We're smiling this week as we launch our SMS team alerting service to all our team accounts in the United States and Canada. The service, which has already been live in the United Kingdom and Ireland for 12 months enables teams to contact their membership through bulk text messaging.

Here's a quick overview video.



Send From Web
Our service works by updating your phonebook lists dynamically based on your groups allocations. Just add members to a group, and then select the group to target your messages whether you need just your Medics, or your Technical team. You can even target just those on-call right now.



Send from your mobile by SMS
We've built an inbound system to, allowing you or your members to SMS the D4H system to interact with it. All replies get prefixed with a personal PIN code so we can verify the sender, and while general replies get sent to a team Inbox, specific keywords take action on D4H.

You can SMS XXXX OFF 3h to mark yourself off-call for 3 hours. XXXX ON when you return!

If you've got credits and the correct permission level, try sending XXXX TO ON your message here to distribute a message to your members who are on-call now! Or set up custom keywords XXXX TO ATV your message here to get just your ATV drivers. Impressive? We think so!



Known Limitations: SMS messaging should not be the only method you have to contact your team. Always have a back-up method. While we generally see very good delivery rates, SMS is an unreliable protocol which can suffer from delays or complete loss of service in the event of cellular network problems. At present, our US & Canada service provider is not supporting delivery receipts when they arrive on the handset, but we are working with them on this issue.

Today we're launching Live Chat support (thanks to Snapabug) for all our users. It's important for us to be as close and available to you all as much as possible.

On every page in D4H you will find a [Help] button on the right. This will open a dialog for you to contact us. You will always have the option to send a question to us by email. We respond to these as fast as possible.



You will also be able to press [Live Chat]. This will connect you to someone in the office who is able to answer your query in Real-Time. If there is nobody available to answer immediately, we will get your query by email as usual.



Q: How is this different from your "Improve-It" area?

A: Improve-It is for submitting feature enhancements and requests. This is for support queries, or questions, help, or 'just a chat'.

On Thursday, Decisions For Heroes attended the €500 million CHC Helicopters contract signing for the new generation of Sikorsky S92A Search & Rescue helicopters for the Irish Coast Guard. Today we can reveal that Decisions For Heroes played an important role in the bid by supporting CHC's requirements for mission based analytics software. CHC, the largest commercial helicopter company in the world and winners of the contract used the D4H to analyse SAR missions, capturing key patterns and trends.



Managing Director of CHC Ireland, Mark Kelly says,

"The Decisions For Heroes software allowed my team to analysis rescue mission data very quickly, easily and in great detail. The software was amazingly flexible, D4H are to be commended".

Director of Decisions For Heroes, Robin Blandford explains how their software works,

"CHC were able to automatically analyse SAR mission data to determine the most common injuries treated and medical techniques used".

Click Here to read the full Press Release

About Decisions For Heroes:
Better decisions save lives. Decisions For Heroes helps emergency services save more lives by making better decisions. Decisions for Heroes is a collaborative emergency response team management tool, that helps record and analyse rescue operations. Instead of archiving information as paperwork, the software generate real-time profiles of members, available resources, and experience levels. Decisions for Heroes uses this data to deliver live and intelligent information to the field.

Get your organisation started instantly for free www.decisionsforheroes.com

Decisions For Heroes presented "The Awesomeness Methodology" to an audience of 350 at the Dot Conf at the National College of Ireland yesterday. The talk was about idea generation, working on something you're passionate about, and a demo of 'Decisions For Heroes'.

We've since been asked to repeat the talk for a number of groups.



The response on Twitter was incredible. Here's a sample!

mbehan: Loving the presentation by decisions for heroes. Too many ppl shy away from awesomeness #dotconf

@Dan_ONeill: Those who left #dotconf early. I reckon missed close to best talk of day = decisions4heroes.

AnnieCorriveau: @robinb I loved your talk at #dotconf - the notebook definitely is key! ;)

BrianGreene: #dotconf top talks (for me) inspriational heading. @marklittlenews@destraynor @robinb

level5design: Also inspiring talk by Robin Blandford @robinb from 'Decisions for Heros' at #dotconf - create thick value

kevindevine: well done everyone involved at #dotconf. Inspiring talk from @robinbat the end

JoergSt: Very good inspiring talk by Robin Blandford @robinb at #dotconf

ManAboutCouch: Superb stuff from @robinb. Audience engrossed and now enthused. #dotconf

Rowan_Manahan: Hugely enjoying @robinb's presentation at #dotconf - saw him do his stuff at TEDx Smurfit and he's getting better with each iteration

darraghdoyle: Laughed out loud at @robinb's presentation at #dotconf - his first piece of advice "buy a really expensive notebook - you'll value it."

coryannj: Had to leave #dotconf early, but tuning into the livestream for @robinb's talk - should be good!

Penhire: Though I like & admire @robinb a whole bunch, uncomfortable with some of the way he sees the world (of enterprise). Need to examine why!

