Release Notes

Last weekend we performed a minor release to the Crisis Track web application and mobile applications. Even though a minor release, there are a handful of new features that we hope you find useful. Here is what's new:

Census Reports. Census reports are estimated demographics for either Areas of Concern or Task Areas. The report uses census data and your local structures to estimate the demographics for these areas. We currently have loaded Race and Housing Census data for your account. As the Census releases more data from the decennial census, we will add this data to Crisis Track.

Select Structures by Attribute. We added functionality to the Task Map that allows you to select structure by FEMA Category, FEMA Flood Hazard, or Structure Type. Selecting structures by type helps you refine the list of structures you want your damage assessment teams to inspect.

Other updates include adding 2021 FEMA Equipment Rates, a Measure Tool on web console maps, the ability to copy tasks, and some security updates.

If you have any questions on these items or suggestions for improving CrisisTrack, please reach out to us at support@crisistrack.com. We'd love to hear from you!

Last weekend we launched our newest Crisis Track release. Most of this release focuses on Public Assistance and syncing accounts. However, there has been a mobile update. Please make sure your mobile applications are updated to Version 4.2

Here's what's new:

Applicant Tags - Damage assessments and time records can now be tagged to an "Applicant". This will enable you to track and report on disaster costs from various organizations that may be eligible for FEMA Public Assistance, like a hospital, public utility, or municipality. Once you add an Applicant in the Admin console, you will be able to change an entry to an Applicant and see totals by applicants in a new Charts reporting screen.

New Tables in the Charts Module - Which brings us to some new tables. We added summary tables in the Charts module to quickly see summary damages by FEMA grant program (IA and PA). We also added a chart to see damages by Applicants.

Import Function Improvements - If you are importing data from other Crisis Track accounts, for example when a State syncs data from a county account, we have made several improvements:

1. We now sync employee and equipment time records to better match FEMA PA Cat A and Cat B costs between accounts.

2. The sync can now be bidirectional. Changes made to either account will sync.

3. Jurisdiction from one account can sync to another account. This will allow the sync to work for Applicants that may have sites located in different counties.

Structure Filter by Type - The Locate Button on the Mobile App will now filter structures by structure type. So, if your team is performing damage assessment on culverts, you can use the filter button to select a type of structures to show in the Locate button dropdown.

Pre-configured Task Group Changes - We updated the way to add and edit pre-configured task groups. This will make it easier for you to organize pre-configured tasks, especially if you have many different types of tasks.

We'll also be sending out another email shortly regarding next week's webcast refresher training. Along with the refresher training content, we'll be reviewing the new features for this release.

As always, if you have any questions or need additional assistance, please send requests to support@crisistrack.com

John

This past weekend we released version 4.1 of Crisis Track, which includes several updates to the mobile platforms. Because there's a mobile release, please make sure to update the Crisis Track application on your mobile devices. Also, if you have a new administrative point of contact for Crisis Track, please let us know.

Here's the new features in this release:

Copy Entry. You can now copy an entry on the mobile application. So if you receive, say, a Resident Self Report and want to turn it into a damage assessment, you can copy the Resident Self Report entry to a new damage assessment entry.

Add notes to photos. We added a notes section for each photo you take on the mobile application. This will allow you to make notes on individual photos that are part of an entry.

Add NFIP flood layers and other map services to the mobile application. In our effort to improve the workflows for Substantial Damage Estimations, we now enable Esri Map Services, such as the NFIP Flood Hazards layer, to be overlaid on the maps of the mobile application. This will allow you to quickly see which structures are inside or outside the flood zone.

Performance improvements on the web console. We optimized the way we load data when logging in and when selecting an incident, which should greatly improve the load times of the web console application. Fewer wheels will spin, literally!

Workflow improvements for Employee and Equipment time records. We simplified the workflow to capture time as time records. Now, any time recorded for any force labor or equipment resource will automatically be converted into a time record for reporting.

