Automated Police Systems, Inc.Automated Police Systems, Inc.You do all of the work setting up the A.L.E.I.R. report writing, dispatch and MySQL Server programs on your network and it's all yours! You can install the software on as many computers as you like and you can use the program for as long as you wish for no charge! We do not charge anything for you to use our report writing or dispatch software. There are no yearly licensing fees or other hidden fees if you do not want us to support your report writing and dispatch programs. If you would like us to customize the report writing and/or dispatch software for your department, click here for options available to you.
Our report writing and dispatch software works with MySQL Server. All data entered into a report is saved into a MySQL Server Database. The MySQL Server is free. You can have as many connections to the server as your hardware will support. If you are not comfortable with installing and using MySQL Server, Crystal Reports or you wish us to support your program, you should look here for some options available to you.
We are giving our software away because we know the majority of departments out there can't afford it. Since you probably couldn't afford it, there was no chance you would purchase it anyway. If you do the work by following the installation instructions, it will cost you nothing to have a computerized records management system. Now there is no reason why your department should not have a computerized records management system. There simply is no excuse for not having a computerized records management system.
We are tired of hearing about how other law enforcement software companies charge an arm and a leg for report writing and dispatch software and the software didn't work as expected. Some departments spend a lot of money on records management software only to find out later the software is not user friendly and doesn't live up to their expectations. Now you can have a reliable and easy to use computerized records management program for next to nothing.
MySQL Server is free. You can find additional information on MySQL Server at their website located at MySQL.com.
Yes. The ALEIR Program has an arrest register report. The arrest register report will allow you to attach a mug shot photo (as many as you wish) to the arrest register report.
The ALEIR Program has the below software modules.
The ALEIR Program currently tracks the below data.
This program will work for a 1 man department as well as a 200 man department. The report writing program is designed to work on a single computer, Local Area Network (Peer to Peer) or a Wide Area Network (Internet or Intranet). You can have as many concurrent connections to the MySQL Server as your hardware, LAN and WAN can handle. MySQL Server will handle about 300 or so concurrent connections using any standard personal computer you can buy at the store today. You can have about 60 or so concurrent users using the report writing program at the same time with this many connections available. Do you have more than 60 officers using the software at the same time? If so, beef up your server (more RAM) and configure the MySQL Server to allow 600 concurrent connections.
How big is your hard drive? The last time I checked, there are some very large hard drives out there on the market! The technical answer to your question is it depends on the size of the partition on your hard drive and the type of file system you are using. See this link for more information on how much data you can store on your computer.
There are several tools out there. I strongly recommend using MySQL Control Center and MySQL Administrator.
I would backup your data no less than once a week. Everyday would be better if you are a large organization and you are storing a lot of reports into the database.
You can run the report writing and dispatch software on Windows 2000, Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. You can run MySQL Server on just about any operating system you like. Check out this link to see what MySQL Server will run on.
Yes. You can use our report writing program to access and write reports over the Internet to write reports. You can even install the software on your laptop in the field and write reports in your patrol vehicle if you have wireless Internet access in your area. If you choose to use our software on the Internet, you should use a Virtual Private Network or use Stunnel to encrypt your data connection.
All officers writing reports are assigned a user name, password and security level. Only the officer who initially writes a report (original, supplemental or booking report) can access that report to make changes to it. Once a supervisor electronically signs off on the report, the report is locked and it can not be changed. If a change is needed after the report is approved, a supplemental report should be written documenting the change. You can write as many supplemental reports to an original incident (criminal or non criminal) as you wish. Any officer having access to the report writing program can write a supplemental report to another officer's original incident report.
No. Our report writing program does not capture or produce NIBRS reports. We are planning to add data fields to the report writing program to capture NIBRS data. Eventually, our report writing software will produce NIBRS reports but we don't have a date when this will happen.
As anyone who really knows about NIBRS will tell you, it is rather complicated to add the ability to capture NIBRS data to a computerized report writing software program and make it "user friendly." There are several software programs out there who claim to be NIBRS compliant. Many of these programs are difficult to use and understand. Some of them force officers to insert codes or values into screens to "validate" the incident so it complies with NIBRS. In some of these cases, the reports are misleading and I would argue, in my humble opinion, do not accurately reflect the criminal incident. We are trying to figure out a good way to produce a report writing program that is really NIBRS compliant, accurately reports the incident and is easy for officers to use.
