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Preparation guide for your Crisisworks 5 upgrade

Owned by Kerrie Williams
Last updated: Dec 12, 2024
4 min read

@Crisisworks will be upgraded to version 5 from December 2024 for some sites, with many opting for an early 2025 upgrade. This provides an opportunity to clean up existing data. Some preparation work can be done now in version 4.

We will use some automatic scripts, as part of the upgrade, that will enable the removal/archiving of some records that were previously difficult to delete.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to prepping your site, however, this preparation is optional; all existing data will transfer to version 5 regardless.

Note: Where we instruct to add a tag to an item, your tag must match exactly.

Events

Administration>Events
Review all Open Events: Close any Events that are no longer current. This will remove all the Positions from the Event, ‘delink’ any allocated Resources and archive all event data. Events can be re-opened at a later date if required. Active Events you are currently working on should remain Open.
Review Event Templates: Close any that are not current.
Create a ‘Trash’ event: Create an Event, based on the Emergency Sample template, and name it something like ‘Trash’ or ‘Archive Event’. Move any unwanted records you’re not able to delete into this Event.

Users/Contacts and Organisations

Operations>Contacts
Obsolete VPR Coordinator users - When a user profile is made inactive with the VPR Coordinator position still attached, they will remain on your VPR Coordinators list within the VPR system. To resolve this:
Edit the User Profile: Open the user's profile, make them Active and tick Enable user account for this contact. You will then be able to remove the VPR Coordinator position. Save the record.
Disable the Account: Reopen the user's profile, disable their user account by unticking Enable user account, and change the Contact Status to Inactive. Save the record.
Obsolete Users - edit their user profile, untick Enable user account for this contact and change the Contact Status to Inactive.

Positions

Administration>Settings/Positions & Position Groups

You list of Positions will contain a number of built-in system Positions, alongside any custom Positions you may have created over time.

System Positions allow for limited edits, but they cannot be deleted. Crisisworks 5 will allow you to rename system positions to make them more relevant to your operational needs.

We recommend reviewing Positions as follows:

Review Position Groups: Positions Groups exist to help organise Positions into categories, they can be renamed or deleted to suit your operations.
Create a ‘REMOVE’ Position Group: To help manage outdated positions, consider creating a new Position Group called ‘REMOVE’. This will allow you to easily identify and isolate positions marked for deletion.
Delete Unused Positions: Positions can only be deleted if they are not part of an Event and not assign to any Users.
Steps to Delete a Position:
Open the Position under Administration/Settings>Positions
Check if any Users are assigned to this Position. If so, click the link to the user and remove the Position from their Profile.
Scroll to the bottom of the Position record and select Delete.
If the Position is still associated with an Event, you will get an error message specifying the relevant Events. Navigate to that Event(s), edit the Positions, and untick the Position.
Return to the Position record and delete it.

Deleting Positions can be quite a complicated process if they have been involved in previous events. An alternative approach would be to add your unwanted Positions to a Position Group called ‘Remove’ and let us know via support@crisisworks.com. These will be easier to clean up in Version 5.

Resources

Administration>Resources

In Crisisworks 5, the Resources feature has been simplified into its own register. When your site is upgraded, all existing Resources will transfer over, but utilisation history will not be retained.

Review Resources: review your list of Resources in Crisisworks 4, and edit as needed. Set any Resources no longer in use to Status Inactive.
Resources in use: The Resource datagrid shows any Resources that are ‘In Use?’ as well as ‘Involved Events’.
Deleting Resources: To maintain the integrity of your data, we recommend only deleting Resources that have never been utilised in an Event.
The Resources datagrid will show any currently ‘In Use?’ or linked to ‘Involved Events’, it will not show any utilisation that has been marked Complete or where an Event has been Closed.

Merge Templates

Administration>Settings/Merge Templates

Lookups

Administration>Settings/Lookups

The Lookups section contains all the items displayed in dropdown menus across the system. Depending on how extensively your council has customised Lookups, you may want to review and remove items no longer needed.

Rostering & Availability

Note: The Rostering feature will not be immediately available in Crisisworks 5, as we are reworking it to make it simpler and more flexible. Based on our understanding, this function is not widely used by most users. However, we would love to hear from you if you currently use it or would like to use it more in the future. Your feedback could help us incorporate new, user-suggested features during its redevelopment.