Andover Police Department Uses PowerDMS on AWS GovCloud (US) to Ensure Policy Adherence

The Andover Police Department (PD) selected PowerDMS to simplify accreditation, compliance, and policy management. The PowerDMS cloud-based platform stores, manages, and disseminates certification and credentialing content using highly secure, compliant technology built on Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud (US).

One Christmas Eve, an officer with the Andover Police Department (PD) in Kansas took an extra shift to help with a staffing shortage. When a call reported a missing elderly person who was unfamiliar with the area, the officer needed to know the proper procedure. Fortunately, he was able to pull up a checklist on his mobile device using an application from PowerDMS. It told him how to release a Silver Alert within two hours of the report coming in—which led to the safe return of the missing man.

PowerDMS—an Advanced Technology Partner in the AWS Partner Network (APN)—provides a highly secure and compliance-ready solution to access current policy and procedure content from any internet-enabled device. Current customers include law enforcement agencies, municipalities, fire and emergency medical services, healthcare providers, correctional facilities, and private businesses.

Andover PD adopted PowerDMS as part of its Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA) certification. “Accreditation and PowerDMS go hand in hand,” says Captain Buck Buchanan, operations commander at Andover PD. “We can keep our accreditation records current without a big investment of time.”

PowerDMS works hard to ensure the process is as simple as possible. “We partner with organizations such as CALEA to ensure their standards are always up to date in our system,” says Matt Gasior, director of demand generation at PowerDMS. “What’s more, we ensure that accreditation, policy, and training materials are linked, so that when one policy or piece of content changes, our customers automatically know to update anything that’s connected.”

PowerDMS helps organizations keep their policies current. “At Andover PD, we review every single policy at least once a year, and high-risk policies are reviewed twice a year,” says Captain Buchanan. “Review teams use PowerDMS to record comments and recommend changes, which command staff review in our biweekly meetings. This allows everyone to have input while greatly streamlining the decision-making process.”

Over the years since first pursuing accreditation, Andover PD has broadened its use of PowerDMS to reap additional quality and efficiency benefits. Training is one prominent example. By using cloud-based training through PowerDMS, the Andover PD reduces classroom time to provide more hands-on training that helps keep the public safe and reduces risk for the department.

With the opportunity to study briefing materials ahead of time, officers are better prepared to make the best use of training time and advance their skills faster. Overall, PowerDMS enabled Andover PD to provide 4 more hours of hands-on safety training per officer, per year—a 4 percent increase and more than a hundred additional hours of training to better serve citizens.

Perhaps most importantly, officers always have access to the latest policies—and the department can ensure officers have read them. “By moving all policies into PowerDMS, officers now have immediate access to all information at their desks, in their cars, or anywhere they have their mobile devices,” says Captain Buchanan. “They know exactly how to respond to every situation because the information is at their fingertips.”

Gasior adds, “With PowerDMS, public agencies can ensure employees have signed off on policies, have received required training, and are properly accredited. If an incident occurs, the agency has a record that everything possible was done to inform employees of the policy.”

As a company, PowerDMS helps its customers reduce complexity so that they can succeed at serving and protecting their communities. “We put a huge emphasis on onboarding through our customer success team,” says Gasior. “We provide a champions community where they can learn best practices from other departments as well as our team. In addition, we offer professional services to help customers get paper documents and legacy processes into a digital format in the cloud. It’s more than lift and shift—we want to address the pain points and inefficiencies so they can do their jobs better.”

Adopting AWS GovCloud (US) was a major boost for the organization, especially in terms of managing security and compliance. “We start our sales conversations with AWS GovCloud (US) because it provides the same level of security used by federal agencies,” says Gasior. “It’s part of the bedrock of the trust our customers have in PowerDMS.”

At Andover PD, the results have been noticed beyond the department. “I do mock audits for other departments, and when I tell them how easy it is to manage policies and training with PowerDMS, they get excited about adopting it,” says Captain Buchanan. “We do our training and get instant confirmation that we’re compliant, while other departments are waiting weeks for emails to make the rounds. When public safety is your job, that’s a benefit that’s easy to get behind.”