Community Connect ROS Service

Description

The ROS service is used to check for potential matches between customer accounts in Community Connect and a registered sex offender registry. The registry used in Community Connect is Family Watchdog - a public, subscription-based online service where users can search by name, birth date, and state for potential matches against a registered sex offender database. The database is owned and maintained by Family Watchdog and access to the data is only accessible via the web service.

Requirements

• Family Watchdog accounts are obtained on a territory-wide basis and maintained by the territory.  Each account is issued an access token that the ROS service uses to authenticate to the Family Watchdog service.

• The web service used to flag or clear matches is only accessible inside the corporate VPN (territory network) so a user must be logged in to the VPN to access the links in the potential match emails/notifications.

Configuration

There are several configuration settings that can be set by the center to scan for potential matches:

• Birth date Buffer (default: 5) specifies the maximum difference (in years) between the birth date specified in Community Connect and the registry that would qualify the entry as a potential match.

• Membership Inactive Buffer (default: 60) specifies the number of days after a membership has passed the end date to continue running the member through the registry.

• Minimum Age (default: 18) a member must be at least this age to run the name through the registry.

• States (default: <none>) the list of state abbreviations to search.  At least one state is required for the search to run. DEPRECATED.

• Services (default: FULL, NEW CUSTOMERS) specifies the services to run.  The available services are:

  • NONE disables all customer scans for the centers.

  • FULL runs the match queries against the registry to determine potential matches on a monthly basis.

  • NEW CUSTOMERS fills and matches any recently added customers.  This process checks for new customers every 5 minutes.

• Email Recipients (default: <none>) specifies the list of emails addresses where notification emails for potential matches should be sent.

Loading the Search Queue

There are two occasions during which the search queue is loaded with customer records for searching the registry:

• The NEW CUSTOMER service scans when a new customer record is created, and

• The FULL service runs on a monthly basis and scans the customer records based on the criteria specified in the Full Service Scans below.

New Customer Scans

The following customer records are loaded into the search queue when a new record is created in the database:

• Any customer who is at least the minimum age years old, regardless of membership or activity status.

Full Service Scans

The following customer records are loaded into the search queue on the first of each month:

• Any billing customer who:

  • is at least the minimum age years old, and

  • has an current membership plan, or

  • the membership end date was less than the membership inactive buffer days ago.

• Any family member who:

  • is currently linked to a billing customer found in the above criteria, and

  • is at least the minimum age years old.

• Any customer without a membership plan who:

  • is registered for any class activity, and

  • is at least the minimum age years old, and

  • does not have a billing customer linked to their record, and

  • the class activity has taken place within the last month or will take place within the next three months.

When a Match is Found

When a potential match is found by the ROS service, an email notification is sent out to the emails configured in the options for the center. At this point a user response is required to determine if the potential match is correct or not.

• If the user determines that the suggested match is not a match, click the “not a match” option and the customer record and match are added to the list of mismatches. Email notifications will no longer be sent for this customer and match combination.

• If the user determines that the suggested match is actually a match they do NOT have to do anything in Family Watchdog but manual customer record updates are necessary. NOTE: This does NOT automatically flag the customer as a DENY ENTRY customer.  The user must update the customer's record in RMS to flag the customer and deny entry.