The software, created by Zuercher Technologies, of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, provides officers with immediate information when it comes to dispatched calls.

Fort Dodge police Lt. Matt Lundberg said Zuercher combines the department’s record management system, also known as RMS, and the computer-aided dispatch system, known as CAD.

“The jail is integrated through the (Webster County) Sheriff’s Department and then the county attorney links up with it as well,” Lundberg said. “It’s kind of a unified system that we all use. We all share some data, and we all have data that’s our own.”

Not only does information on Zuercher get shared with dispatch and the Sheriff’s Department, but every law enforcement agency in Webster County can access that information as well.

The Sheriff’s Department started using Zuercher last year, and Lundberg said the Police Department combined into their existing system within the last month.

The department switched to the new system because the old one wasn’t what the Fort Dodge Police Department needed.

“Our old system was kind of starting to show its limitations,” Lundberg said. “I don’t want to say we outgrew it, but we knew there were newer systems that were a better fit for what we use it for.”

And he added the new system took what the old one had and improved upon it.

“We didn’t have mobile CAD,” he said. “The officers in their cars have a mobile CAD terminal now, so they can see what they’re being dispatched to, get information on the fly as it’s being entered in by dispatch.”

Police Chief Roger Porter said Zuercher makes the department more efficient.

“It’s real-time information as opposed to waiting down the road and getting it five minutes later,” he said. “In essence, it saves a lot of time for our officers so that we can better serve the public.”

Lundberg added that the new system links all departments in Webster County. Before, officers could only communicate with themselves and dispatch.

But it’s not just dispatching that Zuercher helps with, according to Porter, who called the system a “one-stop shop.”

“Everything from dispatching to internal record-keeping for our department, personnel,” he said. “It tracks training, it tracks inventory.”

There’s also GPS tracking on Zuercher, so dispatch and other officers can tell where specific cars are located.

Additionally, all the department manuals and policies can be found on Zuercher as well.

Lundberg said the real-time information is really the biggest advantage the new software has over what the department used to have.

“The officers in real time can also communicate and update their cases from their cars,” he said. “When an officer takes a report, they get the information and either they take the report right there at the scene, or they’re stopped at a different location. As they’re putting that in, it’s immediately updating the case file in the system.”

Before, officers had to fill out the report, save it onto a USB drive and then, later on in their shift, upload it into the system.

Now, reports are uploaded immediately.

Lundberg also said the system allows dispatch and officers to attach alerts to specific addresses. For example, if a suspect associated with that address has violent tendencies, it will show up on Zuercher to let responding officers know before they arrive on scene.

“The guys are picking it up very quickly,” Lundberg said of Zuercher. “The vast majority of people are really liking it. They like the way it works. There’s a little bit of a learning curve because it’s a completely new system, but as the officers are learning it, they’re seeing all the new features it has and all the things it can do, and they’re really happy with it.”

Porter added that, while the system is still being figured out, he called it a “time saver.”

“Lean government is a big term right now, and this helps us go in that direction,” he said.

As an example, he said Brandi Weinzetl, the department’s evidence technician, has seen her time logging evidence cut down by days.

“It used to take her from two to three days to get a big case documented,” Porter said. “Now, she can do it in a couple of hours on a large case.”