Add year-built, square footage and other structure attributes. We expanded our database infrastructure over the winter, which will allow us to capture more building data for the 2021 data refresh processes. Where available from your tax records, we plan to add: Year Built, Square Footage, Number of Stories, and NFIP flood zone. This will help auto-populate new damage assessment data requirements for Individual Assistance, Small Business Administration declarations, and FEMA’s Substantial Damage Estimations.

Add FEMA 9901 Administrative Costs Document. There is a new document in the documents section for FEMA 9901 Administrative costs. This form will automatically populate using time records for your employees and equipment and estimate totals for your Direct Administrative Costs.

Lastly, we fixed various issues with other FEMA forms and chart printing including:

• Adding a page to the FEMA 90-124

• Wrapping text in comment boxes for the FEMA 90-128

• Fixing the Operations View timeline to show resource times

• Exporting blank FEMA 90-123 form

• Added a sort to ICS 205A form

• Fixing the printing for the Charts module

We hope to have our next release by this summer. In the meantime, please keep an eye out for our free monthly training series this spring.

As always, if you need any help, please let us know at support@crisistrack.com

Stay safe,

John

We’re pleased to announce a major release of our software, Crisis Track Version 4.0! For the most part, this release is all about tracking resources. We greatly improved how you enter time in the web console, added new functionality to track time for resources not using a mobile application, and created a new module to track resource availability.

Before we start: Please update your mobile devices to the latest app in the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, or Windows Store.

Because we focused on tracking resources in this release, most of these changes are only available in the Disaster Management and All-Hazards Emergency Management tiers. Those changes available in the Disaster Management are all available in the Emergency Management tier.

 

All Tiers

New Entry Editing Screen - On the console, we have changed the Edit Entries screen to be a panel on the Entries map. This will allow all map layers available on the Entries map to be available while creating or editing an Entry.

New Conditional Field Visibility - We added the ability for an entry form to show or hide questions based on another question’s value. For example:

• Field A) Has Damage: Yes or No

• Field B) Cause of Damage - only shown if Has Damage is Yes.

This will improve usability by eventually allowing Crisis Track to reduce the number of questions on Entry forms and even reduce the number of Entry Form types. More to come on Entry Forms changes this fall.

Disaster Management Updates

Enhancing Employee and Equipment Records - We made it much easier to edit employee and equipment time in the console. First we created a new table view of time, which matches what you would typically see on FEMA forms. Each of these records can either be edited individually or edited directly on the table for a given set of records by clicking the Edit button.

We also improved the look and feel of the Chart View. All of the time records can either be exported to an Excel spreadsheet or FEMA project worksheet just as in earlier versions.

New Way to Track Time - Time records are automatically captured from the mobile applications, just like in previous versions. However, we added a new status for time tracking for teams, say for those employees working in your EOC. If you change a team’s status on the web console to “Active”, the system automatically starts tracking the time for all elements of the Team. Time tracking stops when you move the status to something other than “Active”. Time captured from a team can then be converted to time records in the employee and equipment time records module.

Change Rates - You can now add a new set of employee and equipment rates to your Crisis Track account. If you do have a new set of rates loaded into your account, you can choose which rate to use for a given incident.

Flag Equipment Operator - You can now select the operator for a piece of equipment assigned to the team.

Export Time Records to FEMA forms - Just like in past versions, all time records are exported to FEMA forms, like the FEMA 90-123 and FEMA 90-125.

Info Module - We added a new information module to the Incident Home Screen. This helps you quickly get to links like the Resident Self Reporting page or the ArcGIS Online Interface feature services.

Webpage for any Form Type - Inside the Info Module, you are now able to create a web page link for any form. This webpage will allow anyone with the link to add data into Crisis Track. So, now any form type you choose can be used for public reporting. To help you control who entered what, you can define the task for which these entries are entered.

New Charts Report - You can now export all of the charts from the Chart Module into a one-page pdf.

New QA Tests - We added two new Quality Assurance tests to our QA script, which you can find in the Entries Module. Now, the QA script will flag any entry that is missing photos and any entry where the damage value exceeds the structure value.

