VisManager 4.5

RENOVO SOFTWARE RELEASES VISMANAGER 4.5

Minneapolis, MN – (September 15, 2010)—In the last few years, the video visitation market has emerged from its humble beginnings as a means of eliminating the movement of inmates, visitors and reducing contraband inside a correctional facility. Today, video visitation provides a more robust solution that helps correctional facilities streamline their entire visitation process and significantly reduces operational costs.

Minneapolis-based Renovo Software has been the leader in this charge. As a developer of video network management solutions, Renovo has brought their extensive knowledge of managing large-distance learning and broadcast networks to the corrections market. In 2004 Renovo formally launched its VisManager Video Visitation Solution to this market. Six years later and controlling nearly 4000 video visitation stations with customers on all levels of the corrections market, Renovo is considered the industry leader.

From the start, Renovo took a different approach to developing their video visitation solution. Co-owner of Renovo Software, Tim Skaja, describes, “As opposed to other video visitation system providers, our roots are in software development. Consequently, we wanted to bring to the market a solution that looked beyond simply connecting two stations together to focusing on how software can help facilities actively manage their entire visitation environment.” VisManager became this solution.

The core functionality of Renovo’s Video Visitation Solution is that it allows facilities to easily schedule, manage, automate and report on their visitation environment. This approach allows software to do its job and the facilities to reallocate resources to more mission-critical tasks. As Major Scott Baird of Rappahannock Regional Jail states, “The Renovo solution greatly simplifies the overall visitation process and creates a much safer, less chaotic and more controlled environment. In the end, we have seen a complete return on investment in 12 month.”

Now in its fourth generation, Renovo continues to extend VisManager’s functionality. As Co-owner Tim Eickhoff elaborates, “Our customers are seeing our solution as more than just public video visitation; they are seeing it as a means of connecting public defenders, judges, bondsmen and medical personnel to the inmate remotely via video—helping them to promote full system utilization and sharing costs with other departments.”

Renovo’s newest software release, VisManager 4.5 offers several new features for customers. One such feature provides a configurable station selection engine that enables facilities that have single-, dual- and/or Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) classified stations to set assignment priorities for those stations. For example, if a person schedules themselves for a visit, they can be assigned to a single handset station, whereas a family coming in for a visit can be assigned a dual-handset station. Facilities can thus “right size” station features during the design phase—saving money and enabling better service for the public.

VisManager 4.5’s most innovative feature is the ability to provide scheduling software to facilities that either do not have video visitation capabilities or the budget for a full video visitation system. Renovo offers the unique ability to provide standalone software for scheduling and managing face-to-face visits for the corrections market. Eickhoff states, “We are most excited about this new feature because it opens the door to facilities that simply want a better way to manage their visitation environment. So whether they have face-to-face, video, or a mix of both, VisManager has the capability to manage all three.”

Development is already underway for Vis Manager 5.0, which promises to incorporate even more customer-centric features. Skaja elaborates, “Each new version of VisManager is developed as a direct response to the evolving needs of the customers we serve. We take great care to evaluate the requests of our customers to ensure that with each new iteration of VisManager that we are extending the user experience and providing even greater value to our customers.”

New Key Enhancements and Features:

Simultaneous Stop All Visits

• On the maintenance screen, there is a new “Stop All” visits button which will allow facilities to immediately terminate all running visits in the case of an emergency or lockdown situation.

Spanish Visitor Web Translation

• Allows the Visitor Web Interface to be translated into Spanish.

• The language selection is a simple dropdown on the page that will remember language preferences each time the visitor logs in.

* Requires additional licensing

Face-to-Face Scheduling

• Facilities are now able to manage their face-to-face visits with the same policies, quotas, and scheduling practices as their video visits.

• Facilities that are looking to better manage their visitation environment but are not looking to transition to video visitations can now use VisManager as a standalone system to schedule, manage, and have the public register and schedule visits themselves.

* Requires additional licensing.

XML Interfacing with JMS/OMS

• Whereas previous versions of VisManager only allowed facilities to interface with the JMS/OMS using a flat file, facilities are not able to interface with VisManager using an XML interface.

• Import inmate events, visitors, restrictions, and approved visitors.

• For new installs, a one time initial import will help to transition existing visitor data.

* Requires additional licensing.

Event Scheduling

• An “Event” can be anything from a holiday, dorm lockdown, weather emergency, ect that requires the facility to limit the previously available visitation times or resources .

• Events can be scheduled inmates, stations, station groups, housing units, visitation centers, and recording devices.

• Events can be open ended, modified, and removed.

• For events at stations, station groups, and recording devices, VisManager will attempt to reschedule the visit first before canceling the visit.

• Inmate events can be imported from the JMS/OMS.

New Daily Reports

• Allows facilities to post a printer ready report in the housing unit or day room without the visitor’s name.

Station Selection Engine

• The Station Selection Engine can be used by facilities to better manage visitor station assignments. The engine can be set up such that dual handset and ADA stations are assigned to those visitor(s) that require them; families can be automatically assigned dual handset stations, and visitors requiring wheelchair access can be assigned a ADA stations.

• Facilities will be able to assign selection criteria – prioritizing station assignments.

Rimage DVD Burner Driver

• Authorized users will now be able to burn a session directly to a Rimage DVD Burner

• Easy dropdown interface makes the burning process user friendly.

• Custom labels disc with visit information.

* Requires additional licensing