Morgan County moves to Odyssey. Doxpop users (mostly!) unaffected.

Recently the Courts in Morgan County moved to the Odyssey system. For us, the complete migration takes quite a bit of effort & expense, and won't be finished until Sept 8th. However, we work hard to make sure you don't lose access to any information during that time.

This move does not significantly affect Doxpop users because Doxpop buys access from JTAC to a real-time feed of court data from the Odyssey system. Our customers' access to Morgan court information will not be interrupted during the transition.

A few of the services we provide will look odd during the transition, because there will be a short period when both the old data and the new data are available. In particular:

• If you use the personal calendar feature, you will see two colors for Morgan County on your calendar. Every event will be available, but the older cases will have a different color from the newer cases. When we complete the merge process, these will go back to being a single color.
• When you look at our "County Details Page", you will find two entries for each court until the merge is complete.
• When you are doing searches, you will find two entries for some cases. This is because while we are loading the information from Odyssey, we will also be maintaining the old data until the operation is complete to ensure you don't miss anything. When you see two case entries, please look at both to ensure you have the most current information.
• If you use any of our "watch" services to keep an eye on cases or people of interest, we will be moving those watches over so they point to the cases and people that are a part of the Odyssey data feed. We run a process to convert these twice each day, but it is possible for notification of events to slip through the cracks between conversion runs so you may want to periodically do a manual check between now and Sept 8th. After the 8th, we'll be back to normal.

Finally, one deficiency in the Odyssey system is that financial information is not exported in their data feed, so that detail will not be available after the transition. We regularly ask that JTAC add this to the data feed, but so far, we are told that it is not allowed because the clerks using the Odyssey system have requested that JTAC not make that information available to us. If this information is important to you, please encourage the clerks you work with to tell JTAC differently so we can get the information back online.

As always, we are available to answer any questions in person, so don't hesitate to call support at 866-369-7671 if you have any questions.

Did the Russian cyber gang get my Doxpop password?

You may have seen recent news articles about hackers in Russia that have compromised over 400,000 websites to obtain as many as 4.5 billion usernames and passwords for as many as 1.2 billion distinct users.

We do not have reason to believe that the Doxpop website was compromised because Doxpop designs and regularly tests its software to avoid the particular vulnerability (known as "SQL injection") exploited by the group.

However, if you use the same password for multiple websites, we recommend that you change your Doxpop password because it may have been compromised at a less secure web site. We also recommend that you not use the same password on multiple websites. You can change your Doxpop password by clicking on the "my doxpop" tab and selecting "Change Password" near the bottom of the side menu.

Doxpop is a careful steward of the information entrusted to us by our users. We are grateful for that trust and will keep you informed of any further developments.

Thank you for using Doxpop!

Ray Ontko, President

Great customer service is easy! (So why doesn't every company do it?)

Excellent customer service is one of our goals at Doxpop, and our customers regularly verify that we're doing a great job.

What's puzzling to us is that it's so easy to provide great service, but so few companies do it. All we have to do is give our employees permission to care about you. I don't believe anybody goes to work in the morning thinking "I'll act like a jerk today!", but many companies create an environment where their representatives are forced to argue or postpone instead of just saying "OK, I'll help you with that."

So why is this on my mind today? Have a listen to this sad/funny service call:

http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/15/5901057/comcast-call-cancel-service-ryan-block

Please, if we ever do anything like this to you, call me directly at 765-373-9245 and I'll personally take care of you! (Or just comment below about your experience with our service.)

Ohio County Courts Join Doxpop

Doxpop is pleased to welcome Ohio County to the family of Courts, Clerks and Recorders providing easy access to public records via Doxpop.

People wishing to access public court cases on-line may access the information at http://www.doxpop.com. This web site is designed primarily to serve attorneys and other professionals who use court information with fee-based services, but it also provides low-volume access to the general public at no cost.  

Doxpop currently provides on-line access to court information in 88 Indiana counties. 

Doxpop is provided without any use of public funding or tax money. 

For additional information, contact Annie Jo Jackson at the Clerk's Office, (812) 438-2610 or Nick Fankhauser at Doxpop, LLC; (765) 373-9245.

Updates off for many CSI Counties on June 30th; Some excess notifications generated.

In preparation for statute changes taking effect on July 1, mass updates were done in all counties using the CSI JTS case management system over the weekend of June 28th & 29th.

These updates caused some incorrect notifications of minute entry changes on watched cases, for which we apologize!

The updates also caused a log-jam in our own system as Doxpop attempted to process the flood of changes. To resolve this problem, we have taken the CSI counties offline while we process the excess transactions in each. As each county is cleaned up, we will bring it back online, and the case data will be re-synced with the county system.

What this means for our users is :

1. The data for many counties will be "stale" for most of today, with the information being current only as of the end of June 27th (Friday night.) Take note of the "freshness date" in the upper left corner of each case detail record to see if the case you are viewing is affected.
2. If you received many minute entry notifications over the weekend, they may be safely ignored. However, notifications received on Friday or after Noon today are valid.