The reports are generated by Crystal Reports 9.2. You can purchase a copy of Crystal Reports and you will be able to edit the report. You can add, remove or change anything you wish to the report by editing the .rpt file. The report files are found in the installation directory of the program and they have ".rpt" as a file extension. The name of the ".rpt" files are listed below.
You will need to access and edit the "mocharge" table in the "rptdata" database within MySQL. I suggest using the MySQL Control Center to do this but you can use anything you like. If you feel comfortable using M.S. Access, open the "mocharge" table by connecting to the ODBC Datasource named "freealeir" and add or edit your state charges to the database.
You will need to access and edit the "streets" table in the "rptdata" database within MySQL. I suggest using the MySQL Control Center to do this but you can use anything you like. If you feel comfortable using M.S. Access, open the "streets" table by connecting to the ODBC Datasource named "freealeir" and add or edit your jurisdiction's street names to the database.
Not yet! We are planning to add this to a future release. All of the booking photos are saved to the "ar_photo" table in the "rptdata" database in the MySQL Server. You can easily access and print these photos using MySQL Control Center. You can, for example, run a name from within the report writing program and, if any arrest register reports exist for the name you run, you can view the photo from within the report writing program.
Sure! Anyone can use our software.
No! If you wish to install the software for a department and the department wants to pay you to install the software and modify it then have at it. We will not release the source code for the report writing and dispatch software to anyone for any reason. You can charge whatever you like for installing and configuring the report writing and dispatch software programs on a network for your customers.
The fastest way to get your questions answered is to email your questions to us at info@aleir.com. If you have a question that is not answered here, there are probably others who also have the same question. If possible, we will post your questions to this FAQ so others can benefit from it as well. You can always call us at (314) 255-1948. If we miss your phone call, please leave a message and someone will return your call.
For a $5.00 shipping and handling fee, we will send you a CDROM Disk containing all of the files you can download from our website. You should try to find a better Internet connection and download the files from our website if at all possible. The website contains the most updated version of the report writing and dispatching program.
If you are having trouble downloading the files on our website, find someone with more computer experience to help you out. You might want to send us an email message explaining what it is you can't download in case there is a problem with our web server. We might be able to email you the files you need.
No. You should install the MySQL Server database on your computer or on your network. All data is saved to your MySQL Server database at your facility. Unless you want us to host your data, there is no need to have Internet access on your LAN. If you would like us to host your data, see this link for additional information.
The default user names, passwords and security levels are listed below.
Patrol officers and detectives normally have a security level of 10.
Supervisors are allowed to enter and approve reports. Anyone who approves a report should have a security level of 20. Once a supervisor approves a report, the report is locked and it can't be edited. If a report is approved by a supervisor, a supplemental report should be written.
System administrators have the security level of 40. System administrators can add, remove or delete a user from the system. Systam administrators can also access all of the data saved into the database form within the report writing and dispatch programs.
You didn't setup the options properly on the "freealeir" and the "freecad" MySQL ODBC Data Source Names. You need to go back into the MyODBC connections and make sure to check the option "Don't Optimize Column Width" and check the option "Return Matching Rows" so you won't get the error. Your MySQL ODBC connection should something like this when you are finished.
You need to download the latest Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.8 from Microsoft and install it on your computer. After doing this, you will have the M.S. Access ODBC Driver available for you to use.
Generally, it is not economical for us to travel to your site to install and show you how to use the report writing and dispatch software. If you would like us to do this, we charge $200.00 a day plus travel expenses. If your department is within 100 miles of St. Louis, Missouri, we will not charge you anything for us to stop in and install the software for you if you are paying us for support. For more information on support options, please click here.
You do not need any special type of digital camera to import digital pictures into your reports. You can use any digital camera you wish to import digital photos into the arrest/booking report and the incident report as long as the digital images you are importing are "JPG" files. Most cameras you purchase today will save the digital images into a "JPG" file so you will not have to convert the format of the digital image before you import the picture into a report.
All photos saved into a report are saved into the MySQL database. You do not need to save the digital image on your computer's hard drive or keep the picture on your camera after importing the digital image into a report.
