Briefing is a staple for daily operational policing, establishing the ‘who, what, when and where’ for operations. Well managed briefing info keeps your Force focused on the right priorities. Yet the assembly and dissemination of briefing information can be time consuming and error prone. Poor communication can reduce the effectiveness of force initiatives, waste resources, and even put officers at risk. For briefing creators and consumers alike, a common complaint is being unable to keep up with ever-changing, varied information. Brevity is crucial. Officers may express ‘tell us where you want us to go, tell us what you want us to do’. And yet critical information must not be missed. Getting this balance wrong impacts resources and reduces effective policing, with briefing and dissemination increasingly relying on laborious manual processes and conscientious ‘best endeavours’.

Introducing Corvus Briefing

Corvus Briefing was developed in close collaboration with UK police forces. It gives your officers the tools they need to create, disseminate and consume briefing information efficiently and accurately – with a powerful combination of automation and flexibility. Corvus Briefing works at all levels, from formal briefings on the big screen to key facts delivered to officer mobiles through Corvus Active Briefing System (CABS).

Awareness and Focus

Corvus Briefing helps you target information, getting the right blend of general awareness vs. specific focus points. With a clear and simple interface for users to view or manage briefing content, information is automatically collected and updated, providing a personalised view, tailored to job role and location. Briefing content can be a mixture of recent incidents and events, items of note, identification requests, guidance and policy documents etc. Most importantly, content is configurable to suit the needs of your Force.

• Simple summaries give an overview of significant events including Arrests, Crimes, Incidents, Intelligence Reports, Warrants…
• Then further configurable sections help your officers focus on important details. Real world examples include Critical, Dangerous Offenders / Risk Assessments, Gun Crime, Identification Requests, Local Priorities, Missing Persons, Operations, Organised Crime Groups, Prison Releases / Conditions, Targets / Wanted Persons, Threats, Urban Street Gangs, Victim Contact

The display of entries can be further refined by a number of filters, including shift patterns, priorities, dates and themes. The application understands the position of every user and department, ensuring correct privileges are assigned, simplifying administration. Everyone accesses the information they need from one secure system, at their desk or on the move. Content itself is also structured to be rapidly understood. Templates within the system provide a consistent interface whilst being flexible enough to reflect the nature and priority of the briefing item. All briefing entries can be supplemented by the inclusion of spreadsheets, images and attachments.

Area of Interest?

Corvus Briefing and Corvus Neighbourhood Profiles are both integrated with Corvus mapping capabilities. Briefing items can be targeted based on a specific neighbourhood, sector, division… This also underpins support for Corvus Section 60 Management.

Integrated Tasking

Corvus Briefing includes integrated location-aware tasking, delivered to the frontline officer’s mobile device, supporting them to take specific actions when entering an area of interest.

Ticker Tape

A simple but incredibly useful add-in, the integrated Ticker Tape function provide an easy means to bring important, general concerns or ‘news’ to the attention of all users – scrolling the headlines across the screen. See screenshots below for a test-data example.

Corvus Neighbourhood Profiles (NHP)

Corvus Neighbourhood Profiles visually combine data on a map to give a detailed view of each area or neighbourhood. NHP integrates with Corvus Briefing to provide an extensive repository of local knowledge that can be targeted at specific officers, units, divisions and shifts through Corvus Briefing.

Define your area of interest. Then use NHP to bring data into the map – with specially designed icons to give everyone from frontline officers to support staff a clear, memorable representation of the area. For example crime patterns, intelligence reports, offender addresses, patrol areas, demographic statistics, CCTV cameras… Starting with a role based view, the user can plot additional information, or filter content easily. And a separate neighbourhood information area allows more data to be recorded, increasing knowledge for each community.

Key Features

Corvus Briefings and Neighbourhood Profiles are:

• Active – with manual or automated creation and automated update of briefing items based on the Corvus data store. Briefings link back to real-time data within the nominal profile. For example, if somebody is wanted at 09:00 and arrested at 10:00, they are then removed from the ‘wanted’ section.  
• Actionable –  so an officer can volunteer to arrest a named individual 
• Audited – so you know who has accessed the data, and when 
• Digestible – with content structured to be rapidly delivered and easily understood 
• Compelling – with support for images, spreadsheets or other attachments and the ability to customise content so that it sticks in the mind . 
• Integrated – to crime, incident, warrant or intelligence report records 
• Location aware – with task assignment and notifications as officers enter an area of interest. Integrated support for Section 60.
• Mobile – delivering information to frontline officers 
• Personalised – with integration to directory services to tailor the user view according to their job location and role.
• Secure – with built-in Corvus security, ensuring that sensitive information isn’t read by the wrong people 
• Standardised – using ‘templates’ to create and consume briefing items efficiently. Templates also ensure an authoritative, professional appearance with Force branding. Adheres to the briefing guidelines set out by the National Intelligence Model.
• Targeted – getting just the right message, to the right people. Disseminate by theme, role, rank, shift, priority, geographical location, time of day… Corvus Briefing understands your Force structure and people, by integrating to your existing directory 
• Task orientated – with prioritisation and a view of individuals’ workload