Niche Technology, Inc.

The User Task Window displays all of a user's tasks and provides a means of maintaining a personal 'to do' list. Filters can be used to limit the display to the tasks that are of interest.

The Task Window displays the details of a task. It is used to assign or reassign the task, change its status, and to review and approve it.

Flexible task/workflow management. The task system allows time-critical jobs to be assigned to staff and monitored. Tasks can be created, assigned, re-assigned or transferred, and task initiator and/or supervisor approval can be required before a task can be closed. Once completed, if supervisor approval is required, the task re-appears on the supervisor's list for approval.

A typical example is the assignment of a court-ordered report to a probation officer. The officer's supervisor can determine whether the report has been completed and can approve it, send it back to the probation officer for more work, or re-assign the task to another person.

Supervisors can access task lists on a per unit/section basis to approve completed tasks or balance workload among staff. Units/sections can be defined hierarchically to allow a 'view' on task/workflow for a single unit, a group of units, or the entire facility. Staff can also create tasks for themselves as reminders.

Master filing & one-time data entry. Each item of data is recorded in the system only once. After it has been created, any piece of information (entity) can be linked to other entities. This avoids the complex tangle of repetitive and confusing query results that can occur when separate records for person, address, etc. are created for each incident.

The system uses master filing to store entities such as persons, cases, incidents and employees. For example, for any person who has been added to the database, you can run a quick search to locate existing information. When you open the person's file, you can access all of the information that has already been recorded and linked to that person, including pictures, descriptors, charges, next of kin, addresses, associates and so on. The system treats each individual item (address, scheduled event, etc.) as a separate piece of information that you can search for.