Datalink has listened to your feedback from the 4.0.x and 4.1.x releases, as well as carefully monitoring the use and performance of the platform over the 2014 and 2015 fire and flood seasons, and Crisisworks 4.3 is the response to this feedback, incorporating thousands of person-hours of engineering with simulations, evaluations, trials and tests feedback evaluations to make this our most polished version best update ever. 

Highlights

At first you may not notice too many difference, but this is intentional — your prior investments in training will cover this release.  As you begin using the new Crisisworks, you will discover the improvements.

• Performance and stability is massively improved for the standard government operating environment, which mostly use Internet Explorer 11
• A comprehensive set of reports are now included, taking on board all our experience providing customised report-writing support for previous large-scale events 
• Duty management has been improved to link more precisely to event security and allow users to more easily join new events
• Global contacts allow for the centralisation and re-use of your contacts across events
• Improvements to export and import functionality improve data sharing and ad-hoc reporting
• Our companion app for Android and iPad now has support for Windows 10 devices in beta

Additionally, an extensive set of minor fixes and improvements throughout the system provide polish and improve efficiency during and after emergencies.

Detailed changes

Performance

Performance has been the top priority of Crisisworks 4.3, and this release sees increases 3x - 5x for most operations, along with the complete removal of many of the spinning loading indicators , that previously blocked users from performing actions when they appeared.Performance graph to be inserted

Reporting

Based on extensive experience gained from manual report-writing for customers after major incidents, Crisisworks now includes a range of built-in reports that allow data to be reported on, exported and shared using standard formats.   These reports are nicely formatted, and can be customised to include or remove columns before export. 

Additionally, the reporting system maintains a snapshot of each report you generate, so you can go back in time to see event data from prior snapshots.

Import & Export

Correspondence generation

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Changes to user duty and security

Crisisworks has improved its internal security architecture to increase application performance and maintain confidentiality of data.  Although  

Although this is mostly under-the-hood, the main change is that the event selector now only shows events for which the user is currently participating, and event data is only accessible after a user goes on duty at least once (to signify they are participating in the event). This change has been made to make it easier for new users to join events without refreshing the page to update the event listing, plus it hides away events for users with no access, and it clearly shows the events for which the user is participating. To go on duty:

1. When logging on, off duty users will be prompted to gop on duty to one or more events. This is identical to Crisisworks 4.1
2. Users that are already on duty can look in their event selector for the option Join Another Event, which takes them to the duty screen. This is different to Crisisworks 4.1, where the user would see the new event in their event selector.

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Global Events

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Unlike earlier Crisisworks installationseditions, administrators can now set up any number of global events themselves. This improves on the prior implementations of council and agency workspaces with the ability for restricted, global data to be stored, managed and shared within Crisisworks. ...screenshot...Global events are useful for sharing data across multiple events — examples are Council Workspace, Documents, EM Contacts List, etc.

Relief & Recovery Improvements

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1. A new Weeds and Infestation module has been developed and is available as a separate licence
2. The item audit log has changed position and is now located in the sidebar of the record.
3. Searching has become more robust
4. The user profile form has been reworked, and now contains an "on call" flag
5. If users cannot access any events, the user interface now displays "No accessible event" rather than showing the event selector at all.
6. Most screens now default the user to 'Active' records of that type rather than 'Total' records of that type
7. Asset metadata can now be edited from within Crisisworks
8. A detailed background task console records all background activity
9. All emails and SMSs are permanently recorded within the system for full audit
10. The Crisisworks APIs have been updated and provide additional integration and reporting optionsImprovements to underlying infrastructure have increased overall system security with all data now secure at rest as well as in transit

Crisisworks 4.3 is now in use in the Department of Transport in Queensland, as well as UnitingCare, VicRoads, EPA Victoria and a growing number of new customers.

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