Frequently Asked Questions about
Versaterm CommunityReport
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What's the difference between CommunityReport and Case Number?
CommunityReport is technology used by law enforcement agencies to facilitate automated engagements with the people they serve. Each agency has their own Case Number website URL, mobile applications (iOS and Android). Case Number refers to the public-facing side of our CommunityReport system.
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How is conversational AI reporting different from first-generation online reporting?
First-generation reporting is like requiring someone to fill out a long paper form on a computer screen. Online forms are hard for the same reasons paper forms can be difficult, so first-time reporters are often unable or unwilling to complete the process. If they don’t just give up, then agency staff often struggle to address missing or inaccurate details.
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With conversational AI, the reporting party is engaged in a dialogue with a virtual investigator. The conversation begins by establishing the reason the person has engaged so the system can zero-in on how to handle their report or request. The system has intelligence that helps the person with the correct outcome given the situation or request they have communicated. For example, a referral to “Call 911 right now,” is only one of many outcomes that the system must be able to accommodate. The conversation covers other key “guardrail” checks to detect situations where the agency needs to serve them a different way (ex., patrol response, another department or agency). This is followed by an efficient collection of the remaining facts needed for an official report.
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How does Versaterm CommunityReport work with my current Records Management System (RMS)?
CommunityReport is an add-on module and is integrated with your Versaterm RMS in several important ways. First, the virtual investigator incorporates your incident-based reporting system standards (NIBRS, CIBRS, etc.). After the initial submission, the report is automatically pre-validated by the RMS. Upon report review and approval in CommunityReport, the report is digitally transferred to your RMS and a corresponding case number (“GO number”) is recorded and made available to the reporting party through automated notifications. Being fully integrated into your Versaterm RMS, CommunityReport also enables options for “auto-transcription” of approved reports.
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CommunityReport now also integrates with most 3rd-party RMS systems from other vendors. An API for 3rd-party RMS systems is available to connect to retrieve reports. It also offers NIBRS/CCJS-based report collection as well as state specific. An automatic case number is generated, and an automatic receipt is sent to the community member. Table ingestion in Versaterm provided format is available, and street validation is offered vis Google API or client provided ESRI online.
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Some people are concerned about AI systems like ChatGPT. The news is saying it is overrated and even creating some problems. How is CommunityReport using AI and what does this mean for us?
There are many new technologies that are associated with the term, “artificial intelligence” or “A.I.” One area of rapid advancement is something called, “generative AI” that uses large amounts of digital information to build a computational model. ChatGPT stands for “chat generative pre-trained transformer.” This basically serves as a high-power auto-complete feature to help someone generate new text content. It relies on a world of digital information (both good and bad) to help generate answers to questions one might pose to the chat-based input system.
CommunityReport does not use generative AI, but instead is leveraging other AI advancements in support of real-life conversations including Natural Language Processing (NLP), Natural Language Understanding (NLU), Foreign Language Translation (bi-directional), Enhanced speech-to-text (voice), and most importantly--public safety specific AI-models. With these technologies, CommunityReport is an ever-improving conversational system that listens, asks questions, and adapts based on responses. The investigative conversations are authored by domain experts in policing, whose goal is to help people engage in an investigation smoothly and efficiently.
We want to send patrol officers to some non-urgent calls. Can we control which callers are helped using automation?
Absolutely. Telecommunicators have the control to either send a unit, add the call to a queue, or direct the caller to an agency website. You can also transfer the caller to the phone number for the speech-enabled virtual agent that can send a SMS text to call caller with a link to CommunityReport . Call volume and patrol staffing will likely impact the choices you make, as well as the incident types your agency chooses to target for automated handling.
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How involved does our IT team need to be during installation and subsequent use?
Minimal. There is no hardware or software installation required for your agency. If agency staff have a web browser, they can access the CommunityReport Agency Review portal. During on-boarding, IT support may wish to alter existing agency web pages by adding or updating content and links people use to begin reporting.
We have a specific police report format we use. Can we change the CommunityReport format?
Yes. During on-boarding, agency-specific report template configuration is possible, but most agencies find the default templates serve their needs well.
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What if the caller only speaks Spanish or another language?
The CommunityReport voice app will ask callers to specify English or another language. The Case Number web-chat portal has over 60 languages that can be selected, and 30 languages for voice engagement. Incident details can be subsequently translated by the staff who review the report using a built-in translate function, and approved reports are presented to RMS in English. If follow-up questions are needed, the system will translate the reviewer’s custom questions into the language used by the reporting party and send those to out automatically.
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Why would we want to ask people to use CommunityReport instead of sending a patrol unit?
Non-emergency calls are mostly administrative in nature and become a lower priority when things are busy. With CommunityReport, many of these callers can get instant and effective service using this friendly and efficient system. Sending these callers to CommunityReport creates greater patrol capacity so your officers can focus on other activities, increase safety, and do more proactive policing. Community engagement with CommunityReport also helps keep reporting parties well-informed as your agency processes their case. For any given call, your agency can choose to send a unit, add the call to the queue and make the reporting party wait, or transfer the caller to CommunityReport immediately. In many situations, CommunityReport gives you first-call resolution of the calls you designate. Finally, CommunityReport is designed to improve and automate processing throughout the reporting life cycle with robust integration with your RMS and helpful automatic notifications.