There are several ways to search report and dispatch data entered into the system. The report writing program will allow you to search vehicle, person, location and property data. You can also run a keyword search on report narratives. The dispatch program allows you to search calls by date, day or street. You can print a report of all calls by date, all officer activity and print a summary report of all incidents logged into the system.
You can always conduct an offline search and access your data from the MySQL Server by a number of different ways. One of the reasons why We use MySQL Server to store your data is so you can use any number of different software tools to access your data. If you are familiar with using M.S. Access, for example, you could import your data from the MySQL Server into M.S. Access. You could then run any custom query or report off of the imported data using M.S. Access. If you are familiar with Crystal Reports, you could develop any type of report you wish using the data stored in the MySQL Server.
You do not have to print a report if you don't want to do so. As long as you backup the MySQL Server database on a regular basis, you do not have to ever print a report if you don't want to do so.
You can export any report you write and save it to a disk or the computer's hard drive. You can then attach the file to an email message and send it to somoeone via email. There are many different file formats supported by our report writing program. Some of them are listed below.
If we are hosting your data and we loose power, we have a backup power source (generator and battery backup) so we will not loose power to our server. If, for some strange reason, the Internet should go down, we will overnight your data on a CDROM or DVD Disk and provide detailed instructions to you so you can setup the MySQL Server on your network and get up and running with a minimal loss of time for officer's writing reports.
You probably installed MySQL Server version 4.1 instead of version 4.0. If you installed version 4.1 of MySQL Server, you will not be able to run the self-extracting WinZip file named MySQL Report Data Files.exe to copy the "rptdata" and the "caddata" databases to the "C:\mysql\data" directory and expect the MySQL Server (version 4.1) see the two databases. You will have to either RESTORE the two databases or you can uninstall version 4.1 of the MySQL Server and install version 4.0 of MySQL Server.
If you wish to install version 4.0 of MySQL Server on your computer, please uninstall version 4.1 of MySQL Server before you try to install version 4.0 of MySQL Server. After you uninstall version 4.1 of MySQL Server from your computer, download version 4.0 of MySQL Server from here. After you install version 4.0 on your server, you will have to run the self-extracting WinZip file named MySQL Report Data Files.exe on the server to copy the "rptdata" and the "caddata" databases back to the "C:\mysql\data" directory.
If you are certain you installed version 4.0 of MySQL Server, reboot the computer and try to connect to the MySQL Server again. If you still can't connect to the MySQL Server, check the settings for the MySQL Server ODBC Driver and check the settings for the user "free01" on the MySQL Server. Make sure the privileges for the user "free01" are set to Select, Insert, Update and Delete for the "rptdata" and the "caddata" databases.
If you wish to use version 4.1 of MySQL Server, you will have to RESTORE the "rptdata" and the "caddata" databases to the MySQL Server. You will need to unzip the file rptdata Project 20041205 0547.zip to a temporary directory and use this file to restore the database files to your version 4.1 of MySQL Server. I suggest using the MySQL Administrator to restore the databases to your MySQL Server (version 4.1).
If you do not want to install MySQL Server on your computer and you would like to test the program then email us and we will try to work something out for you.
Make sure you assign the correct privileges on the database named "rptdata" (for the report writing program) and the database named "caddata" (for the dispatch program). You must assign the following privileges for these tables for the user "free01" (report writing program) and the user "freecad" using MySQL.
After assigning the above listed privileges to the databases using MySQL, you must restart the MySQL Server or the changes will go unnoticed.
For more information on how to add users to the MySQL Server, see here. If you read further down this FAQ, you will see additional information on how to add users to the MySQL Server here.
The report writing and dispatch programs do not have a manual explaining how to use the software. We designed the programs using the KISS principle. The programs are very simple and easy to use as you will see if you install and run the software.
The Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act requires colleges and universities to disclose certain timely and annual information about campus crime. All public and private institutions of postsecondary education participating in federal student aid programs are subject to it. The A.L.E.I.R. Report Writing Program can help you capture this data. You can query the data entered into a report and generate your own custom reports using any software program you are familiar with that can open an ODBC Connection.
