Court Proceedings System

The primary function of Court Proceedings is to transform a standard text-based register into a searchable, history of court appearances and results. Here we detail how this can be achieved and its possible deployment.

Source Files Electronic copies of each file (above) are generated by the Courts (MCS) computer system. There are options for how files may be transferred to the police network, possibilities for which are:

Files can be transferred to a secured FTP Server allowing the files to be downloaded as and when available.

Files generated from MCS, then periodically emailed to a designated user.

Analysis of Files - The first two characters of the filename identify each file imported by the system. CR is used to represent a court register, CL for a court list and CI for a checking list. Both the court list and register are fully processed by the system with their content made available for later interrogation. The checking list is imported for printing purposes only. All three files can be printed upon import. The import system uses three directories for storing these files, one from which files are imported, a second into which files are moved on successful completion of the import and a third where files that failed to import are moved. SQL Server’s Data Transformation Services (DTS) can be used to automatically run the import and print systems, as a silent service running in the background. In this mode the import program only runs while importing files, and closes once this process is complete. DTS can schedule the import service to run at a set frequency so that resources are managed properly on the server.

Import Logging - As each file is processed, logs are created to confirm activity. Usually this log will only show a start and end date of import. When the system generates an error message, this is stored with a date. If the error occurs during the reading of the file text, the line being read is appended to the log and the file is transferred to an error folder for later investigation. File logs are stored with a date in the filename.

Management Application - This is an administration package for the control and maintenance of information and settings within the Court Proceedings database. This application performs the following admin tasks:

Court and Division management

Keyword filter control

Notice board (maintenance of the messages on the intranet main page)

Printer setup

Purge database files

User account maintenance

There is also a logging facility to record actions taken once an appearance has been stored on the system. This includes information such as the result date, resulting officer and comments.

Intranet - The Court Proceedings intranet is a search based thin-client application. Filters provide information based on keywords from adjudication text in the court register and offence text. With a keyword search only the most urgent data is returned with a search working between ranges of dates to reduce information overload. The defendant search provides a straightforward name filter, including the option of a date range and automatic wildcards. There is also a partial address search, which for example allow a user to enter the street name or house number and a postcode to return possible matches. The advanced search returns hits matching a courtroom to a defendant on a given day. Upon finding the desired result, the user can then enter the defendant record to view information on all cases that match the personal number. The defendant page provides details of each case and appearance with all offence and adjudication text. The case number can further filter information

Deployment T- here are four parts to deploying the Court Proceedings system. First a script, including all tables, keys and stored procedures, creates the SQL Server database. The management and printing sub-systems are distributed using Windows Installer (MSI) files, which also provide full uninstall facilities. The intranet is installed via an x-copy process, and configured through IIS. Each of the Court Proceedings application, including the intranet site, uses a “config.ini” file to control settings such as file paths and database server connections. 



System Requirements - The Court Proceedings system can be split into a number of component parts, each of which has a different set of requirements. All deployments will require a SQL Server (2000) and its requirements will depend on the volume of data to be stored and the number of concurrent users accessing the system. The database growth rate for an average installation is expected to be about 30-65MB per week, although this could be reduced if the raw imported pages are purged on a regular basis.

It may also be possible to run the import and print applications from the same SQL Server, using a DTS schedule. Provided the schedule frequency is not too short, and the server memory is sufficient, this should run without interruption to the standard services.

The Court Proceedings intranet should be run from a separate server installed with IIS 5.0 or above with the .NET framework 1.1.