This weeks release will be live on all accounts within 24 hours, and we've a couple of tweaks to make things faster and easier for you.

Short-Cuts on Dashboard
We've brought back shortcut buttons to create activities on the dashboard.



Casualties Workflow
Once you create an incident, the casualties now flow directly on from the incident one after another. Once you've updated each casualty it will jump into your attendance selection, or you can skip casualties if you've nothing further.



Self-Transport To Hospital
Previously we only had "Handed Over To Ambulance/Hospital" or "No Further Assistance", we now include "Self-Transport To Hospital". This is for people who you recommend continue on for further treatment so you know the outcome was requiring further medical attention or not.



Remain Mobile After Incident
As more response teams who join us provide mobile services such as ambulances and event cover we have added the ability to 'Remain Mobile' after an incident. This will rmove the requirement for a 'Return To Base' time to be recorded.



Add Resources on the Fly
You can now add resources on-the-fly when adding an incident. Just hit the little [Add] button in the Resource Type you want to add to. If your team is connected to an organisation you can now add your resources and tags under their types and bundles. If this is successful, we may move to allow adding Techniques (Tags) on-the-fly too.



On-Scene Co-ordinator
We'll add each resource you select at an incident, exercise, or event, to an On-Scene Co-ordinator select field. You can then select your choice, your own team, or no-one. This will allow us to compile stats further down the line based on the resources on-scene. It comes from the request of large organisations who needed to know who the coordinator / Incident Commander was when multiple teams attend.



Pre-Plan
We've added a text box for Pre-Plans on exercises and events - this is a space to type notes that will appear on pre-activity reports, but not post-activity. Things like meeting times, route choices, notes. Based on your feedback we might expand this area with the ability for a training officer to plan out and print out plans for training sessions. It's quite a big part we could expand on. Stay tuned.



Pre-Activity Report
This report is for printing out before you go on an non-emergency activity as a plan. You might need to take this with you or keep it in records. Some teams must fax these to a control room if they are exercising in the area so they know the resource is live (hint: we'll be adding electronic fax capability). Again - keep the feedback coming.





We've another release in the next few days with something new! Keep the feedback coming, either here in the comments, or through the Improve-It section. If you encounter a bug or need help, email support@decisionsforheroes.com.

If you do not have an account for your team, get started here for free.

Today we're switching on 'Drafts'. All activities are now drafts once created, and must be approved by an editor to appear in your statistics. Approved activities may not be edited, and can only be approved once the activity has taken place. One approved they may only be converted back to draft to edit by an Editor. When you next sign-in, you will need to approve all your previous activity reports to have them appear in your stats.



We show a little asterisk beside activities which need approval. This should give you a better workflow where you know you still need to confirm details of the report or print it for your records.



We have added a new permission level within 'Member+' which allows you to tick boxes to give them the ability to add/edit your drafts. You might give a training officer the ability to create exercise drafts, an admin officer the ability to add events to the calendar, or an incident commander the ability to add draft incident reports. All of these need to be approved before being added to your statistics.



Shortcut buttons will appear on the dashboard for Member+ users who you assign permission to create drafts.

We've added 'Roles' to activity attendance today. You can add as many role types as you'd like, e.g. Incident Commander, Coxswain, Crew, Search Group Leader, Search Manager etc. Organizations can pre-populate these roles for all their teams e.g. the Incident Command System roles. Roles can be added on-the-fly once attendance has been selected.



We've also added 'Guests' where you'll get the opportunity to add extras to your activity. This is important to track numbers of people who are not in your D4H system. e.g. a boat or helicopter had 6 On-Board but D4H only shows 4 as 2 were not team members. You may use this to record any people under your command who you wish to register in the attendance.



Here's what the attendance now looks like. Here you can see one member had a dog with them also.



We'll be adding intelligence analytics on the roles at a later date once teams have created enough data to be worthwhile. Of course we'll track things like how many times you've trained as a Search Manager vs Incidents as one.

Note: At present you cannot delete roles or edit spelling mistakes, so be careful what you add! We want to see the feedback we get first to see how they are used. We have the option of creating ICS style role trees, or simple situation lists. There is also the possibility of compliance roles e.g. you must assign a Safety Officer role at all incidents.

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

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.

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.