Background of Next Generation Project
Nearly 75 percent of Michigan’s trial courts use JIS’ current case management system (CMS). As the primary provider of CMS in the state, it is imperative that JIS plan on meeting trial courts’ needs in the immediate and long-term future. While the existing systems have worked well for many years, they are written in COBOL, a 30-year-old programming language and do not take full advantage of recent innovations in technology. For instance, the current systems require that each court maintain an AS/400 to run the programs. This means that semi-annual updates must be done manually by each court.
By contrast, modern technology tools and the internet make it possible to have a centralized system that JIS can design, support, and distribute statewide, and a new system could integrate all court functions into one application. Updates would be made more quickly and easily, and the system would provide better business features and reporting tools. The adaptability of the new system would also allow JIS to more efficiently respond to legislative requirements and changes to courts’ needs.
Recognizing a need to update the systems, the judiciary began exploring the possible options in 2005. Two options were identified: license a commercial case management system modified for Michigan court requirements or partner with a vendor to build a new system specifically designed for Michigan courts.
A formal evaluation team, which included trial court judges, administrators, and technical staff, assessed both options, attended demonstrations from Unisys, IBM, Compuware, and Tyler Technologies. Unisys, IBM and Compuware each had prior experience with court technology and presented proposals for building new case management systems designed for Michigan. Tyler Technologies presented its commercial product, Odyssey, which was the only existing commercial case management system that met JIS’ technical requirements. Over 30 people participated in the various presentations and provided feedback to JIS. The evaluation team overwhelmingly chose Unisys as a partner to assist JIS with the design and build of the new case management system. The primary selling point was Unisys’ investment in and development of an Integrated Court Management System for Western Australian Courts. This system will serve as the foundation for Michigan’s custom-designed product and the evaluation team felt that this provided a good solution since the custom system would not be starting from scratch. The other strong selling point was the fact that the Michigan judicial branch will own the system and will support it once implemented.
The new system will be written in Microsoft .NET technology, a flexible internet-based environment that takes full advantage of current development and deployment methodologies. The new system will be centrally hosted by JIS in a secure environment and deployed to courts over statewide communication lines. This will allow trial courts to forego having to purchase a server and software licenses. Central hosting will allow JIS to deploy updates and enhancements easily and place fewer burdens on court personnel regarding updates.
The State Court Administrative Office is funding this multi-year project through a combination of the State Judicial Technology Improvement Fund (JTIF), user fees paid by current JIS users, and by partnerships with several trial courts willing to invest in development in return for having a strategic role in the project and serving as the initial courts implemented.
Current Project Status of Next Generation Judicial Information System (NGJIS) (May 2008)
The process of developing the new system began in early 2007 with a 4-month analysis phase, which focused on documenting the business flows, processes and requirements at a high level for Michigan trial court’s. This phase wrapped up in the summer 2007 and produced a set of documents that will be the basis for the detailed project strategy as well as a firm cost of the project. Contract negotiations continued into the fall resulting in a firm commitment by SCAO and Unisys in October 2008. At this point, SCAO also received a firm commitment from Washtenaw and Berrien counties to be partner courts. These counties will not only help fund the project but will also be actively involved in all phases of development. They will serve as the pilot courts and be first in line for full implementation.
The first phase of the project began in earnest in January 2008. The focus of this first phase is to design and build the Core functionality that will be used by all courts, such as calendaring and judicial assignment, as well as all of the Civil functions. This phase will take approximately 18 months. The project is using an iterative and incremental approach to Design, Build and Test. Essentially, the system will be developed in small pieces that will be delivered frequently to a “playpen” environment that will accessed by members of the project team in order to review and provide feedback to ensure that the system meets overall expectations.
As of this posting in mid-May, multiple joint project teams are fully operational. These teams include Business Analysis, Data Migration, Architecture/Technical and Testing and consist of members from JIS, Unisys, Berrien County and Washtenaw County. Unisys has also formed a technical development team, consisting of 9 members on-site at the Hall of Justice and 2 located in Western Australia.
Milestones
The Business Analysis team is currently on schedule to complete the business use cases for the first identified group of system functions. The Data Migration team is responsible for migrating data from current JIS and legacy systems to the new system and has completed the design and development of the “pilot” migration files that will be used to move data to the new system. They are also currently analyzing the requirements for the LEIN interface for phase 1. The Architecture/Technical team has been analyzing bandwidth required for data communication lines between courts and the Hall of Justice and have been focusing on printing and reporting requirements. The project management team has also developed a risk mitigation plan during the first few months of the project in order to identify and mitigate potential risks that might cause delays or increased expense. This plan will be continually reviewed and updated as needed.
Establishing a statewide data warehouse by the end of 2008 was the second major objective of the Supreme Court’s Technology Advisory Group. Michigan’s 241 trial courts utilize over 25 different case management systems. These systems do not enable courts to share or access case information from other courts or state agencies. In 2005, the Judicial Data Warehouse (JDW) was created as a centralized repository of court records to allow sharing of information and the collection of statistical data. As of April, 2008, the JDW contains court history for 89 counties and 189 courts. It contains over 24 million court case records, and new courts are being added to the JDW every month.
The JDW extracts case data from the courts’ case management systems and places it on one common platform. Court personnel have the ability to search the JDW to find a person known to the Michigan Judicial System and all cases in which he/she is involved. This has been found to assist judges and administrators in a number of ways. In the JDW, data from the various court systems are transformed to a standard format allowing all users to understand the data without regard to a specific county or court system.
The goal in 2008 is to complete the JDW by adding the remaining courts in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties, as well as the courts which use commercial systems such as Maximus and Quad-Tran. By the end of 2008, 240 courts should be loaded on the warehouse, resulting in approximately 60 million court records available for inquiry.
Executive branch agencies have expressed interest in using the JDW as a source for judicial information. Some examples of data sharing arrangements that are either contemplated or underway include:
Department of Corrections – inmate data
MSP – Office of Highway Safety – matching crash data with court disposition and death
Drug courts – determine recidivism
Attorney General – use GEO mapping for warrants
DHS – use court records to improve child safety and welfare