All Hazards Emergency Management

Enhanced Resource Tracking -

We added a new Resource module to the Emergency Management functionality tier. A resource is something that you want to track the status of over a given period of time - say a generator or a member of a Search and Rescue Team. In the Resource module you can add various resources to track and change their status to the following:

• Demobilized

• Requested

• Staged-Not Available

• Staged-Available

• Assigned-Standby

• Assigned-Working

When a resource is moved to Assigned-Working, Crisis Track creates a time record for the resource for reporting and cost recovery purposes. We added a new drag-and-drop card feature to more easily change a resource status.

You can also change a resource status on any of the mobile platforms by clicking Track Resources after the Incident page.

New ICS Form Updates - The new resource statuses will automatically update the ICS 211. We also updated the ICS 201 to the new version.

*****

As you can see there’s a lot of new features with this release. Over the next few weeks we’ll be offering several webcast trainings on the new ways you can use Crisis Track for resource tracking.

In the meantime, should you have any questions or need additional information, please let us know at support@crisistrack.com

We just released a significant build last week, most of which focused on FEMA Public Assistance functionality and photos. Since it has a small mobile update, please make sure to update the Crisis Track mobile app to Version 3.3 in the Google Play Store or Windows store, and 3.3.2 in the Apple App store. Here’s what’s in the update:

FEMA Benefits Calculator (DM and EM Tiers)

Calculating fringe benefit rates has always been a difficult task when applying for FEMA Public Assistance project. In our Employee Inventory, we’ve now added a FEMA Benefits calculator that helps you calculate an individual's fringe benefit rate for labor time tracking. The FEMA 90-128 Applicant Benefits Calculation form can now be filled in using this information.

New Photos Module (DA, DM and EM Tiers)

We always had a way to download entries from a given incident. However, the export would only contain hyperlinks of the photos. So, we added a Photos Module to the Incident Home Page where you can preview and export all photos from the incident. You can even add a watermark to the photo showing a time/date stamp and address.

Incident Creation Wizard (DA, DM and EM Tiers)

We are constantly working to improve Crisis Track’s ease of use. One feature we just added is the Incident Creation Wizard. When you add a new incident, the wizard will step you through some basic steps to more quickly get you up and running. We also have a new email notification setting (Admin->Settings) where you can send email notifications when an Admin or Commander creates an incident.

Crisis Track Community Page

We have a new Community Page! With an ever increasing number of users, we created a community page to ask questions, share experiences, and promote ideas.

Other features we added include:

• Changing iOS GPS to update every 5 meters (used to be 20 meters)

• Updating iOS to handle Dark Mode

• Adding a signature field capability where entry forms can be signed using the touch screen

• Adding a checkbox to automatically include a preconfigured Guest User to a new incident

• Improving the performance for deleting multiple entries

• Checking to make sure all structures are downloaded before creating tasks

• Selecting multiple tasks when populating an ICS 204 output form

• Adding a Public Assistance ID and FEMA DR to the Incident that populates the FEMA forms

• Adding a bulk editing capability to Employees and Equipment inventories

• Adding Color, Year, VIN, and Plate fields to Equipment Inventory

• Populating the FEMA 90-123 and FEMA 90-127 forms

Please be safe this holiday season. As always, if you have any questions or need support, please reach out to us at support@juvare.com.

This past weekend we pushed out a small release for the console, that contained new functionality and usability enhancements. There is no need to update the mobile apps. Here’s a run down of what changed:

Structure Information within AOC. When you create an Area of Concern, Crisis Track now automatically calculates the number of structures and the total structure value inside the polygon you draw. We also tagged the Area of Concern with the author and date in case you have multiple people editing areas.

Assessment Report Web App. We’ve made available a new web app that will allow you to let residents see the damage assessment results of their homes. The form allows residents to search by address or parcel number (your pick), then download a pdf of the damage assessment if one exists. To implement this for your residents, please contact support@crisistrack.com

County Level Entries Visible on Jurisdiction’s Maps. County-level entries were not visible for jurisdictions, which caused problems for situationally important data like road closures or Citizen Self Reports entered from the web app. Now, the jurisdiction’s Operations View will show county entries for EM Requests, Initial Damage Reports, Citizen Self Reports and Road Closures.

