Decisions For Heroes - Product Blog

Live Chat Support For all Users

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:55:44 +0000

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'.

D4H Provides Optimized Rescue Data for €500 million helicopter bid.

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:30:14 +0000

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

The Awesomeness Methodology

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 12:28:35 +0000

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.

Live Video from Dot Conf

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:01:15 +0000

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

Emergency Contacts, Pager Numbers, Phone Formats

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:49:09 +0000

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.

Welcome Donnchadh

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 11:18:37 +0000

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!

Dashboard Alerts Enhancement

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:43:34 +0000

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.

Equipment Tracking Beta

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:08:39 +0000

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 Guardian - Decisions for Heroes software tracks Cumbrian floods

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:31:32 +0000

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.

--

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

New Features: Attendance Roles and Guests

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 08:45:38 +0000

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.

New Feature: Activity Drafts and Permission Levels

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 11:46:35 +0000

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.

New Features: Tweaks, Workflows, and Ease

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:15:00 +0000

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.

New Feature: Task Management, Delegation, and Tracking

Sun, 30 May 2010 12:21:23 +0000

Today we're launching our latest benefit into beta, 'Task Management' built especially for response teams. Our task management tools are live on all team accounts, and are designed to enable you to create tasks for yourself, or other members of your team and track their progress. The video above gives you a quick overview.

When you assign a task, we'll drop that member a notification email to let them know. We'll also include it in their weekly briefing, and allow them to mark it as 'In-Progress' when they start it. If you create a task for yourself, you have the option of keeping it 'private', a private task may

Leave a task unassigned and we'll add it to the pool of jobs needed doing. We'll prompt other members through their dashboards and the weekly briefing emails to pick up those tasks and single-click add them to their own tasks if they are looking for a job to do. Of course, we'll also email you to let you know when they change the status to 'Complete'.

Tasks are currently in 'beta', this means they may have bugs in there, and it may change radically in the next few weeks, but the benefits of releasing it early outweigh the catches. Soon we'll be delivering the equipment, asset, and supplies tracking tool and we'll move tasks out of beta status. Equipment will be very closely linked to the tasks as we let you create and track repairs, maintenance, gear inspections, and other recurring tasks using the same interface.

All suggestions should be added to our 'Improve It' area as it allows us to track them against the page. Enjoy the tool!

(If you would like to try this out and don't have an account, start a 40-Day trial for free.)

Update: Navigation Menu Changes

Tue, 25 May 2010 08:54:01 +0000

Within the next few weeks we'll begin rolling out an upgrade to the main navigation menu. As this will change the way you access sections, it's important for us to notify you in advance. Screenshots of the menus are available for you to familiarize yourself in advance. Menus open when you roll-over or click on the headings.

We've had to upgrade to these new menus to give us the scope and space available to keep providing you new features and capabilities. You'll see in the screenshots below the new tasks and equipment modules.

If you've any questions about these layouts, contact us at support@d4h.org where Robin will answer you. Updates will start to appear on accounts in the next 7 - 21 days.

Public Updates and Stats Automatically Updated Anywhere

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:32:32 +0000

Rescue teams can now add public updates from their incidents to any website. Once you've added a 'D4H Widget' to your site, when you create an incident we'll automatically update your public stats across all websites you've installed the widget on.

You can even add a team sponsor message and link to the widget, and give a copy to local newspapers or supporting companies to put on their websites. To see a great example, take a look at the website of Bay Search & Rescue in the UK.

We've got different templates to choose from, both horizontal and vertical. To add a widget to your account, you need to be the Account Owner. Visit [Team Settings] and choose [Public Updates].

Try it out with your team, sign-in to your account or get started for free.

Print Off Your Attendance Sheets

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:48:14 +0000

DUBLIN, IRELAND - Our new attendance sheets are a tribute to our users. A few weeks ago a discussion arose in our improve-it forums, "can we have an automatic sign-in sheet with our members listed on it that we can download?". All team accounts have now been upgraded to include the attendance sheet. Access it by going to an activity on your calendar and pressing 'Download'. The sheet will list the names of everybody you requested for the activity with tickboxes (automatically updated to the latest confirmation data) and space for a signature if required. It is listed in the same order as the attendance entry to make logging it afterwards really easy.

A blank attendance sheet with all members listed is available in [Analytics] -> [Reports]. We suggest you print a few of these blank to keep available for the following potential uses...

