UK police forces use Microsoft Dynamics CRM, network visualization to process incident data

Microsoft Services UK is incorporating KeyLines network visualization technology from Cambridge Intelligence into Microsoft Dynamics CRM to help two UK police forces more efficiently react to and record incidents.

Between these two forces, call handlers in contact centers and dispatchers receive 2.6 million calls relating to 1.1 million incidents each year.

And with every call, they must process and record new data; identify risks to colleagues and the public; make quick decisions about the next course of action; communicate with members of the public and officers; and take control of complex, rapidly evolving scenarios.

Until now, call handlers had to work with legacy technologies that kept information in separate systems, and relied on older desktop tools. This made processes slower and hindered a self-service approach to getting information.

There are around 45 police forces geographically spread out across the UK, and it is common for those forces to collaborate on technology projects such as this one. The two police forces approached Microsoft Services saying that they wanted to find a better way to deal with incidents and also to give their contact management team a better platform for responding to different incidents.

"Contact center teams need to quickly find and understand a lot of contextual data," stated Huw Edmunds, solution architect at Microsoft Services. "They don't have time to trawl through long lists of information and historical records. Network visualization is an excellent way to bring out all of that relevant information at the right time."

"Network visualization" sounds like an IT term, and it is commonly used in IT to summarize an entire network in ...