As emergency communications become more complex, public safety organizations need a reliable solution for recording and incident intelligence. We’ve talked about our experience with NICE Inform and the different modules offered within the platform before, but we’ll focus on a mission-critical upgrade to the Inform system: NICE Inform Elite.
How NICE Inform Elite fits into the NICE Suite
NICE Inform is a platform comprised of modular applications for incident information management that is compatible with conventional and NG911 environments. In simpler terms, it records multimedia interactions between the public, emergency centers, and first responders, and then offers additional modules and suites that you can upgrade to based on your PSAP’s needs.
The levels of the NICE Inform system are as follows:
- NICE Inform Essential
- NICE Inform Professional
- NICE Inform Elite
NICE Inform Elite includes the entire toolset that the NICE Inform platform has to offer:
- NICE Inform Evaluator for quality assurance
- NICE Inform Organizer for evidence management and incident reconstruction
- NICE Inform Reporter for customizable reports
- …and more
One of the biggest differentiators of NICE Inform Elite is the fact that it includes integration with your CAD (computer aided dispatch) system. Within Elite, all CAD incident data is automatically collected and then synchronized with call, radio, text-to-911, and console screen recordings. It is then further put into context to help you improve investigations, policy compliance, and employee performance.
While we’ll focus primarily on how an integration with your CAD data can significantly improve your PSAP operations, other differentiating features in NICE Inform Elite include GIS mapping and Text-to-911 integration. Please feel free to inquire with the Wilmac team if you’d like to learn more about these features specifically.
What is CAD Integration?
First, a CAD system allows public safety operations and communications to be augmented, assisted, or partially controlled by an automated system. It can include, among other capabilities, computer-controlled emergency vehicle dispatching, vehicle status, incident reporting, and management information.
The key here is that all aspects of a CAD system must be optimized for rapid response time and system reliability. Time is of the essence, so your CAD system must accurately provide a date and time stamp for every activity.
NICE Inform Elite includes a module called CAD Incident Analytics, which eliminates unnecessary steps in searching for recordings as you respond to media requests for incident investigation. Instead of manually matching time ranges of recorded communications to CAD incident records, you have all you need in one place.
Integrating with Motorola, Hexagon (Intergraph), TriTech, and others, NICE Inform Elite has easily configurable gateways that make it straight forward to integrate with any mainstream CAD system.
Benefits of using NICE Inform Elite
With the addition of CAD data integration, the value of NICE Inform Elite cannot be understated.
Fulfill evidence requests in half the time
Eliminate unnecessary steps in searching for recordings. You can display significant CAD system events that occurred over the course of each incident, such as dispatch of units, suspect condition, or on-scene arrival on a timeline alongside synchronized media recordings. Many agencies are now mandated to provide discovery in a short period of time, so CAD integration can save resources and minimize time spent on wading through hundreds or thousands of calls manually.
Get a more complete picture of the incident
CAD integration provides a clearer indication of what information was available at the time decisions were made, which cannot be readily obtained from reviews of recordings and metadata in separate information silos.
Expedite multimedia incident reconstruction
Associating CAD incident data to all types of recorded communications, you can simply search for recorded audio and text communications in one step based on a set of CAD parameters. This can significantly improve your turnaround time for discovery and save resources, especially in complying with updated mandates that require quicker turnaround.
Auto-select calls for quality assurance by CAD incident type
Combine CAD data parameters such as incident type or severity with other metadata in your rules for automated election of the prescribed number and type of recordings for evaluation. You can now place greater emphasis on tracking protocol compliance in specific call types that expose you to greater liability, such as high-priority police incidents.
Back up your primary communications system
The NICE Inform platform also offers redundancy for your PSAP, which ensures that there is no single point of failure if a natural disaster or large-scale emergency occurred that resulted in outages to your communications infrastructure. Instead, you can have peace of mind knowing that your redundant system has a second site that captures and stores backup recordings for the other site.
In Summary…
NICE Inform Elite is a comprehensive recording and incident management platform for public safety professionals. What makes NICE Inform Elite different from the basic Essential and Professional levels is that it includes integration with your CAD system, GIS mapping, Text-to-911 integration, and useful tools like Evaluator, Organizer, and Reporter. The addition of your CAD data into incident management gives you a holistic understanding of what happened and keeps all your incident data in one unified platform instead of having to manage separate data siloes.
To review how you can upgrade to NICE Inform Elite and reap the benefits we reviewed, contact Wilmac.