Apologies for the inconvenience this will cause! Although we were not prepared for these updates, we feel confident we can get everything back to normal during the course of the next 24 hours... It will just be a bit slow because we are taking care to ensure that no actual changes to the data you care about are lost in the process.

A better recorded document result page

Today Doxpop is releasing several changes to our recorded document search that we think you'll like. Here is what changed:

1. A cleaner format, designed to work with wider screens.
2. No document is presented more than once. Previously, if a search for a partial name matched two parties, the document would be displayed once for each matching party. Now, there are no duplicates.
3. More documents returned. Previously you were limited to 200 results for each search. Now up to 500 results can be displayed.
4. Sorting! You can reorder the results by clicking at the top of any column. (Note however, that if more than 500 results are returned, sorting can't be used

Supporting the public with public information

At a recent meeting of the the Judicial Technology Oversight Commission, Doxpop fielded a question from a committee member who asked if  "Joe Public" could use Doxpop for free.

The answer is "yes!"

We call our free service the "Informed Citizen" account, but maybe we should change the name to the "Joe Public" account, because (when you include Josephine) that's exactly who we had in mind.

This free account has been a hit, and since we've introduced it, people have signed up for 33,000 "Joe Public" accounts. Each week more than14,000 searches are done using these accounts. The free account level includes access to all of our features, including unlimited support over the phone or eMail to make sure you find what you need. One commonly used feature is the ability to "save" a case, set an alert on it, and come back to it any number of times in the future - all for free.

It only takes a minute to get started with a free account-

Sign up at this page: https://www.doxpop.com/prod/common/NewSubscription. Make sure you select the plan that costs $0/month.

We were surprised that a member of the Judicial Technology Oversight Commission didn't know about this service, but it underscores the need for us to spread the word, so please help us encourage people to make use of Doxpop's free service by sharing this post with your friends.

Memories of Jim Fielder.

Jim Fielder was one of the first clerks we worked with when Doxpop was just getting started. We couldn't have had a better introduction to the hardworking and kind people who choose a life of service in county government.

In the past 11 years, no visit to Monroe County has been complete without a visit to Jim's office, either as Clerk, or later, as Recorder. It didn't matter whether we actually had any business to conduct- We would go see him for the selfish reason that he would always make the day better. If we went into his office feeling cynical about government, we would leave feeling hopeful and reminded that no matter what mischief the national politicians have been up to, the folks who work quietly in the county courthouses keep the services we really need working.

The poet Kenneth Rexroth could have had Jim Fielder in mind when he wrote "The mature man lives quietly, does good privately, assumes personal responsibility for his actions, treats others with friendliness and courtesy, finds mischief boring and keeps out of it. Without this hidden conspiracy of good will, society would not endure an hour."

Anyone who has seen Jim's impish smile knows he was part of the conspiracy of good will.

I don't know how long they'll leave the picture up, but this image from the Herald Times captures his spirit well.

It's also worth taking a moment to read this remembrance from Rachel Bunn at the Herald Times. When I went looking for the picture link above, it was comforting to find several articles like this one, eulogizing Jim as a courageous and honest public servant.

What the document image links do.

We have recently changed the labels on the links you use to get to recorded document images. Here are the new labels, and what they mean:

The View link is only available for counties where you have purchased access to the "unlimited view" feature. It will take you to a full-sized document image that you may view, but not print.

Preview is the link you will use most often. It is available in all counties, and takes you to the "sliding window pane" viewer that allows you to look at any portion of  the document without viewing the entire page. This is also the link you should follow if you want to purchase one or more pages of the document.

The Printable link will appear next to a document if you have already purchased one or more pages through the "preview" link. This link will take you to a printable version of the pages you previously purchased.

As always, if you have any questions, give us a call at 866-369-7671 or eMail support@doxpop.com if you have any questions. Friendly people are standing by to help!

Welcome aboard, Carroll County!

Today, Doxpop welcomes the Carroll County Recorder's Office to our network of local government partners. Carroll County is the 31st Recorder's office we've worked with, and they pushed our count of Recorded Documents available through Doxpop to over ten million! 

Carroll County's recorded document index dates back to January 1, 1994, with images of most documents scanned and available in digital form from that date forward as well. People seeking on-line access to Carroll County's information can find it at http://www.doxpop.com.

In addition to making the Recorded Documents in her office available online, Recorder Mary Ann Burton is now providing the Doxpop Property Watch Service to residents of Carroll County at no cost. The Property Watch service allows anyone to set a watch on her or his name and property that provides notification when a document is filed that references either. The Property Watch service may be found at http://watch.doxpop.com.

We've enjoyed working with Marry Ann and her first Deputy, Teresa as we added their county. Every new county we work with expands our circle of friends and makes coming to work each day even more fun!