Attachmate's Verastream(R) Host Integrator Accelerates San Bernardino County Traffic Citation and Child Support Processing Capabilities.

Verastream Modernizes One of California's Largest County Court Systems

SEATTLE -- Attachmate Corporation today announced that California Superior Court in San Bernardino County is successfully using Attachment[R] Verastream[R] Host Integrator software to streamline and enhance productivity for its traffic court citation and child support processes.

San Bernardino County, the largest county in the U.S. with an economy that ranks in the top 50 in the world, is leveraging the power of Verastream software to more efficiently process between 200,000 and 300,000 traffic citations a year. With local governments striving to gain efficiencies, leverage staff, and automate as many processes as possible, IT organizations are quickly realizing the reusable benefits of Verastream Host Integrator for large ongoing projects.

Prior to the Attachmate installation, San Bernardino Court had manual traffic citation processes. Each time the county's local law enforcement agencies delivered citations, a clerk keyed them into the case management system. When motorists came to the courthouse to pay their fines, a clerk would retrieve the data from the green screen and process the payment. Payment windows were understaffed due to clerks being kept busy with these data entry responsibilities.

Alan Crouse, chief technology officer for the county's superior courts, wanted to improve this labor-intensive and time-consuming process. "Fulfilling the needs of the citizens we work with is our first priority. Our clerks are very capable and handle a large variety of tasks throughout the courthouse. We wanted to free up their time and more effectively utilize their expertise for handling phone calls, staffing the counters, and working with the public."

Outsourcing the data entry was not an option because communication between an external source and the courthouse legacy system was not possible due to security and access restrictions. The Court also wanted a solution that would provide better performance, while utilizing and leveraging the data and functions in which they had already invested. The challenge was that the older systems lacked interface capabilities.

The Court, a satisfied Attachmate EXTRA![R] user since 2003, opted to test Attachmate Verastream Host Integrator software in automating key processes. Verastream encapsulates mainframe data and logic via the screen interface to enable participation in today's service-oriented architectures.

"County legal processes, especially for an entity of this size, can be significantly problematic," said Eric Varness, vice president of marketing for Attachmate. "Verastream is a dynamic and viable solution. We were confident we could analyze the process flow, bring the right resources to bear, and integrate and deploy an interface design that could dramatically ease the county's congestion."

Within six months, an application called AutoCite, built upon Verastream and its multi-threaded architecture, was running. AutoCite receives scanned citation files and the associated data in the form of an XML stream, with on-demand processing as they arrive into the system. Verastream validates the XML data, parses it, and sends it to the court's Sun-based green-screen application.

By harnessing the power of XML the court has options for interpreting performance and transaction histories processed through the new system. In addition, the solution includes custom XSLT style sheets to present a standard report view. Automated e-mail notifications for alerts, as well as a graphical interface for managing the system, are also provided. For invalid or failed transactions, a browser-based application provides easy multiple-user access. This capability means that staff has an easy way to fix invalid citation files in a user-friendly environment without working in XML natively. Additionally, Verastream transforms legacy applications into service oriented architecture assets by exposing business processes as web services, XML, Java, or .NET components that can be mixed, matched, and reused to build composite applications.

"The solution was delivered on time and worked right off the bat," Crouse reported. "Now clerks are freed from heads-down data-entry tasks and can do higher-level work." With the new system in place, ticket payers have a better courthouse experience since they no longer wait in long lines.

Additional Deployment

With the success of its motor vehicle solution the court subsequently began using the same services generated by Verastream to Web-enable its child support system, which handles roughly 100,000 cases a year. Its processes involved manual keying of the information and then processing the paperwork. The Court elected to modernize that system with e-filing capability. Like the driver citation process, information is now sent as an XML data file (along with imaged forms), read by the Verastream application, and automatically entered into the host system. The new child support process is currently in final testing with the State and will go into full production in January 2009. E-Filing ensures more accurate entry of data by eliminating keying errors and will free up even more staff time.

Crouse said, "Because the Verastream development platform was in place, the Attachmate consultants were in rapid-fire mode on this solution," he said. "Our development deadline was May, but we already had it in hand by January. And like the first solution they did for us, they got it right the first time, so we didn't have to lose time back-tracking."

As a result of the Verastream traffic-citation success in California, there are now two additional applications utilizing the technology:

* A sister county, Riverside, is now using the same Verastream model to implement a traffic-citation system of their own.

* At San Bernardino, self-service courthouse kiosks--with a custom Verastream application as the back end--will soon be installed. The touch-screen kiosks are a next-generation progression from the court's original traffic-ticket solution.

Crouse concluded by saying, "Attachmate has done a great job for us."

About Verastream

Verastream Host Integrator is part of the Verastream legacy integration suite, a complete range of mainframe, Web and desktop modernization tools built to speed the reuse of legacy application investments. Verastream software delivers the full spectrum of basic rejuvenation to customized presentation and sophisticated high-performance integration. Verastream-generated services can be mixed, matched and reused to extend legacy functionality to new applications or users. No code changes to legacy applications are required.

Attachmate Verastream software works collaboratively or as a stand-alone tool along with the company's integration, legacy access, security and management products, enabling companies to extend the use of existing IT investments while they adopt valuable new technologies to improve their businesses.

About Attachmate

Attachmate, owned by an investment group led by Francisco Partners, Golden Gate Capital and Thoma Cressey Bravo, enables IT organizations to extend mission critical services and assure they are secure and compliant. Attachmate's leading solutions include host connectivity and systems and security management. Our goal is to empower IT organizations to deliver trusted applications, manage service levels, and ensure compliance by leveraging knowledge, automation and secured connectivity. For more information, visit www.attachmate.com.

Copyright [c] 2008 Attachmate Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Attachmate, the Attachmate logo and Verastream are registered trademarks of Attachmate Corporation, in the USA and other countries. All other trademarks, trade names, or company names referenced herein are used for identification only and are the property of their respective owners.