The Interactive Group

Continuing Education Administration Systems

•  Scope : to provide software revisions and new programming.

•  Notes : The system maintains and manages continuing education records including information on the Dentists, the Hygienists and Assistants.

•  Status : Application development is in progress.

•  Dates: 02-01-05

•  Commentary: Originally written in FoxPro 2.6 with FoxExpress, the application is used to manage all of the Academy's student information. Interactive owner Michael Garofalo to a Filemaker application on Microsoft Windows. In late 2004, the application was rewritten by Interactive as an .NET windows application utilizing an MS-SQL backend data store. This move enabled the Board to take advantage of significant security, data integrity and resource enhancements available through the Dot Net and SQL platforms.

The Court Management System (CMS)

•  Scope : to provide a full docket software system for the Court of Appeals.

•  Notes : The system includes the processing of filings and fees, word processing document management and a docket list for each division.

•  Status : Completed. Under maintenance.

•  Dates: 06/01/03 through 04/30/04

•  Commentary: In order to comply with a mandate by the Supreme Court of Louisiana (CARRS directive), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Gretna , Louisiana , had to develop a system to provide information about their cases to the State on a weekly basis. Interactive developed a system to pull data from the Court's SQL databases, convert it to a format specified by the State, and to transmit the information with only a button click. In the process, Interactive developers repaired parts of the court's existing web based application that had never worked and added functionality to their system to help ensure data integrity.

 Interactive was subsequently asked to create the Court Management System whereby much needed additional functionality could be utilized. Building upon the work it had performed before, Interactive rebuilt where it could, replaced where it had to and created a number of new systems and system components. The resultant Court Management System had Docket control, Minute Entry capabilities, Calendaring, Scheduling, Report output capability and form generation capabilities through Word and WordPerfect file merging. In addition, user search capabilities were improved, backend data processing was made more efficient and security was enhanced.

Network and Infrastructure Support

•  Scope: To provide such I.T. services as required to support the organization's business goals.

•  Status: Still providing I.T. services.

•  Commentary: In the summer of 2002, Powell Insurance called on Interactive for emergency network support: one of their primary servers had stopped working and after two days of down time, the MIS director was frantic. Interactive personnel worked around the clock throughout the night until the system was fully functional.

At the request of the Powell Insurance Agency's owner, Interactive performed a full system audit and discovered that the existing network was poorly planned and rife with functional and operational problems. These problems included unnecessary downtime over the previous two year period; non-functioning hardware and software; regular loss of data requiring frequent restores from backups or reentry of data from hardcopy; significant virus infection of OS and application software; and a demoralized and frantic crew of users and management.

Over the next few months, Interactive trimmed the number of required servers in half; installed more efficient network security hardware including a state of the art firewall; set up a usable backup system; restored remote access; eliminated all dial up, ISDN, and DSL connections; installed and configured a hands-off network virus protection package; and removed viruses from over 50 workstations and servers.

 With the exception of scheduled maintenance, their network systems have been running non-stop since. Powell Insurance Agency has drastically lowered its IT expenditures while showing a major decrease in down-time, huge increases in productivity and many more happy faces at the weekly department meetings.

The M.A.J.O.R. Assessment Program

•  Scope : Based on information entered into the system, to produce "T-scores" with which to assist in the evaluation of juvenile offenders.

•  Notes : The Jefferson Parish Juvenile Court - M.A.J.O.R. Assessment System utilizes data from a remote, mini-computer system. The program, as it is now, retrieves a complete set of case data from the mini-computer in order to generate a number of assessment and evaluation type processes.

•  Status : Completed. Under maintenance.

•  Dates: 06/01/04 through 10/31/04

•  Commentary: This application performs risk assessment and analysis on juveniles in the Jefferson Parish Court system. It imports data from an existing AS400 system, processes it to perform T-Score Analysis, generates reports and interfaces with external report and statistical packages.

IJJIS-JOIN

Interactive Information Systems was selected in late 2004 to develop and deploy the Web Based Juvenile Offender Information Network (JOIN) for the State of Louisiana. This system is actually several components of a much larger Information System referred to as the Integrated Juvenile Justice Information System (IJJIS). The JOIN Data Exchange Interface may eventually become the foundation for other IJJIS components. The goals of the IJJIS-JOIN project are as follows:

To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the processing of delinquency, traffic, and formal FINS cases by juvenile justice agencies at the local level through automated data sharing and case management.

To provide management information for statewide reporting, coordination, strategic planning, benchmarking and evaluation of the juvenile justice system by the Children’s Cabinet, the LCLE, the Supreme Court, and other bodies involved with juvenile justice reform and restructuring.

To provide a catalyst for the development of a comprehensive IJJIS.

For specific information relating to IJJIS-JOIN, call us at (504) 365-1500.

Load Tracking System

•  Scope : to design and implement a system to track truck loads of material from order entry through invoicing. The system will replace two manual processes and one obsolete software application and integrate with C.O.B.'s Great Plains database.

•  Notes : Please check back soon for more information

•  Status : Application is just getting under way.

•  Dates: 02-01-05 with an expected completion date in May '05

•  Commentary: Please check back soon for more information.