JoanMulvihill: #dotconf great speakers and so perfect to finish on DecisionsForHeroes
JoergSt: Very good inspiring talk by Robin Blandford @robinb at #dotconf

carmelg88: Huge congratulations to @robinb and @dmaccobb for executing an engaging and enlightening presentation yesterday. *Claps

liamdunne: #dotconf Great motivational talk by the decisionsforheroes guys!

Dan_ONeill: Loving this. How web technology helps in the real world. #dotconf really interesting idea. And great idea process too.

mbehan: Loving the presentation by decisions for heroes. Too many ppl shy away from awesomeness #dotconf

niamhsmith: #dotconf the guys from Decisions For Heroes are up next

dermdaly: @dmaccobb yesterdays talk was great. D4h always impress.

Today Donnchadh and Robin will be speaking about D4H and Passion For Your Ideas at the Dot Conf in The National College of Ireland.

You can follow them on Twitter @robinb and @dmaccobb and watch the live video stream of the talk.

They're on stage at 4pm Local Time in Ireland.

Click here for Live Video Stream

Members may now optionally list up to 2 emergency contacts on their profile. These numbers may be used to contact family or next of kin in an accident involving the member. A PDF phone list of emergency contacts is available for printing by Member+ and above. Emergency contact details are hidden from all other members levels.



Contact details have also been updated to allow fields for pager phone numbers and pager email addresses so they can be kept with all other member contact details.

Phone numbers in United States with the format 1XXXXXXXXXX will now be automatically displayed as (XXX) XXX-XXXX.

Thanks to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue Unit in California for advising on these changes.

Donnchadh officially joins the company today as a permanent member of Decisions For Heroes. Our regular followers will be familiar with his voice on the phone as he has been instrumental in helping with the on-boarding of new Voluntary Search & Rescue teams over the last year. You better watch out, we're now letting him loose on the National and State teams!

Donnchadh (Not of the Irish dialect? Don't worry about trying to say his name right, it's pronounced 'Dun-aka') joins us having held a full time position at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) Head Quarters in Ireland. He previously worked managing training schools and as an instructor in many outdoor training centres. Donnchadh is a volunteer boat helm and cliff rescue climbing instructor with the Irish Coast Guard and has provided certified training to their crew and helms.

You've never met a bigger 'rescue geek'. We challenge you to give him 10 minutes with a photo of any rescue boat, vehicle, aircraft, or team - and he'll come back to you with make, model, base, pros, and cons. Dare you! His email is donnchadh.maccobb@decisionsforheroes.com (save in your address book - might be useful later!).

I speak for everyone and all our teams when I say we're delighted to have him on-board!

The dashboard on-call alerts have been simplified and enhanced to show you the number of people above or below your required level on-call. We do this with a small increase/decrease arrow for very fast visual reading.

Note: This number is the number you are above or below your required level on-call, not the entire number of members holding the position.

We have started rolling out equipment tracking on a stage-by-stage basis. While you may start to add data, please understand that until we remove the Beta label the feature is still in development. We do this so we can build the best possible tool, using you as a feedback loop and giving you a feeling of shared ownership. Rather than delivering you a service that's not right at the end of a development cycle - we get you involved! We'll make announcements on our Facebook Community Page as we progress and invite you to use the 'Improve This Page' link at the bottom of every page.

Equipment - track equipment purchases, weights, dates, and locations.

Supplies - track supplies, stores, quantities, and orders.

Repairs - both scheduled and impromptu. These will be linked up to the tasks which will be auto-generated for assigned personnel.

Inspections - set up recurring inspections and stock checks.

PPE - know which team member was issued which pieces of equipment.

Usage - log hours usage against each item of equipment to track stats and replacement dates.

Permission - ability to assign an equipment officer the ability to edit only equipment.

Bulk Upload and Manipulation - ability to upload a spreadsheet or equipment to get started.

We had an article written by The Guardian newspaper today. The article features our friends at Bay Search & Rescue using D4H in Cumbria Floods last year. Robin Blandford will speak at the Guardian Activate summit in July, other speakers include Eric Schmidt, CEO and chairman, Google.

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Today, communications technology has become even more powerful for use during natural disasters and, importantly, the tools are in the hands of many more people. Late last year during the flooding in Cumbria, a software program called Decisions for Heroes (DfH) was used to help rescue workers better prepare and co-ordinate their efforts.

Robin Blandford, a volunteer cliff rescue worker for the Irish Coast Guard, created the software in 2008 to track patterns in cliff rescues so rescue teams could be better equipped and prepared. "During the floods in Cumbria, Morecambe's Bay Search and Rescue used our software to track where the flooding was so they could make a map and update the police and other services," says Blandford. "This helped show hotspots so there would be a better response."

DfH software is currently used by 4,000 rescuers across Canada, the US, New Zealand and the UK to track trends about where rescue teams seem to be needed most as well as collate important information about rescue teams themselves, such as team member skills, equipment inspection dates and team member availability at any given time. "The software is not so much instant reaction as much as recording data in a user-friendly way to recognise patterns that will help in future rescues," says Blandford. --Kate Bulkley