first recipient for Tyler’s SoftCode™ civil processing solution. The national Odyssey winners were named at Tyler’s Connect national user conference in Phoenix, and the Texas winners were named at the Odyssey user conference in Austin.
National winners included Fulton County, Georgia; the Minnesota Judicial Branch; the Indiana Supreme Court; and Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts. Texas winners included El Paso County, Cameron County District Clerk, Travis County Justice of the Peace, Precinct Two, Dallas County and Grayson County. Texas finalists included the Cameron County Office of the County Clerk. National and Texas winners were awarded for increasing efficiencies, improving access to justice and moving toward a paperless environment by implementing Odyssey.
The City of New York, Department of Finance, Treasury Division won the 2016 Tyler SoftCode Public Sector Excellence Award. As an inaugural award, it’s the first time that this top achievement was given to a SoftCode client. Tyler acquired SoftCode, a company specializing in software for managing civil processes, in September 2014. The treasury division was recognized for their work with the Court Assets Tracking System (CATS) database to manage New York City’s cash bail and court and trust cases. SoftCode engineered CATS to satisfy all the state and city recordkeeping, reporting and disbursement requirements.
“We are pleased to publicly recognize innovative clients that serve as thought leaders for other members of the judicial community,” said Jeff Puckett, president of Tyler’s Courts & Justice Division. “These clients are continuously finding ways to improve their court systems and use Odyssey to create efficiencies and enhance access to justice.”
Tyler’s Excellence Awards for Odyssey recognize organizations that demonstrate excellence in deploying Odyssey in novel and impactful ways that extend best practices. Award submissions were evaluated by a panel of Tyler leadership and entries were judged on business value, maturity, innovation and relevance to other public sector organizations. Additional criteria met by award winners includes:
• Creating a unique process that utilizes Odyssey
• Realizing significant savings and efficiencies after implementing Odyssey
• Increasing staff productivity by implementing Odyssey
• Empowering employees, citizens or vendors
Odyssey’s Tyler Excellence Award national winners were honored in May at the Connect 2016 user conference in Phoenix, where they were presented with the award and given the opportunity to share their best practices and lessons learned with their public sector peers so that others could learn from their unique experiences.
Fulton County Superior Court, Georgia
After implementing Odyssey, Fulton County realized the next step to transform their court was to put into action mandatory electronic filing via Odyssey eFileGA™. Odyssey eFileGA offered a user-friendly system that integrated with Odyssey and provided the opportunity to model excellence in customer service and efficiency, which was an important responsibility for Fulton as the largest county in Georgia. With the highest case count among superior courts in Georgia, e-filing provided Fulton with cost and time-saving benefits, reduced paper flowing into the system, and freed up storage space.
Minnesota Judicial Branch
Statewide rollout of the Odyssey Portal™ in the Minnesota Judicial Branch began in October 2015 and was completed in spring 2016. As of January 2016, about 5,000 users from more than 130 statewide justice partner agencies were using the Odyssey Portal. This rollout enabled the Minnesota Judicial Branch to move toward a completely electronic environment, consistent with the eCourtMN goal. The solution provided electronic access to all justice partner agencies across the state, including law enforcement and public defenders. Odyssey also expanded court record and document access, allowing justice partners to work more efficiently and reduce dependency on clerks.
Indiana Supreme Court, Division of State Court Administration
The Indiana Supreme Court selected Odyssey to equip all of the state’s 400 courts with a single, statewide case and financial management system to integrate all agencies so they can easily share information and manage caseloads faster and more cost-effectively. Odyssey has been deployed to 238 courts, operates in 55 of Indiana’s 92 counties, and represents 62 percent of all new cases filed. As more counties adopt Odyssey in 2016, the system will handle more than 80 percent of all cases. In 2015, the Court implemented the Odyssey e-filing solution, and combined with Odyssey Case Manager™, it provided paperless operations. Additionally, e-filing decreased costs to litigants and increased access to justice.
Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts
Miami-Dade’s civil courts are spread across one of the most populous jurisdictions in the U.S., serving more than 2.6 million residents. The county’s Odyssey implementation demonstrated how technology can produce a paradigm shift in doing business. In March 2015, the circuit and county civil courts implementation created paperless operations across eight district court locations via the use of Odyssey Case Manager’s core functionality, workflow-targeted electronic document queues and the API Toolkit for multiple real-time integrations, automating case creation and docketing via electronic filing. The project involved conversion of 4.3 million cases, 17.5 million parties and 9.5 million dockets, as well as the production of 150 application workflows and the intake of a 10-million document repository that was processed off-site over an eight-month timeframe.
Texas winners were honored on March 29 at the Odyssey 2016 user conference in Austin, where they were presented with the award and given the opportunity to share their best practices and lessons learned.
El Paso County
In 2013, El Paso County implemented the Odyssey integrated criminal justice (ICJ) solution in all courts, detention facilities, clerks’ offices, adult supervision and support departments. Odyssey became the central driving system to support eight major integrations — AFIS, E-Notary, RMS, Sex Offender, Warrants Search, E-Bond, Scofflaw and the DA Case Portal. This resulted in significant cost and time savings to the county and constituents served, as well as provided increased information sharing and improved efficiency.
Cameron County
Cameron County implemented Odyssey Workflow, e-signatures and Odyssey Judge Edition™ to achieve a paperless office, streamlining court processes from days or weeks to less than half that time. The implementation of workflow queues and e-signatures in the civil/family department was so successful that the solutions were also implemented in Criminal, Tax Suit and the IV-D and CPS Court. This implementation enabled the courts to e-file, electronically sign orders and increase information accessibility among the court staff, judges and public.
Travis County Justice of the Peace, Precinct Two
Travis County used Odyssey to facilitate a paper-on-demand operation, enabling access to all case information and seamlessly moving documents between departments at the Travis County Justice of the Peace, Precinct Two. The criminal division is completely paperless, from case origins at the clerk’s counter to delinquent case warrant status. Precinct Two implemented a signature pad program into the warrants division, allowing clerks and law enforcement officers to sign documents digitally using document paths and queues, eliminating paper and saving time. Using Odyssey® SessionWorks Judge Edition, judges can instantly review all case documents, and clerks can immediately move documents into the judge’s queue for his signature and easily check-in people for hearings.
Dallas County
Dallas County leveraged Odyssey to optimize business processes and reduce costs. Odyssey digitized paper content for all 28 civil courts within both the District and County Clerk’s office. The county also deployed eFileTexas™, Odyssey document management features, Odyssey Judge Edition, Odyssey Portal, Optical Character Recognition and Record of Appeal for cost savings and increased efficiency.
Grayson County
Grayson County implemented Odyssey to achieve a paperless environment. All probate and civil pleadings are electronically filed via eFileTexas. Images and financial payments are automatically transferred into Odyssey. All correspondence, including notices of hearings and court documents, are completely automated. Odyssey helped Grayson County create an electronic county seal, file stamp and digital signature for all court personnel. Documents are easily transmitted between the clerk and the court via queues.
“We’d like to thank all of our Excellence Award participants for sharing their successes,” said Puckett. “Congratulations to the national and Texas winners and finalists of Odyssey’s Tyler Excellence Awards.”
About Tyler Technologies, Inc.
Tyler Technologies (NYSE: TYL) is a leading provider of end-to-end information management solutions and services for local governments. Tyler partners with clients to empower the public sector — cities, counties, schools and other government entities — to become more efficient, more accessible and more responsive to the needs of citizens. Tyler’s client base includes more than 14,000 local government offices in all 50 states, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and other international locations. Forbes has named Tyler one of “America’s Best Small Companies” eight times and the company has been included six times on the Barron’s 400 Index, a measure of the most promising companies in America. More information about Tyler Technologies, headquartered in Plano, Texas, can be found at www.tylertech.com.
