False Alarm News

January 2009 False Alarm Reduction Association ( FARA ) is to cancel conference this week.

We have just been notified the annual FARA conference April 27 to May 1 2009 in Denver Colorado is canceled.

We have enjoyed attending and adding one or two new clients each year that recognized the value proposition in our software. We like to distinguish ourselves at the False Alarm Reduction Association by giving the client the ability to modify the parameters in our existing product to match exactly the needs of our clients without affecting our base product, reports, and other functionality.

Older false alarm software products have to be used as is; if it doesn't fit, you have to make do.

The False Alarm Reduction Association has been a good source of new clients for us over the last five years. We have welcomed at least one client each year into the EnablePoint family from the conference. We have been very proud of our success at FARA and later that clients of EnablePoint have been in attendance at subsequent FARA events.We are disappointed in the turn of events, but this appears to be the trend nationwide as a result of budget cuts and our economy.

Outsource or Purchase false alarm software?

The short answer is the decision is up to each jurisdiction. We are getting a lot of cost inquiries, as the outsourcing companies are selling the idea of no upfront costs, and then a split of the generated revenue. This is a very good short term idea, however in the long term we have difficulty understanding the concept. It is true most jurisdictions do not have the personpower to staff a false alarm administrator position. It is also true that false alarm software can become expensive if your alarm ordinance is not exactly the most logical.

The main reason to purchase over outsource would be that ALL of the recurring revenue (or as some prefer, "cost recovery") will go to your jurisdiction after what we would estimate a very good ROI ratio of 500+ percent.

For those of you crunching the numbers, our software sells at an average of $15,000. plus implementation costs.

For the larger jurisdictions, the implementation and/or coding changes might grow your implementation to $20 to $30K. If you have concerns about the scalability of our software, consider the fact that we had a client importing around 2,700 incidents per day ( false alarms, true alarms, and many other events). Testing of your specific software configuration is done at our location in the Detroit Michigan area, and implementation and training is done onsite with you in person. The larger implementations mentioned requires a Microsoft SQL database, and of course our smaller implementations in Microsoft Access can be priced as low as $4,995.

This "news" is provided to you on our website from our new blogging site. We are in the process of upgrading our website and our blog will replace our news pages. We are also excited to be adding online demos soon. check back in mid February for our new look and more product presentations.

As you may be able to tell, I am new at blogging. This is my second post, so when we get to the blog being this long I feel like I am rambling. I can be personally reached by anyone who wants to talk more about outsourcing False Alarm Tracking, or any other software development issues. Please give me a ring at 734-634-1576.

September 2008: Alarmregistration.com is announced. Due to increasing inquiries about online alarm registration, and our proven expertise in web programming and our ecommerce background, we have launched a website specifically addressing your online alarm registration questions. A "live" demonstration is available, where you can simulate registering your alarm system. The online alarm registration product interfaces with the EnablePoint False Alarm Billing (FAB) product, eliminating the need for a false alarm administrator to rekey data.

August, 2008: EnablePoint Donates web development services for the Livonia Police Officers Association (LPOA) Ball. As a proven ecommerce provider in the retail environments, EnablePoint was pleased to be able to offer this donated service for the local fundraiser, in addition to the donated First Step Charity Dance website that we have provided for our local community over the last several years.

July, 2008: EnablePoint welcomes our first Chicago area client, The City of Elgin, Illinois. The City of Elgin needed something fast. The existing false alarm software product being used was no longer supported. In June of 2008, it simply stopped working. Frank Farren of EnablePoint and the City's Information Technology department worked quickly on a solution and within a couple of weeks from the first conversation the Elgin false alarm tracking solution was up and running. This was the fourth time the False Alarm Analysis Program, provided as a free software product from an industry association group, was converted into EnablePoint's FAB database. We now have a perfected database conversion tool that can be used in future implementations. Elgin's false alarm administrator was extremely pleased and graciously offered to be our Chicagoland reference for the EnablePoint FAB product.

November, 2007: Alarm Registration Scanning is introduced. When the Collier County Florida Sheriff's Office False Alarm Supervisor heard what the EnablePoint team did with our false alarm software tracking / alarm registration (FASTAR) product in the chain store retail environment (Chico's, based in Ft. Myers FL.) they became very interested in saving data entry time as well. Scanning in handwritten registrations in batch, taking a look at each while in FASTAR, attaching it to the account history is easily done with the scanning module.. With keyholder data now easily retreivable via looking up the alarm address, the False Alarm Administrators in Collier County are now able to reduce data input time by 1/2.