Quick sign-in at an impromptu activity.

At an incident, mark who is on-scene and a note of which sub-team they're on.

During training, use it to make debrief notes against each member.

In an examination or practical test, mark passes or fails and results on it.

When polling, mark votes or opinions.

Collecting funds, list who has paid and amount received.

Add further uses in the comments if you'd like to contribute.

Qualification Alerting and Management for Training Officers

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:11:30 +0000

Emergency responders need to hold valid qualfications for the work they do. Training officers need to schedule periodic refresher courses and monitor regular practice in each skill. A team of 20 people can have over 100 different qualification expiry periods that need to be tracked by you - and paper folders with grids or tables are complex and slow.

In our Spring release, we launched integrated qualification management to help you record certficates held and dates issued. You may set required numbers in each area and get alerted when qualifications expire or requirements for compliance are broken. Expectations can be set for who should hold valid qualifications in each award and as you update membership groups your expectation lists are dynamically updated by us.

With complete qualfication history on every member, you can archive and view past certifications, licenses, and refresher courses. Animals are treated just like members, and you can create profiles for team search dogs and mounted SAR animals to assign licenses, medicals, and certifications. You can even assign handlers to animals and track their training and work hours together as a pair.

To try it out with your team, sign-in to your account or get started

New Map Analysis Features

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:24:42 +0000

NEW FEATURES - We've launched two new intelligence features to all teams over Easter. Direction Frequency plotting helps you to understand which direction you're most frequently getting tasked. We take a bearing from your base to each of your incident locations and then split them up into 20 degree sectors. We size each sector relative to the frequency of incidents in that direction to help you understand where you're getting tasked.

Optimum Base Location map analysis is where if you could put your base anywhere, would provide the shortest possible travel distance to respond to all incidents. We base this calculation on what we call 'The Center Of Gravity' of your responses. We also draw a polygon around your outerlimits to aid in visualization.

To access these features sign-in or sign-up and go to:

[Analytics]-> Right Side Bar [Direction Frequency]
[Analytics]-> Right Side Bar [Optimum Base]

TIME-WARP marks the end of sirens

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:07:00 +0000

DUBLIN, IRELAND (31st March 2010) - The wailing sound of emergency services sirens will soon be a sound of the past thanks to a rescue technology firm based in Ireland. Tomorrow morning, at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, Decisions For Heroes will launch a new product, TIME-WARP. The company specialises in the automated analysis of incident and causalty records and Director Robin Blandford believes TIME-WARP marks not only the end of sirens, but also that of pagers and other personal reactive alerting devices worn by responders.

TIME-WARP enables responders to be rostered on-call, available at the most likely time for an incident to occur. Using geographic and hour-on-hour distribution analysis on a segment of historic data, the software is able to notify responders prior to an upcoming incident.

With no sirens required, responders may drive safely in advance to the scene of the incident. They can be ready waiting in their vehicle up to 90 minutes before and within 45ft of the location of the accident that they will later respond to. "Not only will teams save more lives, but TIME-WARP saves your time too" explains Blandford. He continues, "If TIME-WARP tells you no incident will happen that afternoon, then you can send your team home early - no cover needed".

Commander Joe Kerr's team, United Nations Rescue & Emergency Aid, London, undertook early system trials, "4pm on a Sunday at 52 34.2N, 6 34.23W; that's our spot. It was so accurate that last week we took the light bars off the vehicles - we just weren't using them anymore". Commander Kerr's team responded to 123 of 82 emergencies before they even happened.

Use cluster maps to identify incident hotspots. Over.

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 15:24:59 +0000

Picture the scene - you've been keeping incident records for years. You've carefully recorded a latitude and longitude for each, as one day you know that will be useful. That day has come.

All Decisions For Heroes accounts and free trials have been automatically upgraded to include incident cluster mapping to provide easy to understand geographic distribution and analysis of your responses.

As you zoom in and out on an interactive map - we automatically cluster and count incidents in each area on the map to determine hotspots and observe where the greatest impact on lives saved can be achieved through preventitive techniques. You can quickly gain an unprecidented overview of how much happened where.

Plot your training exercises and other events against your incidents and decide if you are training in locations that simulate your incidents or if your safety awareness and prevention is correctly distributed.

To try Cluster Mapping with your teams data - sign-in to your account or sign-up now for free.

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