TMPA, or, the Texas Municipal Police Association, is an association of more than 30,000 law enforcement officials in the state of Texas. Founded in 1950, TMPA is the largest law enforcement association in the state of Texas. The association provides members with a number of benefits and services, including legal assistance, scholarships, and training opportunities. The TMPA mission is to promote professionalism in law enforcement through education and representation.

The Challenge

One of TMPA’s service offerings is LEADRS, or Law Enforcement Advanced Data Reporting System, training. LEADRS, which was developed by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), trains police officers on best practices on how to respond to DWI/DUI situations. Additionally, LEADRS allows police officers to enter DWI or DUI arrest information online, effectively streamlining the process and helping TxDOT create a database of drunk driving arrests in the state of Texas. Police stations that participate in LEADRS reporting are eligible to receive funding from TxDOT, can better review which of their officers are arresting and reporting DUIs/DWIs, and can compare their station to other similar stations statewide.

At the outset of the program, TMPA only participated in LEADRS training, but after a number of years, the association realized they wanted to get more involved with LEADRS reporting and that brought them to XeoMatrix.

TMPA needed a training and support partner who was able to provide guidance in how to set up and maintain reporting dashboards. It was vital that information be presented in a user-friendly manner, easily-understood by police officers.

Strategy & Deliverables

The goal of our engagement with TMPA was to help the association get started with Tableau and start using it effectively for LEADRS reporting. After identifying Tableau as the best solution for their analytics and reporting needs, our team came on-site to perform Tableau training.

We spent a week on-site providing in-person Tableau training to a group of TMPA members. Our approach to Tableau training is interactive and hands-on. During the week we were on-site, we not only taught trainees how to use Tableau but also actively helped them identify the best data visualizations for their reporting needs and built out their Tableau dashboards.

TMPA found our training services so valuable that they expanded their engagement to include an additional year of support.  Following our on-site training, XeoMatrix trainers continued to meet with TMPA’s Tableau developers one to two times per week to troubleshoot dashboard problems, discuss Tableau features, and strategize on how to best build content.

Results

XeoMatrix’s training services and ongoing support were vital to helping TMPA establish a strong LEADRS reporting program. As a result of the engagement, TMPA has been able to implement Tableau-based reporting in a handful of police stations around Texas and they are well on their way to achieving their goal of implementing LEADRS reporting into police stations statewide.

Because of this reporting, police stations are able to better see DWI/DUI statistics in their areas. This allows police officers to see patterns, better prepare for certain problematic dates, and improve their response to suspected DUI/DWIs. This makes Texas roads safer for everyone. Additionally, TMPA is able to show TxDOT that their LEADRS training and reporting program was of value, which helped them secure funding for several years to come.