Given the general requirements of a background investigation, it is not conceivable that the entire investigation can be committed entirely to an electronic system, and we don't intend for POBITS to do so. Ultimately, the Investigator must compile all investigative documents into a case file which must be preserved for a very long time. For many law enforcement positions, the background investigation report must be retained beyond the employment of the Peace Officer. Information systems come and go and may be adopted or abandoned at any time. For these reasons, we promote POBITS as a tool to help the investigator manage the investigation process and produce a case file for review. All of the information contained in POBITS can remain there for as long as the system remains in place. But we suggest that the POBITS output which represents the investigation case file be generated into paper format and preserved.

We have designed POBITS as a tool to help the Investigator in the background investigation process. Once the process is completed, POBITS can generate documentation based on the information in the system. Each investigation case file in POBITS can have any number of documents attached. The documents can be anything that can be saved electronically. We envision documents will be scanned to a PDF format for inclusion to the case file. There may be some records that must be retained in original format. As stated, we anticipate that you will maintain physical records but many of those can be retained in POBITS either as data or as electronic files attached to the case record.

More important is your ability to manage the workload and measure your results. Because your work is being managed within a single system, a wealth of information can be derived about the work in progress or the completed work. This provides a greater ability to coordinate and manage work as well as to determine how much work has been accomplished over a given period of time. This in turn can help you to determine staffing needs and adjust resources accordingly.