Odyssey Case Management System

What is it?

The State of Indiana has over 400 trial courts, approximately 300 of which serve the state's 92 counties. The remaining courts serve smaller units of government: cities, towns, or townships. Although the types of cases these courts handle varies, meticulous records are kept in every case filed in every such court.  A large majority of Indiana courts maintain these records in court “dockets,” officially called the “chronological case summary” or “CCS,” on all of their cases using a computer program called a "case management system" or "CMS."

The Indiana Supreme Court gave Court Technology the task of providing courts and clerks with a connected, statewide CMS.

Following the recommendation of three review committees which oversaw a 10-month procurement process, the Indiana Supreme Court chose Tyler Technologies Inc. to provide its Odyssey Case Management System (Odyssey) to Indiana Courts and Clerks.

• Search Case Records from Odyssey
• Which courts use Odyssey and mycase.in.gov?

How it works

The Odyssey Case Management System is a fully integrated case and financial management system designed specifically for statewide deployment.  It is a web-based computer system, allowing configuration to be accomplished centrally, while still supporting both statewide and county-specific rules.  Standardization in the Odyssey CMS implements notable features, such as accurate Quarterly Case Status Reports.

Odyssey is also a person-based system, which allows for a directory of people and entities.  For example, a judge has the ability to access all criminal cases that a defendant has in other courts around the state.

During the second quarter of 2010, the Odyssey product center for Supervision was piloted. Supervision pulls case and financial data from the court and clerk side of Odyssey and allows specialty courts and probation officers the ability to enter and track the following:  drug screens and medications, report on case activity, sanctions and administrative hearings, juvenile referrals, contact management and the ability to add documents to the case such as pre-sentence and pre-dispositional reports.

Odyssey is given to counties at no cost.

Additionally, Odyssey currently interfaces with other agencies and systems and this list continues to grow.  Today, Odyssey sends CDL violations and SR-16s to the BMV, handles tax warrants, and interfaces with the Electronic Citation and Warning System (eCWS) reducing hundreds of hours once required to data enter traffic and ordinance violations into case management systems throughout the state.

Example Features:

• Wildcard and Soundex searching
• Local and statewide configuration
• Flexible Calendaring
• Courtroom minutes screen accesses all functions quickly
• Reminders and ticklers
• Handling of split bonds
• Flexible query and reporting
• Batch processing of many functions
• Fee schedules and payment history
• Visual indicators and flags that follow entities throughout the system

Why we need it

Indiana’s courts handle more than 2 million cases a year.  But the information they collect, and the information they need, isn’t readily available across county lines or to state officials and policy makers or members of the public who need it.  Most locally-based CMS collect information, but those systems aren’t connected—to each other or the state agencies that need and use court information.

Statewide deployment of the Odyssey CMS address four major issues:

• Lack of consistency. Existing CMS products differ from court to court.
• Outdated technology. Many existing CMS products are outdated, require significant investments to upgrade, or need to be replaced.
• Existing CMS products store, but do not manage, court information. For example, they do not automatically send out notices, set hearing schedules, or create reports.
• Most existing CMS products serve only the courts. They are typically not connected to law enforcement agencies; state agencies like the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV); courts in other counties (or cities, towns, and townships); or lawyers and the public.

Project Benefits:

• Indiana trial courts and court clerks can manage caseloads faster and more cost-effectively.
• Users of Indiana trial court information— law enforcement agencies, state policy makers, and state and federal agencies – receive more timely, accurate, and comprehensive information.
• Appropriate court information is available via the Internet, reducing the need to call or go to a courthouse.
• The costs of trial court operations borne by Indiana counties are reduced.
• With Odyssey Supervision, probation officers can monitor and track appointments, drug test results and sanctions and other activities for every individual monitored through the probation department.

More Information

• Odyssey PC Specifications for Windows-Based Workstations
• Indiana Supreme Court CMS Policy Statement
• Order governing public access to court records from Odyssey
• Order Concerning the Bulk Distribution of and Remote Access to Court Records in the Electronic Form

Contact Information

If you would like more information about the CMS project contact Mary DePrez at mary.deprez@courts.in.gov.