When we first started working with Arkansas Division of Youth Services in 2004 the primary goal was to replace an aging information system for managing their juvenile population. RiteTrack was chosen because of its flexible and easily modifiable platform and because of the Microsoft .NET-based architecture. DYS went live with RiteTrack in October 2004. Since then RiteTrack has evolved dramatically from its initial purpose. Today Arkansas DYS is near the completion of a major upgrade which involves a series of new solutions designed to serve additional needs as well as replacing a few other legacy applications. At the same time DYS will be upgraded to the latest version of the RiteTrack platform.
The first change users of RiteTrack at DYS will notice is an overhauled document management system. Last year DYS made a decision to make RiteTrack their primary document management system rather than trying to adapt a standalone legacy document management solution to work with RiteTrack. Documents can now easily be attached to an individual client, a group of clients, an event, a case, or an academic record. Says Melissa Nickols, Application and Systems Manager of DYS' Systems Unit, "with our old system it was very difficult to associate an electronic document with a specific client or perhaps even a group of people. We might have a purchase order that is associated with several clients. With RiteTrack we can now easily affiliate this document with a group of people or an event and thus show how the specific costs are actually applied. By integrating the document management system directly into RiteTrack our users will have a much easier way to associate and retrieve documents."
This spring DYS is also launching their new RiteTrack Education Management System. Again, tightly integrated with the existing RiteTrack solution, education staff at DYS will now be able to easily track class rosters, attendance, test scores, and grades. A new treatment plan is also in final stages of completion. While RiteTrack has always had a treatment plan component, the new system is highly tailored to the unique needs of DYS.
The Systems Unit who is in charge of RiteTrack as well as all other IT support at DYS is also for the first time getting their own slice of RiteTrack functionality. The new Help Desk Support system will automate the management of all help desk issues. A user who may be across the state from DYS main office in Little Rock can now use RiteTrack to request IT support. The ticket, say a request to correct information on a client, will be routed by RiteTrack to the appropriate support person. This person gets a notification through the RiteTrack Notification System. They update the client information which then shows up at the user's site.
The end-users at DYS are not the only benefactors of new RiteTrack functionality. Ron Angel, Director of DYS is very excited about the new RiteTrack Dashboard he will soon have on his computer. The Dashboard provides real-time statistics in an easy to read graphical user interface. Based on a RiteTrack web service, Dashboards can be configured to report on any data.
Example of RiteTrack Dashboard at DYS
In Mr. Angel's case, the key gauges on his dashboard will include up to date census data on the current DYS juvenile population, broken down by race, gender, and age. The Dashboard allows further "drilling down" into specific areas based on a single click on a graph. Additional critical gauges on the dashboard include sex offender data, acute care data, and AWOL data.
Arkansas Division of Youth Services is a great example of an agency who originally obtained RiteTrack for a specific reason but who continues to find new uses for the platform. "We don't see an end in sight any time soon. If RiteTrack can continue to solve our problems we see no need to invest in other third-party applications. With each new RiteTrack module added we are building an integrated enterprise solution that solves all of the information needs of our agency" says Nickols.