There are typically two reasons why you cannot assign requests to an agency.
Only coordinators can assign requests to other agencies when the Multi-Agency "MECC" workflow is being used.
If you are a coordinator and you cannot see the agency in the assignment select box, then check that the incident has the requred agency selected in the incident edit screen. To get here, pull down the Incidents selector at the top left of screen, then select 'Manage Incidents', then click the current incident to edit it.
Incident categories allow you to make decisions on the types of agencies that should be involved in a given incident before the incident occurs. It then acts as a template to pre-select those agencies when the incident is created.
To create a new incident, you need to have coordinator permission.
Only when logged in as a coordinator will you see the "Manage Incidents" options in the Incident selector where incidents can be created or manage.
See also: How to add an incident
Yes, simply keep multiple incidents open in the Incident Manager.
This is useful if you have incidents that are in recovery, along with newer incidents requiring an emergency response. Normally, whenever a user logs in they will be set up to use the most recently created incident, however they can select All Open Incidents from the Incident Selector to work across all incidents at once.
To receive SMS alert notifications you must:
See also:
Anyone can add an activity in the system.
However before you can add activities you must have at least on incident open.
See also: How to add an activity
One of the roles of the EMG (MERO/MERC/MRM) is to assign requests to the right person.
So it is probably best for them to split requests into their various components (as each part may require a separate assignment) however it is a matter of policy for the coordinator of each MECC Central to implement.
The key aim is to get the information into the system and this relieves pressure on Admin staff who may not have emergency management experience.
There is no function to split Activities, however agencies and the EMG can share the load of creating individual new requests, closing and making notes on the original request if need be.
Yes, in the Advanced Options fieldset at the bottom of all activities is a "Contains Sensitive Information" checkbox.
Click that checkbox and the record will only be viewable by Coordinators, and the current assigned agency.
Agency Logs are useful for recording notes during the course of your duties as an agency officer. It is like a diary, except it is a secured and audited record of your thoughts and actions during the incident. Agency Logs are only viewable by other agency officers, and are intended to document notes internal to the agency.
By contrast, Information records are used to record and share information to the coordination centre. Unlike agency logs, this information can be edited, can be open or closed, and can have map annotations. Information includes things such as road blocks and weather condition reports.
Coordinators can also send Announcements, which are short messages that can be sent to their team. Announcements are sent via SMS, email, and also appear on the dashboard. Announcements can also be marked as public, in which case they can be broadcast via RSS onto your website.
An agency is a team or people that work within your coordination centre and that can be assigned requests. In municipal emergencies, agencies are other emergency service agencies such as the SES and the Police.
You can set up any team or organisation as an agency. For example, if you have a supplier that is working closely with you, you can set them up as an agency and then assign requests to them.
1. Go to the Incident Manager
2. Edit your incident
3. Select the agency from the list of agencies, then click 'Save'
MECC Central assigns requests to Agencies rather than People so requests are not forgotten about as shifts change over and people come and go from the coordination centre.
If you want to assign to key people within your MECC, you can create Sub-Agency within your agency, and set up that person as the sole person within that sub-agency.
Sub-agencies are teams within an agency that work to a common goal.
Coordination of sub-agencies is up to the agency. From the perspective of an incident coordinator, requests are assigned to agencies, and it is up to the agency to resolve that request. However, the agency can organise their own workflow by using sub-agencies to delegate and distribute requests.
For example, a Council agency may have a Roads Crew, a Trees Crew, Media Relations and IT as some of its subagencies.
Admininistrators can add agencies by clicking 'System Administration' from the Dashboard sidebar. then clicking 'Agencies' from the menu. This will show a list of agencies currently configured in the system.
To add a new agency click 'Add New', then enter in the agency information and press 'Save'.
Any agency user can add sub-agencies into their agency.
To add a sub-agency, click 'Agency Workspace' from the top menu to visit your workspace, then click 'Sub-Agencies' from the secondary menu. From this screen, click 'Add new' and enter a name and a code. A code is a short code to uniquely identify the sub-agency.
Agency icons can be uploaded by Administrators.
First, click 'System Administration' from the Dashboard, then click 'Agencies' in the menu. A list of all agencies are displayed. Select the agency you wish to edit by clicking its name in the list. From the edit screen, you can upload images for both the Agency Logo and the Agency Icon.
Agency icons are different to agency logos, because icons should be square and they should not contain text, whereas many agencies have long or tall logos that contain text and an image.
You can upload the image as a JPG, GIF or PNG file, any size up to 2 MB. The system will automatically resize the image to the appropriate size for use within the various parts of the system - you shouldn't resize the image to a small icon size yourself.