Posted by Matt Caesar on Mon, Aug 17, 2009 @ 03:41 PM
We are quickly coming up on the 25th DSI/ITI User Group. This year marks my 12th year at the conference and it is a time of the year I look forward to with both great excitement and a bit of nervousness.
Each and every day that we come to work we strive to improve your experience with our products. User Group gives us the opportunity to connect with our user base directly to discuss new products, brainstorm new ideas and, what I feel is most important, reaffirm our commitment to our users by connecting on a personal level.
Our users are not simply a number or a facility to us- they are the ones that we are here to serve and support. I will admit that I do not know someone from each of our hundreds of clients yet, but I am getting close!
Our goal is to continue to prove to you that you made the right choice selecting DSI/ITI as your technology provider. If you are at this year's User Group conference, please take a minute to let me know how we are doing. I hope to see you soon!
Posted by Matt Caesar on Wed, Jun 17, 2009 @ 03:00 PM
Creating
software that simply collects information is an easy task that any company can do. Actually, it's so easy, I wouldn't suggest spending
any money on a system that just did that. The real differentiator among software packages is how they allow users and administrators to accurately report on the data contained in the system. If your software package is unable to produce the reports that you need, you are wasting your time using it.
Anyone who has any experience entering data into a system, whether it be time tracking software or even a simple inventory system, will ultimately want a report out of the system that doesn't exist. This very well might be one of the most frustrating issues facing end users today.
Throughout my years in the software industry, I have learned that no two people are ever interested in the same report. As a software company, how do you manage that? I guess you could tell your users ‘this is all we have' or ‘hey, everyone else loves it', but that is not what people want to hear. At DSI we integrate our software with standard reporting tools and provide either custom reports, or train users to use the reporting tool on their own. It's a good start, but how many customers have extra staff or time to work on custom reports?
To combat this, we have attacked the problem in a few different ways. First, every report that we create, whether it is for our standard product offerings or custom reports we create during a project, is created using our reporting tool and made available to our user community. Second, we constantly offer refresher trainings for our reporting tool at our annual user groups. Third, we allow users to share their reports with each other via our Customer Forum. Combined, these approaches allow our end users to constantly refine and improve upon the already extensive reporting built into our software products.
Posted by Matt Caesar on Thu, Jun 04, 2009 @ 09:06 AM
I just wanted to take a moment to expand on a comment that was posted on my last blog post.
A question was asked about receiving refunds from Inmate Telephone in an easier manner than having to call in and speak with a live operator. We at DSI/ITI understand the importance of allowing families and friends to communicate with incarcerated loved ones and continually strive to find ways to make the process quicker and easier.
Starting June 4th, ITI customers will be able to open an account 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via ITI Billpay. This is in addition to the normal features already available such as adding money to your account and viewing account statements. If you have already established an account with ITI, we also offer an automated phone system to make a payment and check your balance that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as well.
Sending money to incarcerated loved ones is also something that can be accomplished 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via InmateBanker. Payments can be posted within minutes to an inmates account, subject to facility regulations.
The ultimate goal is to make communicating with your loved ones convenient and simple. We understand that your time is valuable and we want to minimize how long you spend talking to our live operators and let you spend that time communicating with your loved ones.
We continue to work on new enhancements to our existing services to reach this goal and welcome any future suggestions.
Posted by Matt Caesar on Tue, May 05, 2009 @ 12:49 PM
Welcome to my first blog post for DSI/ITI!
If you are a current customer, there is a good chance we have crossed paths at some point in my tenure here. Whether it was when I was a software engineer, or Team Lead or maybe while at my current position as Chief of Product Development. For those non-customers out there (you know who you are), thank you for coming and I look forward to your comments!
Where will this blog take us? That's a great question. I am curious as well! As you may guess, my educational background and first love is Computer Science, so many of my thoughts revolve around our software - how to make our products better, faster, easier to use, etc. I will probably spend many weeks bantering on about new technologies and possibly new features that may or may not have an impact on our product line.
However, as Chief of Product Development, my day to day responsibilities can vary greatly. As a result, there are many non-technical topics that you will find me talking about -implementations, patents, corrections issues. At some point, I'm sure you will see a post on each of these topics.
As I do everything, I will try and keep the posts light-hearted and because I'm a native New Yorker, sarcasm will most likely run rampant. Thanks for stopping by for a read and let the comments fly.