CaseBuilder® Frequently Asked Questions

CaseBuilder is a leading case management solution that helps law enforcement agencies achieve higher clearance rates*, especially for violent crimes. The cloud-based system enables agencies to better capture, track, analyze and collaborate on investigations enabling them to be more efficient and effective. The system creates a single, secure digital case folder for each case and can be used from the office or the field. (*a measure of cases solved by police)

• Improve clearance rates to reduce crime and reduce repeat offenders.
• Enhance communications with crime victims and witnesses to better serve and protect.
• Strengthen collaboration among the investigative team for better efficiency.
• Create transparency that builds trust with the community with Internal Investigations and Professional Standards reporting.
• Optimize caseload to improve detective performance and job satisfaction.
• Ensure Tips and Leads receive proper follow-up and never slip through the cracks.
• Enable management insight into investigations and improve organizational intelligence.
• Build stronger cases identify underlying relationships with link analysis.
• Illustrate lengthy investigation timelines and case chronology.
• Leverage NIBIN lead management to solve gun-related crimes.

The system centers around 5 key components:

• Incidents – provides for field-based reporting of events, field intelligence, tips, complaints and management of people, places and things associated with those incidents.
• Investigations – includes all the functionality and workflow to follow-up on crime related incidents with in-depth investigations.  This is inclusive of management and oversight of assignments, tasks and case progression utilizing scheduled reports, analytics, and interactive dashboards.
• Intelligence – allows agencies to collect and disseminate intelligence, monitor criminal enterprises and groups such as narcotics rings, domestic terror groups, crime gangs, and manage confidential informants − all in conformance with national standards.
• Interactions – provides integrated Citizens Portal web pages that work with an agency’s existing website to keep the community better informed and allow citizens to submit complaints, tips, and leads.
• Integrity – provides comprehensive features to manage use-of-force incidents, officer involved shootings, professional standards, and internal investigations in a single, secured platform.

There is a tiered annual subscription fee based on the size of the agency that includes 24x7x365 customer support and best practices consulting assistance. There is also a one-time set up fee that includes provisioning the account, agency data integrations if needed and training, etc.

When it comes to case management, RMS systems don’t measure up to what an effective detective squad needs to efficiently handle complex, confidential investigations in an organized and automated manner.  Industry feedback and analysis indicates that case management is an inadequate feature in legacy solutions.  CaseBuilder delivers a comprehensive solution, that can be coupled with your RMS, to better manage the most complex and often most violent criminal offenses for your agency.

Most agencies are not aware of the significant advancements in case management tools available today. CaseBuilder is designed as a fully automated solution, and the platform’s collaboration, analytics and reporting tools help detectives move investigations forward.

Furthermore, with CaseBuilder, no third-party systems are needed. A prosecutor can grab a case from within the platform. Additionally, permissions can be configured for external users, such as an outside agency you may be collaborating with on a certain case.

With built-in capabilities including case chronology, link analysis, tip corroboration and more, CaseBuilder streamlines the investigator’s workflow to provide the most efficient and effective process for solving a case.

RMS systems are often intended for crime reporting and initial data collection.  RMS systems most often do not support the complete investigative processes and workflows that are very time intensive and require substantial data and information collection.

The system includes a robust platform of reports including:

• Interactive dashboards quickly inform users through display of graphs, charts, and pin maps.
• Operational reports provide detailed lists of incidents and events and allow the user to drill into the details.
• Report widgets can be easily added to the interface to provide snippets of information and keep key indicators front and center.
• Scheduled reports to deliver critical decision and resource planning to staff and command on an agency-defined frequency.

While SoundThinking is best known for its gunshot detection service, this new system helps manages all types of situations, including:

– Internal affairs investigations

– Use of Force investigations

– Intelligence investigations that meet stringent data retention and security policies

– General offense case management

– Gang and Organization management

With that said, CaseBuilder also integrates with ShotSpotter, and ShotSpotter customers can leverage the platform’s NIBIN lead management to help assist in gun crimes.

SoundThinking takes security and compliance very seriously and includes the following best practices:

• The service is run on AWS GovCloud, which is CJIS, FedRAMP, ISO 27001, SOC2, SOC3, and DoD SRG certified
• Multi-factor authorization (MFA) is mandated for all users
• Compliant with CFR 28 Part 23
• Single Sign-On (SSO) is fully supported
• CaseBuilder is compliant with the latest CJIS Security Policy mandates

Agencies can configure the system to meet their organization’s needs. Components can be enabled or disabled by agency administrators, and they also control role-based permissions to define the functionality and data each end user may access.

Components can be restricted to particular users and groups ensuring confidential information always stays secure and cannot be viewed or disseminated by unauthorized users.

CaseBuilder has robust, proactive alerting and notification features.

• Each user has a system inbox to send and receive messages and alerts.
• The system can also alert users via text and email about new assignments and pending or overdue action items.
• Supervisors can perform case reviews and automatically trigger notifications about case status and any new tasks.
• The system automatically notifies the investigative team when new tips or leads are added to a case.
• Detectives can publish wanted posters, and even offer rewards, on the Citizen Portal website and get automatic notifications when a citizen submits a tip related to their case.

CaseBuilder can publish case folders and create a complete file, including all digital assets and attachments related to the case, for easy dissemination to prosecutors.

CaseBuilder can also be implemented within a prosecutor’s investigation to provide a more streamlined and efficient digital case folder for complex investigations.

It is a relatively straightforward and streamlined deployment process that can be completed with just a few steps. A SoundThinking representative will setup your agency’s account in our secure cloud environment and then work with your system administrator to complete the initial configuration to meet your requirements. The system can be up and running for end users to begin casework the same day. Following initial configuration, your agency administrator and any secondary admins you appoint will have full capability to manage the highly configurable system and support your end users. Meanwhile, SoundThinking’s support team remains ready to assist whenever needed.

SoundThinking offers:

• ShotSpotter®, an innovative gunshot detection technology that enables law enforcement to proactively address gun violence and arrive at a scene within minutes, saving lives and building community trust in the process.
• CrimeTracer®, the #1 law enforcement search engine that enables investigators to search through more than 1B structured and unstructured data across jurisdictions to obtain immediate tactical leads, leverage advanced link analysis to make intelligent connections, link NIBIN leads to reports, suspects, and other entities, and more.
• CaseBuilder®Crime Gun, the first-of-its-kind gun crime tracking and analysis case management tool that enables agencies to better capture, track, prioritize, analyze, and collaborate on incidents that involve firearms.
• ResourceRouter™, a resource management tool that automates the planning of directed patrols and provides transparency around engagement activities.