Law Enforcement Software
Law Enforcement Software
The Crimestar CAD system routinely retrieves active unit and event data records from the database server to each CAD workstation in operation. Once the result set list(s) of active unit and active event records has been retrieved, the CAD workstation status monitors may be configured to filter that list of records by Beat, Sector, District and/or Type. This workstation filtering determines which records appear on the CAD status monitor(s) for any specific CAD workstation. Since the CAD Workstation allows you to open and maintain multiple status monitors, each of several status monitors can filter that data differently, if desired, which allows the dispatcher to layout the work environment in a variety of ways.
While this process works very well for relatively small numbers of unit and event records, in large distributed dispatch environments with hundreds or perhaps thousands of units and/or events it would be overwhelming and unmanageable for each dispatcher to monitor all that activity. When data volumes get large it is critically necessary to divide the records into groups called "Command Areas" to make things easier to manage. A "Command Area" could be a dispatcher within a single call center or it could be a group of dispatchers in one of several regional call centers where those records will be managed. By separating the records into these logical groups it keeps the number of data records retrieved by any given CAD workstation to a smaller more manageable subset of the total number of units and events which can then be filtered locally. This reduces network traffic and improves the overall system performance. To accomplish this Crimestar CAD implements COMMAND AREA data retrieval. While most small dispatch centers will have no need to use this feature, it can be invaluable to larger distributed dispatch operations where there are large numbers of CAD workstations and/or when the CAD workstations are running in different regional call centers. By setting a CAD workstation to a specific "Command Area ID", each unit that is placed in-service, and each event that is created by that workstation is automatically linked to the same command area. Only those CAD workstations that are set to the same command area ID will retrieve and display those respective units or events. Multiple command areas can be defined via the Crimestar system code tables and different groups of CAD workstations can be set to different command areas thus separating the large number of units and events stored in the central database into logical groups. Then each logical group of records retrieved to a CAD Workstation can then be filtered to further refine the subset of data that any specific dispatcher needs to manage.
In the example below, we illustrate a dispatch environment where there are 300 units in service and 80 active events. To handle all this activity, we have the luxury of several dispatchers. This is for illustration purposes only. The number of dispatchers, call takers or operations centers that you use will vary widely depending upon the structure of your organization. These active unit and event records are then divided into 3 different command areas, where each CAD workstation assigned to a specific command area retrieves only those data records associated with that command area. Then once those command area records have been retrieved, each CAD workstation may filter its status monitors to show only the units and events that are associated with a specific, Beat, Sector or District or that are of a specific Unit Type. This design makes the list of units and events that appear on any given status monitor much smaller and more manageable for a single dispatcher.
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It is important to note that command area data retrieval is only for the benefit of status monitor displays. At any time, any CAD workstation can act upon ANY unit or ANY event within the entire system. Any CAD workstation can change or switch their command area assignment to a different command area ID, thus causing their status monitors to show the set of units or events assigned to that alternate command area. This allows one or more dispatcher to immediately take over operations for another command area in the event that another call center were to go down for some reason such as a power loss. Likewise, without switching command areas, a CAD workstation can transfer a Unit or an Event to a different command area.
* Units and Events that have no specific command area assignment are considered to be in the Default command area and will appear on ALL status monitors regardless of the command area assignment for the CAD workstation.
A CAD Workstation can be set to a specific Command Area by issuing the "CA.CommandAreaID" command on the CAD Control Panel command line. Example. To set a CAD Workstation to command area "A1", the 2 character command area code must first have be defined in the System Configuration code table for CAD - Command Areas. Then on the CAD control panel command line you would enter CA.A1 The CAD Control Panel title bar will then indicate that it is set to Command Area: A1. Command Area ID Codes are 2 characters long allowing for over 1200 possible ID codes.
A default command area value may be specified for each CAD Workstation by using the COMMAND_AREA= entry in the [CAD] section of the crimestar.ini configuration file.
* Units may be switched from one command area to another via the CAD Unit Assignment dialog form.
* Events may be switched from one command area to another by clicking the small [microphone] button located immediately to the right of the Event # display at the top of the event form.