mobile solutions

The Demise of the “Magic Wand” and Rise of Doing More with Less

by Andrew Davidson on May 17, 2012

We would like to thank Andrew Davidson, the Channel Development Manager for TotalMobile, for contributing to the PPM Blog as a guest author. TotalMobile is a PPM 2000 technology and integration partner that specializes in providing cutting edge mobile applications to various private enterprises, as well as public safety, healthcare and government organizations. Their security apps for guard tours, post orders, BOLO, incident capture and inspections allow in-the-field personnel to capture information and instantly relay it to back-office systems, such as Perspective by PPM 2000, saving on processing paperwork, travel costs and operative time.

Over the past decade, the Guard Tour process has been dominated by wand-based systems. The “magic wand” is carried by an officer and plugs into pre-determined wand outlets, providing post verification to a supervisor. Officers are in turn forced to add additional equipment to their tool belt and depend on another piece of hardware to complete their jobs.

Question: Would an officer be happier and more efficient carrying less equipment; being able to do more with less?

What the average person carries in their “tool belt” has changed significantly over the past 10 years: a map for directions, a camera to take pictures, a CD player for music and paper to jot down notes. The evolution of the mobile device has definitely simplified the average person’s life; allowing for on demand GPS directions, high resolution pictures of the family with a swipe of the finger, your favorite music on-the-go and a grocery list that is never lost.

The next logical step is to apply this methodology to security and the Guard Tour process, allowing officers to do more with less. Replacing a “magic wand” with a mobile device will not only allow an officer to capture location verification via the latest technology, NFC (Near Field Communications), but also eliminate the clip board of forms, capture images in the field, receive real time updates and access mission critical data in the back-office system.

Prediction: With the evolution of mobile devices, the demise of the “magic wand” is inevitable.

For more information on TotalMobile’s security apps and their integration with Perspective:

Watch this quick intro video…

Request this webinar recording on Empowering Officers and Investigators with Real-Time Incident Management…

Or… contact your Account Manager at information@ppm2000.com.

—Andrew Davidson, Channel Development Manager, TotalMobile Inc.

The Changing World of Incident Management: Mobility

by Jeff Sieben, CPP, CISSP on February 28, 2012

Should we?
Should we not?
Should we?
Should we not?

There are questions about mobility within our industry that are more complex than “Should we” or “Should we not”. There are some huge tactical benefits to a mobility-enabled workforce, and yet there is an operational element that can deaden the sizzle.

Here are some questions you might consider as you lead your organization operationally onto the mobility bandwagon.

First, how do you plan to acquire the mobile devices to be used in your organization?

You might think that purchasing them for your employees is a good thing. You may have noticed that your employees all have phones of their own. Why not use theirs? You will do well to consider the challenges that come with buying devices for your employees versus giving them a stipend for using their own.

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The Countdown is On!

by Lenora Thomas on February 16, 2012

It’s less than a month away… our 2012 Perspective Users’ Conference is coming up on March 6th & 7th, 2012 at the TradeWinds Island Grand Beach Resort in St. Pete Beach, Florida. Anticipation is building throughout PPM as we reach the final stages of planning and immerse ourselves in the last minute details. We’re doing everything from evaluating presentations, to choosing meals, to coordinating fun surprises for all of the attendees. It’s going to be a great couple of days in sunny Florida!

We can’t help but be excited about everything this year’s Conference has to offer including introductory sessions for new clients and hands-on access to Perspective’s newest features and functionality (ready to test drive Perspective Mobile?).

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The Importance of Mobility

by Brian McIlravey, CPP on February 2, 2012

the importance of mobile incident data capture abilitiesYesterday I hosted the PPM webinar, ‘Empowering Officers and Investigators with Real-Time Incident Management—Introducing Mobility Options for In-the-Field Data Capture & Retrieval.’ Back when we started working on our mobile applications and had moved into the test and release phase, I thought “wow, this is really cool and easy to use,” but it wasn’t until I started putting the presentation together for this webinar that I realized just how important this function is to security and investigative personnel.

To start, I needed to come up with some basics for the webinar such as “what’s the benefit?” The answer to that question easily became intelligence and efficiency.

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Achieving End-to-End Incident Management with the NEW Perspective 3.0

by Elaine O'Sullivan on December 7, 2011

We showcased it at ASIS, started shipping a few weeks ago and issued the press release last week… Perspective 3.0 is now installed, in production and being used by corporate security departments around the world.

A Milestone Moment

Perspective 3.0 represents a significant milestone for PPM. It’s the culmination of a 2-year initiative that saw Perspective evolve from an Incident Reporting software system to an end-to-end Incident Management solution. The difference between the two might seem subtle, but, from my Co-CEO’s standpoint as a security professional, it was huge. More specifically, every time I tried to use the phrase ‘Incident Management’ in our marketing materials, Brian would come back at me with… we’re not really Incident Management, we’re just the back-end of it. Until now…
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