Faster Refresh. We changed the way the refresh buttons download data to improve performance. Now, when you click a “Refresh” button, the web console will only update data that has changed since the last update. The only exception is the Incident Home Page refresh button. This button will reload all data for the incident.

Entries missing Location Information. In certain situations entries can be entered without a location causing the entry to not show up on a map. This can happen when a mobile app does not have GPS service or when an address is typed in without using the search functions. We will now attempt to geocode the address before adding the entry. Using the “Search by Structure” on the web console or “Locate” on the mobile app is still preferred because this will link to the structure’s tax record and populate the structure’s value in the Entry.

Other changes we made:

• The Back Button is now fully functional!

• Structures are now available in the Operations View.

• You can edit shapes of task areas. Any changes will automatically be saved.

• USNG coordinates were added to SAR forms.

• We fixed the filter settings on Android app.

• We removed an erroneous search button on iOS.

• Duplicate detection is now form specific.

• Admin (no payroll) users can now add and edit employee time.

• We improved the console’s map extents to be more intuitive.

As always, if you have any questions or would like our team to review anything with you, please contact us at support@juvare.com.

Before hurricane season begins in earnest, we decided to push a small release out with some important new disaster management functionality. There is a new mobile release. So please make sure your mobile apps are updated to Version 3.2.0. Here's what's new:

PA Damage Inventory Spreadsheet - FEMA added a Damage Inventory spreadsheet as part of the new Public Assistance Portal. This spreadsheet identifies all of your Public Assistance eligible site estimates from your damage assessment. In Crisis Track, the Public, Road Damage, Debris Estimation, Light/Sign and Bridge/Culvert damage forms will populate as rows on the PA Damage Inventory spreadsheet. Under Documents, you can now export this form and import it directly into the FEMA PA Portal.

Import Entries - we added an import button on the Task and Entries pages that allows you to import Entries. If you have a .csv file that matches the format of an entries form template, you can now bulk import the file.

Guest Users - we now allow you to add Crisis Track users from other accounts to access an incident in your account. So if you are receiving mutual aid from an adjacent jurisdiction that also uses Crisis Track, you can grant their users access to into a specific incident in your account. This avoids users needing multiple Crisis Track logins.

Crisis Track Knowledge Base - with the new releases the software is getting bigger. So, it was time to reorganize and update our help documentation into a searchable knowledge base. You can reach it in the Help link in the web console header.

Other enhancements include:

• The ArcGIS Online Interface now accepts lines and polygons

• Initial Damage Report and Citizen Self Report Layers are now on all Task maps

• There is a new Intersections button on the web console for new entries to help you identify an intersection for, say, road closures

• We added a CO Damage Assessment Cover Page as a Document for all Colorado customers

• If you have any questions, issues, or ideas, please do not hesitate to contact us at: support@juvare.com.

We completed the release of Crisis Track 3.1 last weekend. This is considered a minor release packed with many little tweaks to existing functionality based on your feedback. Please keep sending us your ideas! PLEASE BE SURE TO UPDATE MOBILE DEVICES TO CRISIS TRACK VERSION 3.1.0.

Let’s review what’s new.

Entry form enhancements:

• We now allow line and polygon shapes for entry forms. This is particularly useful for defining road closures, road damage, and debris estimates.

• We updated the debris types on Debris Estimation and Load Ticket forms to match FEMA debris requirements.

• We made structure values visible on all damage assessment forms

• You are now able to upload an attachment to an entry. For instance, you can add a maintenance record to a culvert damage assessment form.

