In an effort to address a number of challenges
affecting Michigan Courts, JIS reached out to courts and sought information on
what could be done to assist in streamlining court processes. One item identified as a common issue across
courts was the duplicate entry into multiple calendars being performed when
hearings were scheduled. A quick
solution to help courts be more effective and efficient in their work was to
develop a calendar integration application to display a judge’s calendar from
the case management system in Outlook, or on a mobile device, without double
entry. The calendar integration
functionality has been developed and tested in a test environment, as well as
in the “live” JIS environment in 54A District Court.
Currently, many courts are entering hearing dates in
JIS and Outlook. When hearing dates
change, both calendars must be updated. With
this new integration, the extra steps and time necessary to accurately maintain
duplicate calendars can be eliminated.
In district court probation, when a probation violation arraignment or a
probation violation hearing is scheduled in JIS, staff must go into their Outlook
calendar and enter the same information on personal or shared calendars. Having the calendar integration program and
using the overlay feature eliminates the need for that double-entry by placing
those court hearings directly onto staff calendars at the time they are
scheduled. For probation departments that
schedule presentence interview appointments and appointments to review orders
in the case-management system, the calendar integration program simultaneously
places those appointments onto the probation officer’s Outlook calendar,
effectively blocking out those time slots to prevent being double booked.
Again, this eliminates the redundant manual entry. Not only does the program save time, but it
also reduces human error by automatically placing events on your calendar as
they are scheduled. Previously, it would have been possible to forget to put
the appointment/court hearing on your calendar, or put it at the wrong time
and/or date.
Mobile device calendar sharing has been tested by Judge
Hugh B. Clarke, Jr. to review his docket at any time, from any place. His Outlook calendar shares docket
information in “grouped” or “ungrouped: form. With “grouped” entries, all hearings of the
same type (i.e. motion hearing) scheduled at the same time will display as one
appointment, with individual case details in the body.
 |
| GROUPED CALENDAR |
 |
| UNGROUPED CALENDAR |
Ungrouped entries will display all scheduled
hearings and events as separate appointments.
There is also the ability to e-mail specific appointments out of the
office to other related personnel. Once
accepted on the receiving end, appointments will automatically append to the
receivers Outlook calendar; however, if a change is made, manual updating is
required.
For those interested in the calendar-sharing
application, setup and instructions are easy to follow via MCAP. Once a professional ID (Bar #, PO #) has been
determined and set up, the calendar is shared via e-mail and allows for a quick
switch between daily, work week, or monthly view—all features currently
available. The calendar integration
functionality does not change your normal scheduling process in the JIS
application. The only difference is the person scheduling the hearing
will no longer need to make a separate entry in the Outlook calendar as it is
done automatically by the system.
Other key benefits include:
- All nonpublic information is automatically suppressed
- calendar
refreshes every 30 minutes
- up to five
parties will display per case
- viewing of multiple
calendars on one screen
- searchable
name feature
In the future, the 54A District Court plans to
continue testing with local law enforcement officers by sending informal
hearing appointments via e-mail when they are listed as an arresting officer. The system allows the court to require an
electronic response upon receipt, thereby creating a log that could replace the
need for paper/manual subpoenas.
The Court felt honored to be asked to pilot and test
the calendar integration application. During
several phone conferences, we offered several suggestions for application improvements
that were used by JIS to develop the service.
If you have additional questions about how our court
is using this service, please contact me at anethia.brewer@lansingmi.gov.
Editor’s
Note: JIS reports that, as of December
14, this service is already in use in 19 courts statewide. If you’d like more information about
implementing this service in your court, please contact jis@courts.mi.gov.
Anethia O. Brewer earned her B.A. in Public Administration from Eastern
Michigan University, her M.A. from Michigan State University, and has served as
court administrator for the 54A District Court since May of 2008. Prior
to her current position, she served as court administrator for the 55th
District Court in Ingham County from May of 2004 to May of 2008, and as deputy court
administrator for 12th District Court in Jackson County from October of 1995
until May of 2004. Ms. Brewer is a member of the National Association for
Court Management (NACM) and the Michigan Court Administrators Association
(MCAA).