Sentinel is a
software case management system developed by the
US FBI with the aim to replace digital and paper processes with purely digital workflows during investigations. There was a previous failed project called
Virtual Case File.
The project started in 2006 with a $425 million budget. After several delays, new leadership, a slightly bigger budget, and adoption of
agile software development
In software development, agile (sometimes written Agile) practices include requirements discovery and solutions improvement through the collaborative effort of self-organizing and cross-functional teams with their customer(s)/ end user(s), ad ...
method, Sentinel was completed under budget and was in use agency-wide on July 1, 2012.
An audit of the program in 2014, two years after completion, revealed ongoing issues with Sentinel's search function, with only 42 percent of surveyed FBI employees indicating that they often found results they needed.
In spite of this, the audit was broadly positive, and found that most FBI employees reported that Sentinel enhanced their ability to enter and share case information.
References
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Government software
Law enforcement databases in the United States
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