Mobile

• iPhone X is now supported

• Account-level users can now access a jurisdiction's teams and tasks

• Changes to a team’s employees are now captured in the console

• Forms can capture lines and polygons on a schema-by-schema basis

• Various issues with special characters were resolved

Documents:

• Perhaps the biggest noticeable change is the new Documents module (formally called "Forms"). The documents module allows you to save output documents as snapshots in time and allows you to export all saved documents in one click. Here’s a video on how it works:

• Video: Documents

• We updated all FEMA documents to the newest versions

• We added a new Search and Rescue form (EM tier only)

• We embedded a map to the ICS 201 document and updated the ICS 211 (EM tier only)

Footprint enhancements

• We updated the Footprint module to have more tools

• There is now an export function for Areas of Concern shapes

• We added a circle tool for Areas of Concern

• We added many more icons available for resource locations (EM tier only)

Chart enhancements:

• We changed the charts in the Operations View and the Charts modules to bar charts

• We added a print function on all charts

Other enhancements

• Jurisdiction admins are now allowed to create incidents

• We updated PDF report export to include a jurisdiction's logo

• We added an employee number and middle name to the Employees Table

• There is now a search feature for structure's table

• We changed the legend for Operations View and Task map views to only show schemas that have entries in the incident.

• We added some entry validation for both console and mobile

• We added groups for pre-configured Tasks

• We added department field to teams

• We added a USNG grid tool to the Ops View

• We developed an interface to WebEOC

Issues Resolved:

• We made sure that timezones are used for dates/time exports

• The Operations View map now prints with external map layers

• The Structures table now sorts correctly

• We ensured user IDs cannot have spaces at the end

• Map service transparencies are now recognized on the Ops View map

• We refined our duplicate detection to better handle null structures

• Special characters are now allowed in passwords

To help prepare you for hurricane or summer storm season, we’ve just released a new version of Crisis Track. This is a major release to the mobile and console components of Crisis Track. You should upgrade your mobile applications to Version 3.0.

Here are the significant changes labeled by your tier of functionality:

Area of Concern (DA/DM/EM). We always provided a way to delineate task areas. However, you now have a way to delineate the boundaries of the entire incident, whether it be an area affected from a wind sheer event, or a search area. Under a new incident module “Footprints”, you can now draw this area and use it to identify and limit the structures you need to pay attention to. Here’s a short video on how Area of Concerns work.

Preconfigure Task Area Uploader (DA/DM/EM). Your GIS staff can now help you plan for your disaster management operations by designing zones that best fit your jurisdiction’s needs. For instance, you can to divide your entire County by USNG grid cells or neighborhoods. The new uploader accepts a zipped Esri shapefile as its input.

Form Modifiers (DA/DM/EM). We added some automated calculations to the forms. You can now have forms that sum fields. For example, you can design a form to add three input fields to sum the total disaster cost.

Forms for Incidents (DA/DM/EM). We changed the Incident screen slightly. You no longer need to add forms to an Incident. Now, all forms will be added to all incidents. You can still restrict forms for a given Task in the Task Edit screen.

Task Info on Mobile App (DA/DM/EM). You can now see information for a given task on the Crisis Track mobile apps, such as the Task Description and Task Special Instructions.

Branding (DA/DM/EM). We now can have your jurisdiction’s logo on the top of the Crisis Track console app. We'll be using these logos to put on your reports as well in the next release to come.

If you would like this added to your account, please send us your logo to support@juvare.com.

Large Number of Entries (DA/DM/EM). Last year we found some performance limitations on the Crisis Track web console app when entries exceeded 500k per incident and when a large number of tasks were created for an incident. To address this, we improved performance on the mapping legends when there are a large number of tasks and added a High Volume mode that automatically kicks in at 150k entries. When Crisis Track is in High Volume mode, the mapping application paginates entries in the tables and generalizes the entries mapping to a USNG grid. These changes have significantly improved load times and performance when working with large numbers of entries.

Resource Locations (EM). For All Hazards Emergency Management Tier customers, you can also add icons that designate resource location under Footprints. A “Resource” is something that you want to keep the status of (i.e. available, not available, in use) such as a shelter or an incident command post. These resource locations then show up on your maps to map the footprint of your operation assets. You can also preplan these locations to lay out and reuse operation plans in the Admin Console.

Reentry Permits (EM). Reentry Permits is a new workflow to help you assign and track people coming into and out of your Area of Concern. You can accept incoming Reentry Permit applications from a website, send digital permits once approved, and track permits as they enter and leave checkpoints.

We’ve also made dozens of usability improvements such as changing the label “Municipality” to “Jurisdictions”, changing the color of the icons, and improving the search functionality in the tables. Please let us know what you think!

