AFTER YEARS AND $100,000S SPENT, ODYSSEY JAIL AND SHERIFF SOFTWARE NOT WORKING UP TO SNUFF

(Ed.'s Note: It is no secret that Cameron County's Odyssey computers and software administered by Tyler Technologies have been a pain in the neck for the Sheriff's Dept., which has for the past two or so years complained about the system not providing what was promised despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to make it work. Below is a sample of the correspondence between jail administrators and the county's IT personnel. As it is apparent, despite the assurances from the county's compugeeks, the quality of the product is not up to the expectations of the sheriff or jail administrators Notice the dates and how long the problem has existed without an acceptable resolution. It is interesting to note that Cameron County is not listed among the counties and municipalities giving glowing testimonials about Odyssey products as are Hidalgo and others.)

Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 9:26 AM

To: Janie Trevino
Cc: Joe Reyes; Norma J. Hawkins; Carlos Garza - Sheriff's Office
Subject: Odyssey Updates

To Lt. Janie Trevino,

The Sheriff would like to know if we will be receiving the product that we were supposed to receive last year, by Tyler in this next update? If so, could they put it in writing for us?
1. Clear Mug Shots W/ camera upgrade
2. Fingerprint Capability
3. Signature Pad Capture
4. Live Scan Compatibility & Operability
Thank you for time and attention.

From: Joe Reyes
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 10:01 AM
To: Mike Leinart; Janie Trevino
Cc: Paul Escobar; Norma J. Hawkins; Carlos Garza - Sheriff's Office
Subject: RE: Odyssey Updates
The current version of odyssey does support Live Scan Compatibility and Operability, we are using Live Scan at this time unless there is a problem that I don’t know about.
As far as the other items listed:
1. Clear Mug Shots W/ camera upgrade - I don’t fully understand what this is referencing.
2. Fingerprint Capability - This option should be part of the 2013 implementation, which should be available later this year. Pending the hardware that was discussed at Commissioner’s Court on Thursday and the purchase / setup / and configuration we should be on this system later this year.
3. Signature Pad Capture - This option should be part of the 2013 implementation, which should be available later this year. Pending the hardware that was discussed at Commissioner’s Court on Thursday and the purchase / setup / and configuration we should be on this system later this year.
 Best Regards, Joe Reyes

Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 10:24 AM

To: Joe Reyes; Janie Trevino
Cc: Paul Escobar; Norma J. Hawkins; Carlos Garza - Sheriff's Office; Javier Reyna; Carlos Garza - Sheriff's Office; shannon.herklotz@tcjs.state.tx.us
Subject: RE: Odyssey Updates

Joe, Janie,
Later this year…like; September, October, November, December?
Picture quality is less than desirable. It is our understanding that the we cannot use a better quality camera until the upgrade.
We are anticipating the upgrades and fingerprinting capability.
Live scan is only done on county bookings. We do not have fingerprints on all the other agency inmates. We need some sort of bio metric system to compare an initial booking to the inmates release, as to ensure we are releasing the correct inmate.
Signature pads to ensure the inmate acknowledges all of the forms that they are signing. Otherwise, we may as well go back to the manual system of booking.
We just want Tyler to confirm that we will finally receive what they said they would give us initially.
This is really important, we do not want to waste any more dollars chasing this.

Let me know.

From: Joe Reyes
Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 9:05 AM
To: Mike Leinart; Janie Trevino
Cc: Arnold Flores
Subject: FW: Odyssey Updates
Mike / Janie,
This is the feedback I received from Tyler Technologies regarding your concerns for the software release 2013 and 2014.

"Joe,
Bob addressed the Jail concerns for me. Below is a status report on their questions.
1. Clear Mug Shots W/ camera upgrade
· The cameras that Cameron County currently uses to capture inmate facial images and photographs of scars, marks and tattoos (SMT’s) exceeds the “quality” requirements of the Recommended NIST standards (see attached). Nevertheless, we currently have a project to allow for the use of HDMI cameras within the Odyssey Jail Manager application. At this point there is no estimated completion date of this project.
2. Fingerprint Capability
· The ability to capture one or more fingerprints using a single fingerprint capture device is available in the Odyssey 2013 release. These stored prints can be compared against an inmate’s fingerprints at time of release to verify the correct inmate is being released. Note that additional hardware (the fingerprint capture devices) must be purchased as part of using this feature set. This is a licensable feature, but we will look into options for Cameron County.
3. Signature Pad Capture
 Bob is currently in the process of working to verify what is/is not available in Odyssey 2013 as it relates to Jail Manager. We should have an update by early next week.
4. Live Scan Compatibility & Operability
· We do not understand what the issue is as our understanding is that all is working well in Cameron. Can you provide us more information about what the issue is with Live Scan?

Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2013 9:49 AM
To: Joe Reyes
Cc: Norma J. Hawkins; Carlos Garza - Sheriff's Office; Javier Reyna; Gus Reyna; Bruce Hodge; Pete Sepulveda; shannon.herklotz@tcjs.state.tx.us
Subject: RE: Odyssey Updates
Joe,
Those standards are from September 23, 1997, ALMOST 20 YEARS AGO! “ exceeds the “quality” requirements of the Recommended NIST standards (see attached).”
Best Practice and Face Pose Value Documents
Best Practice Application Level 30
(Informative)
BEST PRACTICE RECOMMENDATION
FOR THE CAPTURE OF MUGSHOTS
Version 2.0
September 23, 1997

Fast Forward to January 14, 2015, more than two years later with the Odyssey problems still unresolved:
Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 8:11 AM
To: Cameron County Commissioner Alex Dominguez
Subject: FW: Odyssey Updates / FYI
Commissioner,
Just a note to catch you up to speed on our Tyler project progress.
Thank you.