Response Utilities – Create Incident

Many response teams work in remote locations where mobile networks are not available, or are available sporadically. Being able to create an incident offline (a placeholder, if not full details) allows capturing incident attendance.

Response Utilities version 1.0.8 has an option to create an incident, attach members (even offline) and queue that incident until on network and the information can be uploaded to D4H.

This ability is available for beta testing. Please check it out and provide feedback.

Note: This ability is (of course) dependent upon the user having the required permissions for their account in D4H.

New option to press “+” to create an incident.

Add title, reference identifier, a short description and attach attendance (from list of membership, available offline.)

Response Utilities Android version 1.0.16

A new release of Response Utilities for D4H on Android is on Google Play. Version 1.0.16.

It contains improvements for Upcoming where attendance is displayed inline with the activity, and can be used to filter from the user’s perspective: all activities, Mine (ones the user is attending or requested to attend), Attending or Requested. Use this to more easily track down the upcoming activity you are looking for.

Improvements in Recent Activities include filtering by activity type: all activities, just incidents, just exercises or just events. Use this to more easily track down the recent activity you are looking for.

Check out this version of Response Utilities for D4H on Android.

Custom Fields in D4H

D4H supports a large collection of custom fields. We’ve only needed to create a few, but they have proven quite useful.

Here are the main ones we use:

Custom Fields on a Member

We created a “promotion date” (for when promoted from trainee to active firefighter) and then a “general notes” where the member can store their own FD data. (I record my annual pack test times in that field, for me to compete against me.) We have a private “Personnel Notes” field for additional (not public) information. Here are how we configured the private personnel notes…

Custom Fields on an Activity

We added a timestamp for when the patient care report has been filed, and we configure a note (seen by report approvers) to not approve a medical report until the paperwork has been received. Further, we did elect to rename the incident timestamps to match our department’s terminology (to easy member training.)

Custom fields allow us to keep additional data in the right place in D4H.

Reviewing activities…

Response Utilities allows access to your agency’s incident and exercise information. Look at past incidents and their details, look at past training exercises (or events) and view attendance.

Were you active on the incident but your participation failed to get recorded? Did the report writer mishear details over the radio and hence misreport apparatus or important details of the response? Did you not get JPR (job performance review) credit from an exercise?

The more personnel that review past incidents – and soon after they occur – the more accurate the reports will be. That helps you, and the whole organization.

Use Response Utilities to check the time of the incident or exercise, as well as the duration. Check participation, including a quick scan of participants faces. (The current user is shown first, otherwise those with identified roles – e.g. command or instructor – come first.) check if the activity is still draft (shown as blank below) or has been published.