Police department restores public Power BI dashboards, advances records room project

Deputy Chief Davis told the Simsbury Police Commission that the department's Power BI dashboards are "as of today" back live on the department website, and staff are continuing to refine the reports and add requested data. The restoration is intended to increase transparency by giving the public and the commission timely access to calls for service, arrest logs, crime trends and other operational data. The dashboards and related reporting tools were paused for technical work; Davis said recent weeks focused on "fine tuning our Power BI reports to ensure that the data being presented is both accurate and reliable." He added the reports cover calls for service, multi-year comparisons, arrest logs, part 1 crime analysis and other items. Commission members were asked to notify the department if they see inaccuracies or if there are additional data elements they want published. "If there's something that you don't see that you'd like to see, also please let us know because we can still customize it," Davis said. Separately, the department said its records-room and storage project from last year has progressed and that a vendor would deliver physical shelving units on Wednesday. The records division, led by Mark Edwards under the oversight of Lieutenant Greg Samsel, has been relocating material and working with custodial and IT staff to finish the move. The department described the Power BI product as a multi-year effort requiring both operational and IT coordination; Deputy Chief Davis and the IT department were singled out for their work bringing the product back online. Commission members praised the tool as "a great tool" and encouraged continued improvements. The department asked the public to report inaccuracies in the published dashboards and suggested there may be ongoing customization as users request additional views.