Overview
To help prevent last minute emergencies from multiple councils we recommend doing a trial run at least two weeks before your season starts.
This way, if you find issues with asset data, contacts or anything else, there is time to find a solution from Datalink or from your own IT department.
Planning
You should plan how to conduct your fire prevention program and how to use Crisisworks for fire prevention.
Will you be importing high-risk properties to inspect at the beginning of the season?
The FPN module provides a way to import high-risk properties to plan inspections, but doing so changes the way you plan your inspections, as it changes the number of planned inspections in the system.
You should learn how to use inspection areas and draft inspection workflow, and understand the best way to load inspections into the mobile app.
Do you have an FRV zone in your municipality?
Not all municipalities has FRV zones, but our advice is that those with an FRV zone need to make changes to their mail merge templates to accommodate different legislation, based on whether the property is in our out of the zone.
Will you be assigning officers to inspection areas?
Councils with many officers and large numbers of properties often allocate areas to officers. If this applies to your council, it is useful to set up those inspection areas in the system.
Will you be creating your merge letters within Crisisworks?
If you are creating your merge letters using Crisisworks, you will need to import your property owner database. If you are merging the letters in another system, you will need to understand how the export system works and confirm that the export format matches your external system’s import format.
Will you be setting up an integration between systems?
Some councils have integrated Crisisworks into their other business systems.
Is your device compatible?
Crisisworks supports Android and iOS phones and tablets using an app that needs to be downloaded from the app store. The web interface is not recommended for field inspections.
Do you have offline areas to inspect?
Offline inspections are a feature of the system, and there are some better practices we can advise in order to work best offline.
Configuration
Use the following guide to confirm the system is set up correctly for your use.
Create FPN events for the season
We recommend creating two events for your FPN season.
- Create a test FPN event
- Create your production FPN event
For each event:
- The FPN registers have been added
- The Document Library register has been added
- The relevant contractors have been added as resources
Set up FRV and inspection areas
This applies only for councils that are within both MFB and FRV areas.
- Ask Datalink to set up the FRV area
- Determine the wording changes required for notices issued within and not within the area
- Perform a spot-check of some properties on the boundary of the two zones to ensure the system correctly identifies those properties
Check the form and workflow
The form has a series of questions that relate to the letter.
- Ensure the compliance questions are correct, in case changes are needed
- Check that the escalation and workflow rules align with your organisation’s needs.
Confirm the mail merge template is configured correctly
If you are a repeat user, your mail merge template may be set up already, but still perform these tests to confirm no changes are needed.
- Perform some sample inspections, and generate a mail merge.
- Check the text and formatting
- Check that the images print on second page
- Check the date due is correct for the follow-up inspection
If you have an FRV zone:
- Print some notices in the FRV and CFA areas
- Check the text is different for FRV vs CFA zones
- Check the sample properties are correctly allocated to the correct zones
- Check that the wording is correct for each
Edit your Notice Template if needed, and ask Datalink for help if needed.
Set up your user’s profiles
For each officer, set up their profile:
- Ensure that your FPN Officers and FPN Coordinators have the correct competencies assigned.
- Check each officer/Coordinator has their signatures and signature text set. eg “Senior MFPO”
- Set the user’s competency to FPN Coordinator OR FPN Officer
Note: when giving your officers competencies, choose based on the following:
an “FPN Officer” can't assign records and can only edit records assigned to themselves
an “FPN Coordinator” can assign and edit records other than their own
Set up your contractors
Contractors are used in Crisisworks for grass cutting and hazard clearance.
Set up any NEW contractors as follows:
- Create a new resource for the contractor, and set its category to “FPN Contractors”. This process creates an organisation record and a user record for the resource.
- Next, set the contractor user’s competency to “FPN Contractor”
- Add the contractor resource to the FPN event
Check existing contractors are set up as follows:
- Check the contractor’s resource record has the category of “FPN Contractors”.
- Check the contractor’s user has a competency of “FPN Contractor”, and is in the same organisation as its resource.
- Check that the resource is added to the FPN event
Import property owner data
If you are planning on using Crisisworks to generate the letters, you need to import property owner data.
Crisisworks has property data from Vicmap, which uses multiple codes to track properties. Most councils use PROPNUM
as the assessment number, but other codes are available including CREFNO
, SPI
and PROP_PFI
.
- Confirm which Vicmap code is used as the council assessment number
- Confirm that Crisisworks is configured to use the correct code.
- Upload your property owners database and spot-check some addresses to confirm data is matching correctly
This import can either be handled manually, or set up automatically using our API.
Import high-risk properties for inspection (if required)
Some councils import a list of high-risk properties to ensure these properties are inspected during the season.
The following status codes can be used for the import:
3
for Draft10
for 1st inspection required20
for Hazard Exists
Some options for importing these properties:
- Prepare and import a list of all high risk properties for a pre-inspection
- Import all previous offending properties by exporting from a previous season, then re-importing
Confirm your integrations are working as expected
If you have any integrations, you should test these ahead of the season, even if they worked fine last season.
- Set up the API integrations
- Test both sides of the integration, ie in Crisisworks and on your Council system
Test manual exports and imports
Some councils export data from Crisisworks as part of their workflow when printing notices and integrating with other systems. For these councils:
- Export data from Crisisworks
- Ensure the “notice printed date” field updates to the correct future date when you use the “Export for Mail Merge” button.
- Import the exported data into your council system
Testing Plan
Following is a series of tests we recommend you carry out to familiarise yourself with the FPN module, and to confirm your devices, systems and data are working as expected.
Testing the web application
- Add some FPN records via the web browser on desktop
- If you are planning to import high-risk properties to begin the season, create a small test file and import these properties.
- If using inspection zones, perform an area search to confirm you can filter for properties within your geospatial zones
- Assign some inspections to inspectors.
Set up your mobile users' devices
Each mobile user should perform these steps.
- Install the latest mobile app from Apple’s App Store or Google’s Play Store
- Sign in
- Go on duty to the FPN test event
- Download asset data via the settings menu for offline use
- Perform some tests below to familiarise themselves with the system
- Go off duty when done
Testing the mobile app
- Download the asset data into the Mobile apps (vie the settings)
- Add some FPN records when online
- Add some FPN records when offline, then go online to synchronise those records
- Add some photos to FPN records
- Edit existing FPN records on the mobile app
- Set some to FPN records to hazard exists
- View these sample records and confirm that the asset codes match the council’s asset codes
Contractor testing
- When choosing your FPN contractors ensure that they will be using the Crisisworks app
- Have your contractor download the latest version of the Crisisworks app
- Create some records in the FPN test event
- Ensure your contractors can view and edit these records
Training
Datalink has some training resources to help your staff and contractors use Crisisworks effectively.
For council staff:
- Get them to watch the FPN training video first
- Get them to explore the system using the test event you created earlier
- Select from “Map”
- View inspections on the map
- Use get Directions
- Test the track my route feature & upload the route
- View the route on the web
- Download assets
- Star records (for offline use)
- Go offline
For council contractors:
- Set some items to “compliance inspection required” then assign tasks contractors
- Confirm they can see them and edit them