October, 2007: The City of Georgetown, Texas Police Department has begun to enforce their existing alarm registration ordinance and has chosen EnablePoint to provide their registration and alarm tracking software.

September, 2007: The Gulfport, Mississippi Police Department is welcomed into the EnablePoint False Alarm Billing (FAB) family. We have completed implementing our first Mississippi client and we now have assisted false alarm reduction efforts in Florida, Michigan, Texas, and Mississippi. Gulfport is using the FAB interface to VisionAir CAD importing false alarms, and the MUNIS interface to import registration data and payment information. Warning letters are sent first to the alarm owner and invoices are automatically produced for the frequently visited alarm sites. Pat Short, the MUNIS administrator during the implementation said, "we went with EnablePoint because they listened to our needs and were always available to us during our evaluation process".

September, 2007: EnablePoint Corporation attends our First Annual Government Management Information Systems conference in Bay City, Michigan at the Doubletree hotel. The group is the former Michigan Association of Government Computer Users (MAGCU), which actually makes our participation with the group the fourth year in a row.

April 2007: EnablePoint exhibits in our third False Alarm Reduction Association conference in Dallas, Texas. It has been a pleasure to learn so much over the last four years regarding tracking alarm statistics as well as to have clients in attendance. Our approach to insuring our client's specific needs and ordinance's are handled properly has made our firm a reputable competitor in providing alarm registration and alarm tracking solutions in this specialty law enforcement area.

January, 2007: Chico's FAS, a national retailer of upscale womans clothing, chose EnablePoints False Alarm Billing (FAB) product to manage the alarm incidents that occur in most of the over 1000 retail chain stores nationwide. The challenge the chain store retailer faces is the same challenge EnablePoint faces with each new municipal client; every false alarm ordinance and registration process is different.. EnablePoint has risen to this challenge for Chico's and has released a modified version of FAB, called FASTAR (False Alarm Software Tracking & Alarm Registration), which is effectively managing each store's alarm registration, compliance with the local jurisdiction's ordinance, and proactively reducing false alarm activity by monitoring calls to the police department and taking corrective action on the first calls, eliminating costly false alarm fees.

September, 2006: EnablePoint Corporation attends our third Michigan Association of Government Computer Users conference in Thompsonville, Michigan at Crystal Mountain on September 17, 18, 19, and 20th of 2006.

August, 2006: The CLEMIS CAD interface that was built for the City of Livonia and Sterling Heights has paid off again! The City of Birmingham, Michigan has chosen the FAB alarm tracking software for false alarm billing and tracking. The city of Birmingham is located in the northern suburbs of Detroit Michigan.

May , 2006: EnablePoint Corporation attends the first False Alarm Reduction Association Regional Training in Brampton, Ontario Canada on May 31st and June 1st of 2006. Now that we are selling our software nationwide in the USA, we are looking to expand to Michigan's next door neighbor, Ontario Canada.

April, 2006: EnablePoint Corporation attends our second False Alarm Reduction Association national conference at the Hyatt in San Francisco, California April 24, 25, 26, 27, 28th of 2006.

January, 2006: The township of West Bloomfield, Michigan Police Department chooses EnablePoint's False Alarm Tracking software to manage the false alarm tracking efforts. West Bloomfield is an affluent suburb of the Detroit, Michigan area and takes pride in the safety of their city. EnablePoint programmers successfully converted historic data for the second time (the first was Collier County in Naples, Florida) from a false alarm tracking application provided at no charge by an alarm industry affiliate. EnablePoint's FAB software was chosen for the more advanced functionality and updated interface technologies to CAD and Financial softwares.

September, 2005: EnablePoint Corporation goes national with the successful completion of an Alarm Management and Alarm Tracking software implementation for the Collier County Sheriff's office in Naples, Florida. Click here to read more

September, 2005: The City of Lansing Michigan issues a purchase order to Enablepoint to provide alarm tracking for the Lansing Police Department, including valid alarm dispatches along with false alarms. The software will be used in tandem with the city wide financial billing system. Enablepoint will provide custom interfaces for the financial system to extract alarm billing data.

April, 2005: EnablePoint goes national and joins the False Alarm Reduction Association by attending and exhibiting at the national conference in Coconut Grove, Florida May 2, 3, 4, and 5th of 2005.

March, 2005: The City of Sterling Heights, Michigan selects EnablePoint's false alarm management system to interface with the police and fire CLEMIS system and transfer billing information the MUNIS financial system. Click here to read more

October, 2004: False alarm ordinance enforcement trend results in comprehensive software application to track frequent false alarm offenders for the City of Livonia, Michigan. Click here to read more

For additional information about the software or to arrange a demonstration contact: