Five questions to ask before you choose supervision software

January 2026 · By the RePath team at eHawk, Inc.

Choosing community supervision technology is a decision most directors make once a decade, and the demos all look the same. These five questions cut through them. We answer each one for RePath at the end, so you can hold us to the same standard.

1. Does it connect to our case management system, and how, honestly?

Every vendor says integrated. Ask what that means for your specific system: copy and paste, an integration API your IT team can use, or a built connection that already runs somewhere. Ask to see it working at an agency on the same CMS as yours. A tool that adds a screen without removing the write-up adds work.

2. How much officer time does it return, in hours, and where did that number come from?

Get hours per officer per week and the name or description of the agency that measured it. Percentages hide the denominator. If the vendor cannot name an agency and a period, treat the number as marketing.

3. What does implementation and support actually look like?

Who trains the officers, in person or on a webinar? Who does an officer call when something breaks on a Friday afternoon? What happens to adoption when the champion who bought it leaves? Ask for an agency that went live in the last six months and call them.

4. Can we see outcomes from an agency like ours, and talk to them?

Ask for a case study with counted numbers, not a testimonial, and for a reference in your court type and your size. The best reference is a customer who lost the product to a budget cut and came back, because they have already run the counterfactual.

5. What does the participant pay, and what happens if they have no phone?

If the participant pays anything, the program excludes the people it was built for. And every program has someone without a smartphone. Ask what the vendor does for that person.

Our answers

Integration. Your CMS stays the system of record. Most agencies copy the Visit Assist summary into it today. Where an agency has built a connection, case data flows in automatically; one state department has case data landing in RePath within five minutes. We will tell you which applies to your system before you sign.

Hours. Across our agencies, officers get 8 to 10 hours a week back. A state department of corrections measured 765 officer hours in a 15-week pilot across three offices. A state juvenile justice agency counted nearly 12,000 hours in six months.

Support. RePath Assist trains every office, in person where it matters, and answers the phone. A Kansas district director on a formal reference form: "Their customer service staff are second to none."

Outcomes and references. Counted results by agency, and five customers across three states who scored us 5 out of 5 in every category of a formal RFP reference check, one of whom lost RePath to a funding cut and came back.

Participant cost. Nothing. RePath is priced per officer, and agencies run email-only reporting for anyone without a smartphone.