In the coming weeks we’ll be scheduling a few refresher webcasts to review this functionality. In the meantime, if you have any questions or need help please contact us at:

support@juvare.com

It’s getting towards the end of the year. So we squeezed out a small release for the web console applications just in time for the holidays. Although small, there are some big improvements you all have been requesting. Here’s what we enhanced:

Creating a New User Email Notification:

We added the concept of a user profile to Crisis Track. First off, an email address is now required when you create a new user. We will use this email address to allow admins to send credentials directly to new users. Users will be required to change their password when they first login.

"Forgot Username/Password” Email Notification:

Also, we now provide users with a “Forgot Username/Password” feature. The web console home page now has two links in case a user forgets their username or forgets their password. When you click on either link, the system will send you an email to identify your username or change your password. This feature will soon be added to the mobile applications as well.

Citizen Self Reporting Email Notifications:

Starting to see a pattern in this release? Yes, with our new email notification system we now enable you to receive emails when an entry occurs on the Citizen Self Reporting web page. Just click on Settings in the Admin Console to add the email addresses you would like to be notified. For those Disaster Management users who do not have a Citizen Self Reporting web page url, just email us at support@juvare.com.

Static Map Layers:

We always gave you the ability to add layers to the web console app maps. However, those layers only stayed within the browser's session. What we added in the last release was the ability for you to configure map layers permanently in an account for the Ops View and Task maps. Admin users can do this in the Admin section under the new Map Layer module where you can add the URL for your local map service. We also added an adjustment in the Ops View and Task map setting where you can rescale the symbols on the map

FEMA Floodways:

We added the FEMA Floodways as a layer on all maps. By default the layers are turned off.

We thank you all for your continued support this past year. And we hope you all have a safe and joyful holiday.

With the official end of hurricane season now past, we launched a new release for the Crisis Track Web Console. Using some great feedback we heard from you all, this release provides you with improved data management and expanded emergency management functionality. Here are the major updates:

Identifying Duplicate Entries:

When attempting to assign or add an entry form that has another form for the same address, a Duplicates Detected warning will appear with a link to view the duplicates. There is also a new tab in the Entries module that allows you to identify, view, and delete duplicates for the incident.

Bulk Editing:

We definitely heard you here. Yes, we added bulk editing to the Tasks modules. Now you can select multiple entries to delete, edit, or change their task assignments. From the map tab, you can click on the Edit Entries button on those entries you select from the map.

Spreadsheet Uploaders for Employees and Equipment:

For the Disaster Management customers, you no longer have to send us updates to your employee and equipment inventories. We added spreadsheet uploaders that help you add new resources or update existing resources to the inventories currently residing in Crisis Track. We also added duplicate detection to the uploaders.

Citizen Self Reporting Website Address Autopopulate:

Also for the Disaster Management customers, your Citizen Self Reporting website now autopopulates the address entries based on your address point file. This will help to avoid placing citizen damage reports outside of your jurisdiction.

Special Character Issues:

We had a number of data errors occur when field people added special characters to some of the entry forms - such as: “water levels are 2””. These caused errors to the exports and errors to the entry grids. We fixed and tested the special character errors.

Evacuation Form:

We added an Evacuation Form to all of the Disaster Management accounts. You can use this form with the structure data in Crisis Track to canvas residents on who goes to shelters and who shelters in place. In addition to mapping each resident, Crisis Track also exports the results of this canvasing to ICS 204 and ICS 214 forms.

Lastly, we’ve made a number of smaller bug fixes and performance enhancements to help improve your experience with Crisis Track.

As always, if you need technical support or additional training, please email us at support@juvare.com

Although it’s been a few months since our last release, we pushed out a new release yesterday. This one took A LOT longer than we previously thought. Who knew that pre-populating ICS forms for pdf exports were so difficult?

First off: PLEASE CLEAR YOUR BROWSER CACHE. I apologize for the caps. However, if you read nothing else, I’d like you to see that. You may not be able to log into the console application until you do.

