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High Level
Changes since V4 at a glance:
Crisisworks ID: provides a single ID for signing into all your Crisisworks sites, and is SSO-ready for organisations wishing to use their corporate SSO solution. Crisisworks ID supports multi-factor authentication for increased security.
User Interface: a new, fast and friendly user interface does away with the slow parts of Crisisworks 4, and introduces improvements in nearly every part of the system while retaining familiarity for existing users.
Faster: the system is much faster in nearly every operation, from signing in, going on duty and everyday use through to running reports, performing mail merges, uploading imports and sending communications.
Updated forms: forms and workflows have been upgraded to be easier to use and more consistent.
Working across events: fast event switching and an improved “All Events” mode improves the experience working across multiple events at the same time.
Fast switching between multiple sites: you can now fast switch between all your Crisisworks sites without signing in multiple times.
General Updates
Crisisworks ID
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New mobile app supports a better offline experience and more offline record storage
Other improvements and changes
Public form improvements: public forms are now easier to activate and can support multiple events in the same site with multiple active public forms of the same type.
A&TSI: improved data collection, with Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander fields now mandatory in relief and recovery forms
Communications: comms now supports direct reply to SMS with a number e.g. 1 for available, 2 for not available.
Positions: Changes to a number of position names and slight changes to access.
Request Tasks: now you can create multiple tasks and assign resources to manage your Requests
Simplified resources: Resources now have their own sub-register and have been simplified to make them more flexible and user friendly
Improved request & information contact search and linking
Data grid improvements
Simplified advanced searching
Bulk actions improvements and more features
Recovery Case Merge docs: Correspondence
Merge docs support for Word templates (for simpler merge needs)
Report Searching added
Dark mode support
What’s to come and missing features
Here’s a blog post tracking any known problems with Crisisworks 5 and new features to come. We will maintain this page to keep you up to date.
Improvements in details
Crisisworks ID
Crisisworks ID is the name of your central sign-in account.
It is based on your work email address. You will need to be able to access your email address to sign in for the first time, and for password resets.
Your single Crisisworks ID will be able to access multiple sites, based on your Crisisworks ID’s email address matching a user in that site.
You can strengthen your account protection with multi-factor authentication — both SMS and authenticator apps are supported
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VPR will not use Crisisworks ID at initial launch, however it will be upgraded to it this over the course of the year.
Status colour Yellow title Q1-Q2, 2025 In the event a user configures MFA and then loses access to that device, Datalink support will need to be contacted.
Users can manage their Crisisworks ID by editing the contact record on their primary site. The primary site is the initial site used to initially create the user’s record.
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Joining events is now much faster and much more convenientmore efficient.
Switching between events is fluid and takes only moments.
A refresh button quickly loads new events, in the case a user cannot see a new event added moments earlier by a coordinator.
Switching between events is fluid and takes only moments
Working across events is more streamlined.
Creating events
What’s new:
A one-step full event form creates new events quickly.
New events can now be quickly created from the mobile app, using a streamlined template-based approach.
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, using a streamlined template-based approach.
Searching and filtering your data
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Counters are now called “filters”
Most Filters no longer show the record count; this makes way for an improved dashboard system to summarise and display your data. Some key filters will have a counter soon
The search system has been condensed into a single-field search system.
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Some key filters will get counter numbers again, and a dashboard view will summarise your data in statistical form as an improvement over the older counter system.
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Search improvements:
All filters are all now based upon the search technology known as Crisisworks Query Language (CQL). This is exposed in the search box whenever you click a filter, allowing you to extend, customise and combine filters.
Searching can be as simple as typing a few words to search upon — this activates the full-text search system.
More complex searches can be built up by typing in “field:value” combinations, or by using the field selector to help build your searches.
Advanced searches can perform boolean operations, search within related records, perform geospatial area searches and more, all from the one interface.
Data grid improvements and changes:
The data grid can be customised, by adding, removing and reordering columns.
Columns can be grouped
Rows can bulk-selected by shift-clicking
The grid can be set to automatically refresh
Every search can be shared or bookmarked by simply performing a search and then copying the URL in the browser and sending it to your colleagues. This allows for simple and effective saving of common searches right in your browser.
The “select all” feature in the grid now only selects the visible page. This is a key difference to Crisisworks 4, however bulk actions
Map changes
Switching to the map now shows it in full screen
The mapped data is the current filter or search; changing this in the sidebar will update the map.
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Additional views of your data will be added in addition to grids and maps
Status colour Yellow title Q1-Q2,2025 We have planned support for a calendar view for rostering your records, a kanban board view for supporting agile workflow practices, and an analytics view to graph and summarise your data.
Status colour Yellow title Q4Q1,2024 2025 - Q2,2025
Bulk actions
The bulk actions system has been overhauled to be more convenient, faster and more powerful.
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The information register uses a common “source” field that works the same as requests. This is designed to promote the re-use of contacts and avoid duplication.
An assignment field now allows for a user or position to own the record. This user will be notified when the record reaches an expiry date, for example.
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expiry date, for example.
Logs
The key difference between information and logs is that logs are private by default, while information is designed to be shared.
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Proposed changes:
Datalink is considering merging logs with information now that the assignment field is in place on that register. This would make “log” as a type of information, rather than a separate register, and would simplify the system.
Alternatively, adding an assignment field to this register will allow it to become a position log sharable with others having that position, and will maintain it as its own register.
What are your thoughts?
Note: 5.18 will contain both approaches — log as an information schema, with an assignment field to limit its access. A security model change will accompany this feature.
Aiming for Q1: 2025
Resources
Key changes:
The new resources system brings together resources, volunteering and offers.
Volunteering records can now be added by users (previously they could only be added via the public form)
The contact details section of the form is now unified with the same style of search + select approach used by resources and information.
Offers and volunteering share the same, unified category system with resources. This allows for offers and volunteering to be assigned just like resources, and it allows for a richer selection of resource categorisation.
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The resource system has been simplified
We have removed an alignment Alignment of a resource to an organisation , and removed has been removed, along with the concept of resource manager users.
Resources can be stored in either your current event, or into a global event if it is to be re-used.
Resources are now only used for tracking costs and usage, and separate positions now need to be created for each of your external contractors if they need to be assigned tasksneed to be created for each of your external contractors if they need to be assigned tasks.
Resources can no longer be permanently deleted by administrators. Resources no longer needed must now be set to Closed.
Resources are no longer selectable when creating/editing an event. Instead users can add any global resource can by searching for existing resources.
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If you have active events with external contractors accessing records, please let us know and we can assist in setting this up for you. We have opted to not automatically add positions for all resources, as this will lead to cluttering the positions system more than it already is. |
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More information on the resources system needs to be added here… |
Contacts
The contacts and users system remains largely unchanged, apart from a refreshed data grid and bulk actions.
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