Doxpop - Tools for Attorneys and Public Information Researchers: Franklin County Converts to Odyssey

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Franklin County Converts to Odyssey

Franklin County has just made the switch to JTAC's Odyssey System for management of court cases. Luckily, Doxpop's service with the county should not be affected by this recent conversion. All Franklin County court records found on the state funded Odyssey site can also be found on Doxpop.  In addition, you are also able to utilize Doxpop's many features such as calendars, email alerts, and advanced searching with Franklin County court cases.

However, there are two changes you should be aware of:

1) Online payment for traffic infractions in Franklin County is no longer available through our services.

2) The other change is the lack of financial information that you would normally find in the case summary of other Doxpop partner courts. The Indiana Division of State Court Administration has informed us that the clerks using the Odyssey system prefer that financial information not be made public. The Clerks in the other counties we serve have decided that this is useful information that the public should have access to, so we're puzzled that only Clerks using Odyssey have decided not to share this information. If you think financial transactions are an important part of the public record, please ask the clerks you work with to contact the Division about making it available through Doxpop.

5 comments:

One Down said...

I think it's important for the information to be available to the public for free, despite missing financial information. I always use Odyssey if a county offers it, it doesn't count against my "quota" of lookups. They also don't penalize you if you accidentally search a misspelling or make a similar mistake. I could do without doxpop if the whole state used Odyssey.

Nick Fankhauser said...

Thanks for your feedback. I'm curious- Are you aware that Doxpop offers a free service for non-professional users? Do you use any of the other features Doxpop provides such as automatic calendar updates or the ability to place watches on cases or people? We are working hard to figure out which enhanced services professional are willing to pay for, because as you pointed out, it's hard to compete with a service that is paid for by the taxpayers. (Like any government service, it's not really free- you pay for it on April 15th.)

Nick Fankhauser said...

One-Down: Would you be willing to provide some contact information so we can talk? Oddly, nobody offering a negative comment on this blog seems to be willing to do it publicly. We try to take everyone seriously, but it's hard to work with an anonymous person. You can reach me at 765-373-9245 or nickf@doxpop.com.

Anonymous said...

how is it free if copies are $2.00 per page,there is nothing on doxpop that you can't get for free on odyssey,there are cases like "cb" cases that are on odyssey that are not on doxpop.

Nick Fankhauser said...

Well hello again anonymous! You've been busy. What I'm referring to is the fact that we provide court searching at low volume for free. When we provide copies of recorded documents, we owe the recorder $1 per page and incur other expenses, so yes we do charge for copies of recorded documents. We make no apologies about needing to make a living.

You are incorrect about CB cases. Those are available on Doxpop. If you're having trouble finding them, call our support line at 866-369-7671 and we can help. Support is free. (But you'll have to ask nicely.)

Seems like you're a real fan of Odyssey. Some connection we should know about? As always, looking forward to the day you decide to introduce yourself.