Now, here are the major changes for this release:

ICS Forms. That’s right. We have added ICS forms to the Crisis Track product. For the Disaster Management product you will now see an ICS 204 and ICS 214 in the Incident Forms module. These auto-populate as you create tasks and as your teams perform work. Every Entry Form the teams complete will populate as a major event on the ICS 214. For those customers with the Search and Rescue product, there is now a complete set of ICS forms available.

New Charts Module. This will especially be useful for those home-rule states. There is now a charts module on the Incident Home Screen that provides you with separate disaster costs totals for each municipality set up in your account.

Admin “Lite”. We had some customers who wanted a separate admin account for payroll only. So, we added a new user role: Admin (No Payroll). Admin can see payroll numbers and do everything an Admin could previously do. Admin (No Payroll) is just like it sounds: an admin user who cannot see any employee rates either in the admin console or the form exports.

We also made a handful of usability changes and issue fixes including:

• Adding a search function on the Users table

• Fixing the Picture download button

• Attempting to force the Back Button to not log you out (in most cases)

• Changing the Disaster Cost buttons to $1000 increments

• Adding a total on the Public Assistance graph in Ops View

There was no mobile release on this version. But please check your devices to make sure there is no update available.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions or need more information at support@juvare.com.

We just launched a new task editor for Crisis Track. Remember the "Assigned Structures" button? It's no more. The polygon you create for a task boundary can now be used to select the GIS-based structures. Here's a quick Task Editor Video Instruction .

Image

Other changes include:

• Filtering forms for a task. If you want a task to only access specific forms (i.e. CERT will only use Initial Damage Report forms), you can limit form types for any task.

• New Task Editing as Preconfigured Tasks. You can configure your teams and tasks before the incident so that your planning efforts now live in the Crisis Track software.

• Bulk Editing. You can now select a group of entries and move them to another task.

• Task Editing Overlays. All of the layers and tools in the Ops View map are now available in the Task Editing map; you can overlay GIS layers, use range and heatmap tools, and see all existing entries to better plan out your next task.

Please try out the new functionality and give us feedback. As always, if you have any questions or need additional help, please contact us at support@juvare.com

There’s been some confusion in the EM community about the various differences and definitions of damage assessment. Some communities use windshield surveys and online forms to conduct damage assessments. Other communities use volunteers and first responders to help canvass an area affected by an incident.

To help better capture damage information from different sources immediately after an incident, Crisis Track introduces Initial Damage Reports, a reporting mechanism in your existing Crisis Track account to quickly identify locations of damaged infrastructure. Initial Damage Reports do not yet identify costs or other FEMA related information.

From the onset of the incident, Crisis Track can now collect initial damage reports from the Crisis Track Mobile Application and from a new Crisis Track Online Form template. We have loaded a new Initial Damage Report form type to your account for new incidents. You can use this form to assign initial reporting teams of first responders and volunteer organizations such as CERT.

We also can help you implement a web link or embedded form that the public can use to report initial damage reports. This form can be customized for your community.

Take a look at a sample: https://www.crisistrack.com/public/demo/citizenRequest.html.

Crisis Track will map initial damage reports in real time to provide you with a basis for delineating the extent of the damaged area and help plan where to send your damage assessment teams.

To implement the web page form for your community takes 3 simple steps:

1. Review the sample form for any changes your would like to make

2. Contact us at support@juvare.com to request a configured web page. We'll then provide you with a custom web page.

3. Use the links we provide to either embed the form on one of your existing web pages or hyperlink to the form

This service is part of your existing Crisis Track subscription; no added costs will be charged.

We look forward in continuing to serve you in your disaster management needs. Should you have any questions or need additional information, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Crisis Track has just released new versions of its mobile applications. Using your feedback, we’ve enhanced its capability to give an overall picture of the incident from the field as well as expand the number of platforms it will run on. Here is what’s in Version 2.4:

1. Windows 10. Yup, that’s right. Crisis Track now has a Windows 10 app. A Windows 10 Universal App will soon be available on the Windows Store with the exact same functionality as the iOS and Android Crisis Track apps. It's currently making its way through the Windows approval processes. I'll send you all an update with a link when it hits the store.