This problem occurs when the installation contains a reference to a version of ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) that is earlier than the latest installed version. Click "Ignore" and continue with the installation of the program. After the program installs, run it to see if it works. If it doesn't work, you will need to download and install Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) 2.8.
This problem first surfaced when anyone downloaded and installed the latest MySQL ODBC Driver 3.51.10 from the MySQL website. MySQL is aware of this bug and has issued an update for the ODBC Driver. You can read more about this error on MySQL.com here.
To work around this issue, you will have to uninstall version 3.41.10 of the MySQL ODBC Driver on your computer. You will have to download and install version 3.51.11-1 of the MySQL ODBC Driver from MySQL.com. After installing version 3.51.11-1 of the MySQL ODBC Driver, setup the "freealeir" and the "freecad" DSN ODBC Connections and the error should go away.
Yes. Many states are now require that all peace officers report specific information including a driver's race for each traffic contact made. You can use our database to record all contacts and help you collect your data. You can review a screen shot of the data collected by clicking here.
You can use any word processor you like to write your narrative for your report. When you finish writing your report narrative using another word processor, copy the text to the Windows clipboard. You can paste the text of your narrative into the report writing program by selecting the "Paste" command button on the data entry screen for the report narrative.
We are currently OLLEISN Level I Certified. This means you can automatically upload your data to the Ohio Attorney General and share data with other police agencies in the State of Ohio. If you would like additional information about the Ohio Local Law Enforcement Information-Sharing Network, follow this link to their website.
You must have the below listed fields completed before you can clear a call and place an officer back into service.
When you select the "Update Main Screen (F-5)" command button and all four of the above fields have values in the text boxes, the officer dispatched on this call will be placed back into service and now be available for another assignment.
Report narratives are saved to a field having the MySQL Datatype of mediumtext. This field can have up to 16,777,215 characters. If you assume there are 2200 characters to a page, you can have about 7,626 pages of text in a report narrative. I hope I don't have to review that report!
Security of MySQL Server is very important. If you are planning to run the MySQL Server on the Internet and you plan to access your data from a remote location, you must follow the proceedures listed at the below URL to secure your data.
Securing a MySQL Server on Windows
After you successfully install MySQL Server, you need to start the MySQL Server. You can start the MySQL Server by changing into the "C:\mysql\bin" directory and running the "winmysqladmin.exe" file. You will need to log into the MySQL Server as "root." You do this by changing into the "C:\mysql\bin" directory and then you need to run the below command to log into the MySQL Server as the system administrator.
C:\mysql\bin>mysql -u root -p
If you log into the MySQL Server from the computer where the MySQL Server is running, you do not need to supply a password to access this account. When you are asked to supply a password for the "root" user, hit the enter key to log into the MySQL Server as the "root" user.
While logged into the MySQL Server, You should run the following command to add the new user "free01" to the MySQL Server.
mysql> GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ON rptdata.* TO 'free01'@'192.168.1.%' IDENTIFIED BY 'some_pass';
mysql> GRANT SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE ON caddata.* TO 'free01'@'192.168.1.%' IDENTIFIED BY 'some_pass';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
You will want to use "FLUSH PRIVILEGES" so the privilege changes take effect by reloading the grant tables.
You will edit the IP address for the user "free01" to restrict what network the user logs into your system. The above example will allow all devices that have an IP Address that start 192.168.1 will be allowed to access the MySQL Server.
By default, when you install MySQL Server, you can have up to 100 simultaneous connections to the MySQL Server. For each person logged into the report writing program, you will use 5 connections. This means you can have up 20 users using the report writing program at the same time.
If you wanted to have 60 people using the report writing program all at the same time, you will have to increase the number of simultaneous connections allowed by MySQL Server by editing the "C:\Windows\my.ini" file on the computer running your MySQL Server. If you open the "my.ini" file using a text editor, you will need to add the line "max_connections=300" to increase the number of simultaneous connections to 300. You will want to put this line of text under the [mysqld] section of the "my.ini" file. The [mysqld] section of Your "my.ini" file should look something like this after you add the "max_connections=300" line.
Take a break! All of the instructions on how to install the report writing and the dispatch software are located on our website. Make sure you follow each step in the order specified in the directions to properly install the software. Try to find someone with more experience to help you install the software. If all else fails, send us an email and we will try to help you out.
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