>> From around the globe it's theCUBE, with digital coverage of AWS Public Sector Partner Awards brought to you by Amazon Web Services. >> Hello everyone. Welcome to the special CUBE coverage Of AWS Partner Awards Show. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE. We're here in our Palo Alto, California studio doing the remote interviews with our quarantine crew. Obviously during this time of COVID we're remote with the best Remote Work Solution Award for AWS Partner Awards goes to Tyler Technologies and the City of Alvin Municipal Court, and we have Sandy Peters, Vice President General Manager of Virtual Courts, an Incode court system. Sandy is here to talk about that and Sonya Cates, who's the City of Alvin's Municipal Court Court Administrator. Welcome and congratulations for the Best Remote Work Solution. We're remote! Congratulations. >> Thank you. >> (chuckles) Thanks, John, thanks. >> Okay so Sandy I'll start with you. Tyler Technologies, you're the General Manager of the Incode Court. This is a solution that you're deploying with the city of Alvin to do some things. Take a minute to explain what you guys are doing together, what does your group at Tyler do and how is it working with City of Alvin? >> Yeah John, Tyler Technologies is just completely focused on local, state and federal government software and services and particularly, the Incode court application focuses on municipal court, which is what Sonya is the Court Administrator for in Alvin. We have about 900 clients across the US that do that same thing. We had this idea about coming up with a remote solution for ability for someone to, instead of having to go to court to see a judge that they could do that remotely and really have the same experience and so we sort of launched off on that and worked with several different of our clients and came up with a way for that to happen. Sonya got involved in it very early on and has been instrumental in helping us continue to make it successful. >> Sonya, talk about the City of Alvin's municipal court system. Obviously with COVID people are sheltering in place and they're not moving around much. You have to have a solution. Talk about the partnership with Tyler. How did this come together, how do you guys work? Take us through that. >> Well we have a great relationship with Tyler Technologies. They are very instrumental in our day-to-day processing. They sent out an email with the idea, due to COVID, and soon as we received the email we decided that was the best solution for our court and we just immediately jumped on board with it so we could resolve cases and not get behind. >> So the Virtual Court means, okay, I get a ticket, I want to appeal it, normally I'd show up and now I can't so it interfaces it? Take me through the solution and where does AWS fit into all this? I'm assuming it's on the cloud. >> It definitely is on the cloud, John, and that's exactly right. So if you get a citation, sometimes you may want to appeal it; sometimes you just want to find out what your options are and you are going to go appear before a judge. You can do that remotely now through our application. It supports all the video, you can upload documents, exchange those supporting documents and then it interfaces with our case management system so that, as changes are made on the case, they're reflected and the defendant can see those and so it just, really, the whole idea is remotely being able to go before the judge, find out what your options are go through that process, and then at the very end it gives them a way to completely take care of that case and within a few minutes it can be completely resolved. >> Sonya take us through the City of Alvin's court system there. What's the challenges that you have and what was some of the feedback when you first brought this out? Take us through what happened. >> Well, to be honest, for us it was unknown territory. We were a little nervous, we were a little scared to do something of this sort but with the situation at hand we had to figure out something and this was the best fit for us. There was other options available but we prefer to stay within Tyler and utilize the system to its fullest so that's why we just said, "Okay, let's do this." I have a judge that's amazing that is very tech savvy and he was on board and my city manager. So just working with Tyler each step of the way and them comforting us, in a sense, to let us know, "Hey it's okay. "We're here each step of the way. "We'll build this together," and that's kind of where we started with the whole project. >> So this is a low-hanging fruit, obviously. It's not jury, I'm assuming. Not a jury kind of situation. It's more of other, non-jury activities, right? >> Right. It's the day-to-day court, you know, non-jury. We're not doing any jury trials right now until after the governor allows us. So it's just the regular, you know, pre-trials, the attorney dockets, arraignments and those sorts of cases. >> I'd love to be on the planning sessions as you start to roll out the software for jury selection. We'll go into that- >> I'm excited, I'm ready. >> Kind of like, what's your Facebook handle look like? (laughs) >> Yeah. >> You know, it's going to be digital surveillance. I don't know, could be crazy. But this is the future. This is what we're talking about here. This is all cloud scale. One of the benefits of cloud is