Smartphones and the SAR Mission, Part III: Management

While not specifically a smartphone application, in this installment I'll discuss a tool that you may find helpful for incident management and team administration. Incident management is an interesting problem for technology. On one hand, incident management is well adapted to techological solutions for word processing, mapping, and communications. On the other hand, we operate in envrionments that don't lend themselves to easy techological solutions. Cell coverage is spotty or non-existent, power is not available or reliable, and often the command post is the front seat of a pickup truck. For this reason, my preference for technological solutions are those that work in the developing world. They must work with older computers in areas with compromised cell coverage. Keep in mind, however, that technology marches forward, so what is new today is "older" in a year or two. Also, cell coverage in the "wilderness" grows every year.

Team Administration

For the past two years, the Cave Team has used a handy tool tool to administer the team. We use it to track hours, certifications, calendar RSVPs, and gear. One of the great features of this tool is that it is free, and maintained by a fellow SAR commrade in San Diego. The tool is called Mission Manager, and it is more than a team administration tool; as its name implies it can also be used for mission management. Mission Manager is a cloud application, so all that you need to access it is a web connection and a web browser. Since we use it primarily for team administration, I will expand upon these features. Visit the link above for a comprehensive overview of its features.

Click to read more ...

Mission Manager: Manage Missions and Your Team

Each month you need to submit hours to VFU. Every year you need to maintain a variety of certifications with expiration dates. Each month you train, and need to coordinate attendance. Every team deals with these activities. A few months ago, while at the State SAR Coordinators meeting, I listened to a presentation by a San Diego SAR volunteer who has written some software to help manage missions and teams. The product is called Mission Manager, and is available free of charge to SAR teams. It is a web app that has two funtions: It can be used to manage day-to-day team information and it can be used to manage a mission. The app is highly customizable, and examples of team information that can be tracked include: roster, an hour/miles log, attendance, issued gear, and certifications (with expiration dates). On the mission managing side you can generate a variety of maps with various coordinate systems and datums, generate standard ICS forms, track information such as clues and radio traffic during a search, and track teams in real-time via a smartphone app (Android, iOS, and Blackberry). It is a comprehensive piece of work. As such, a full review is not well suited to the space available here, but I will hit some of the highlights.

 Mapping

All manner of maps are possible with this tool. Google maps, USGS topo maps, and USFS maps are a few examples. In addition to these maps, there also exists the ability to overlay point of interest data as well as live weather data. While this is a web app, with a little forethought, you can download maps ahead of time to enable use without an internet connection. In fact, I have easily replaced MapTech Terrain Navigator for live search mapping duties including GPS uploads. With a good data connection it has the benefit of a single map that can be updated by multiple people, and viewed by anybody with a web connection and the appropriate permissions.

Click to read more ...