2. Incident Map on the Mobile device. There is a new Incident Map available on the mobile devices. Now field teams can see the complete incident map instead of just their task maps. Look for map button on the Select Team page.

3. Field Stats. We added a Field Stats page to the mobile device to help field team leaders quickly see their counts to report back to the EOC. This helps for quicker reporting when Internet connectivity is not available. Look for the Stats Button on the List of Assignments page.

   

4. Sort by Street Name (or anything else). For those teams wanting to see a list of addresses to visit, we now give you a way to sort the list by address as well as Name, Proximity, or Last Edited. Click on the Filter button on the List of Assignments page to see the new sorting capability.

5. Create a New Team. You can now create a new Team and new Task from the mobile device. This is especially useful for capturing early data such as those initial damage reports when the operation plan is not set up yet. Just create a new team and new task from the field and Crisis Track will keep track of the time spent and information collected.

We’ve fixed a few other issues such as filtering equipment and employee lists, disconnected issues with Android, switching forms, and limiting the Viewer roles – all of which should provide you with a better field experience.

As we enter this hurricane season, please don’t hesitate to contact us at support@juvare.com for any issues you may have.

Also, if you would like Refresher Training, please contact support@juvare.com to discuss onsite or webcast training options.

We’ve just updated the Ops View for your account to help you better organize and analyze data collected by multiple teams.

Now, there are 3 separate ways to organize the layers of your legend: by Teams, by Tasks, or by Forms. Selecting one of these legend types will reorganize your data into layers to help you track your operations.

We’ve also added a few more tools in the legend to help you analyze the results of the data being collected. Here are some of the new tools:

Annotations – The Annotations tool will allow you to draw points, lines, polygons, and text onto the Ops View Map.

Address Search – The Address Search tool will find an address using a common geocoding service.

Structures Search – The Structures Search tool will find a structure location using your jurisdiction’s local GIS data.

Range Rings – The Range Rings tool will allow you to draw concentric circles on the Ops View map.

Point Density Heatmap - The Point Density Heatmap tool will create a surface representation of your data. This analysis is a good equal-weighted heatmap.

Kernel Density Heatmap - The Kernel Density Heatmap tool will also create a surface representation of your data. This analysis is good for identifying closely clustered point data.

Graduated Symbols – The Graduated Symbols tool uses a clustering algorithm to make a different sized circle depending on the number of data points in its close proximity.

Quadrats – The Quadrats tool will split data up into a grid and symbolize by the count in the grid

We believe that these new changes will improve the way you view and analyze the data you collect. Now, when you get dozens of Initial Damage Reports, you can quickly create a Kernel Density Heat Map to finder where you should send your damage assessment teams first.

All of the functionality is updated in the latest version of the SOP. As always, if you have any questions, problems, or ideas, please let us know at support@juvare.com

Happy New Years! Crisis Track has been busy adding some enhancements based on your experiences in the EOC and in the field. Here are some updates we’ve made the past month:

Console Usability – We organized the modules by functionality to improve the console's usability, especially for those screens like the admin console that have many buttons. Similarly we changed breadcrumb colors when you are in a municipal view and added a short cut

Commander Role – We had some requests to add a user group who can create their own incidents without having them be an Administrator. This is the Commander role. Feel free to assign it to those in your organization who may want to create an Incident but who doesn’t need to have access to all of the functionality in the Admin Console.

Incident Wizard – To help implement the Commander Role, we added the Incident Form on the home page. Now Admins and Commanders can add incidents without having to be in the Admin Console.

Better Tools for Selecting and Assigning Structures – we added a polygon and a freehand “lasso” tool to help you more quickly and specifically assign structures to damage assessment teams.

Offline Maps on Mobile Apps – we improved the usability for offline maps on the Android and iOS devices. Now, it’s just a single click to get a type of map background for the offline maps. When you log into the mobile device, click on Settings in the Incident Screen to load offline maps.

New Equipment Rates – FEMA recently updated their rates for the FEMA Cost Codes. These new rates are now available for equipment time tracking.

For those on the East Coast be safe as this blizzard makes its way through the region today.