taking things and doing experiments. We hear that all the time. Take us through the judge. So you said he's tech savvy. Are these like Zoom-like calls, is there a workflow? I'm just trying to envision what stood up in terms of the Incode Virtual Court side, Sandy. Sonya, what's it like? Take me through the experience. >> Well everything's tied in together, whereas Zoom and other options out there, it's separated from your software. So that was one of the perks of going through Tyler with this Virtual Court is because everything's tied into one. We don't have to enter data or anything. After the docket's over it's all live. Our forms, as soon as the defendant and the judge make an agreement, it's put into TCM where the defendant can see it live, sign the orders and immediately get it back to us and there's no delay time, there's no down time, and it's housed in one. So we're not having to miss data or, you know, it eliminates a lot of errors, clerical errors or cases from being missed. >> And the judge handles everything, right? He deals with the personal interactions, reviews the data, the defendant makes their case? >> Well (crosstalk), the clerics do a lot, too. He's talking, and as he's talking, we're entering his orders as he's speaking. >> So it's real-time- >> So we're interacting. >> This is true agility. Sandy, this is the future. This is where the solutions start to get the scale. So what's next? What is the vision? How do you guys see the next step because we all know that COVID will be over soon, we hope faster than it's happened, but it'll be a hybrid world and I think this shows a template for efficiencies. >> Right. Yes, yeah, I think that's a great point and it is the future. We're going to continue to leverage our relationship with AWS which has just been incredible through this process and went way beyond what we were expecting just in terms of resources and helping us even just within our own development processes, as we brought something to scale and in learning how to load test and really build applications that can scale out. So we believe it is the future and Sonya makes a great point many times because they live in an area where, sometimes, there's other natural disasters, like hurricanes, that can disrupt what's going on for them. But then, also, as you just think about, really, what I would call responsibility. As we move forward, we have a responsibility to provide ways that people can take care of things and not put themselves at risk as we move into the future, past COVID. So we're going to continue to leverage the technology that AWS provides, the scalability, how we can load test and everything and it was really a no-brainer for us to run this application on the AWS services for us. >> And Sonya, it's also not just about justice, not only getting the folks who are speeding and taking care of the penalties there, but it's also potentially for justice. If someone is not guilty or they want to get... business has to continue, right? So this extends into the use case of remote, hybrid, the future, because- >> Oh yes. >> Work can be distributed. Now you have efficiencies. This is going to create a connected system, which ultimately can be a connected community. >> Yeah, and it's going to reduce the failure to appear for court cases, also, so that'll be less warrants, more compliance, and it's a better relationship between us, the court, and our defendants, because they have the option of not having to leave work or miss appointments. You know, they can still tend to their case and do other things that they need to do without taking and spending, you know, couple of hours sitting in a room at the court. >> That's a huge point, Sandy. This is about resource utilization on both sides; not just the courts and the City of Alvin, on the municipal side, the citizens. It's efficiency. I mean how many people don't show up because they can't get out of work or they need to make their paycheck or they have their family needs need to be met. So all these things play into the psychology (chuckles) of life. This is digital life, virtualization of life. It really is a big thing. >> Yeah, yeah. I think you're exactly right, I mean, you're hitting on some great points. That's exactly right and when you think about what has to happen for you to go and maybe go before a judge and take off work, you got to go fight traffic, you got to find parking, you may have to have someone that takes care of your children. There's all sorts of things you're having to go through just to get down and be in front of a judge that this can help with and I think it's just one aspect, to your point, of really trying to think of really starting to help government think about how to be more customer centric, how to provide some ways for people to take care of what they need to take care of. So we're really trying, and your point about connected communities is a huge key point for us at Tyler, as we think of ways that we can help a community be more connected, for sure. >> Well you know I'm huge into whole civic relationships and having a productive government and having citizens be served for that reason and having it be a community, and now more than ever, transparency is helpful, right? This only helps things. So you guys are doing a really great job of, one, enabling a work environment remotely, in this case, it's for the courts to be operational, which they need to be, but it clearly can extend. So Sonya, I've got to ask you the question. I'd love to get your commentary on surprises when you rolled this out. You know, were people like, "Oh my god, no one's ever going to use it," or, "It's just too techie," or has there been any pleasant surprises or things that surprised you that you didn't think was going to happen? Give us some kind of commentary on some observations that you've seen from rolling out the Best Remote Work Solution. >> It's been very interesting. Our actual first defendant, he was elderly, and so we were kind of concerned. Okay, will he know how to connect and he did amazing. So that's kind of where we knew if we could reach the older generation and he can connect, all these younger defendants and younger people shouldn't have any issue. So we explained to him, "Hey, you're our first defendant. "This is new to us, it's new to you," and he did awesome. So that kind of gave us the confidence we needed to pursue it even more and push it out there and give the defendants options. There's been, we've looked (chuckles)... Some people forget, and so do I, that we're on camera and, you know (John laughs), we can see up noses, they forget they're in their vehicle, you know, it may hit a few bumps. >> John: There are dogs barking in the back (laughs). >> You know like, okay, maybe we need to pull over. (laughs) So it's been an experience but a pleasant experience and it gave us... We didn't want to backlog cases throughout this COVID and having the virtual option through Tyler has, we were, when COVID first started, we got behind, until we launched, we had about 800 cases we got behind on, and then soon as we launched out Virtual Court, now we're caught up, my court's running smooth, everything's great and there's no backlog of cases. >> Clear the backlog. The question I want to ask is that elderly first user. Did he or she get an early adopter discount on the sentence? (laughs) >> The judge was kind. (laughs) But he did awesome, I was shocked. >> I kind of resent the elderly remark, Sonya, but that's okay. (laughs) I think she's referring to me. >> No, no, no. He was in his 80s. >> Okay, I feel a little, I feel young, then. Well you guys, congratulations. I'd like to get your parting thoughts just with cloud technology. A lot of other folks out there are looking at re-imagining public service, specifically around these times where there's a lot of emotional stress, like, you got backlogged, you don't want to have the court get backlogged. I can see that. People don't want tickets hanging out there. But that kind of encapsulates people's feelings right now and I think remote citizenship is coming. Just your thoughts on how you see this as a beginning, starting point for cloud computing enabling the efficiencies, the solutions and the applications for a more connected community experience. Sonya, we'll start with you. >> Okay. I can see this, this is the way we're going to keep things. We like the option, the flexibility that our defendants, our citizens have. It's opened our eyes, and if there's other courts out there that are kind of hesitant to go ahead and jump in and do it, I strongly recommend just do it. It's scary in the very beginning because a lot of us were not used to it, but after you get through it and you go through the changes, it's so worth it in the end and you'll see such a... More of a compliance for both sides and, you know, it reduces the stress on staff having to send out mail notices for failure to appears and stuff of that sort. Reduce warrants. So it's been a win-win all the way around. So if I could reach any court out there that's kind of on the line of doing it, just do it. >> All right, yeah, great. Sandy. >> Yeah, and John, for us, cloud is the future. I mean every application we have, we're actively working, if it's not already a cloud-based solution, it will be and we're a huge believer in the scalability. But when you look at applications like this, as an example, of Tyler Virtual Court, where it's really a win-win situation. It's better for the court; they can continue to carry on their business; it's better for the citizen because now they can actually take care of something that they weren't going to be able to take care of in the past, and as we continue to find win-win solutions, cloud-based solutions are going to be at the core of that in terms of just how easy it is to access and roll out. So it's a big part of our future and we believe it's a big part of our customers' future, as well. >> Well congratulations. Modernization has positive impacts if done right. More time is freed up to work on maybe personal things and connect those communities and bring people together. Congratulations, Tyler Technologies and the City of Alvin for the Best Remote Work Solution and it's the court system. Get those tickets paid, clear that backlog and now you got all the time in the world, Sonya, to kind of work on other things. What do you do with all your free time? >> I'm going to take a vacation! (laughs) >> Thank you so much for having this conversation and, again, congratulations. Thanks for your time. >> Thank you. >> Thanks a lot, John, thank you. >> Okay this is the CUBE's covering of AWS Public Sector Partner Awards Show. I'm John Furrier with the Best Remote Work Solution. Thanks for watching. (futuristic marimba music)