Release four of EMV’s Supplementary Alerting Service app (SAS) is now available to download from the Apple and Android app stores.
More than 13,350 CFA members have downloaded the SAS since its release, with the app available free to all CFA, SES and Ambulance Victoria members.
With the SAS app members can:
- Set availability for turnouts and indicate if they are responding to an event
- See who from their brigade is responding and view their ET
- View responding-member qualifications and competencies
- Chat with fellow brigade members
- Experience one-touch navigation to their station or the incident
Additional features include access to pager message history and robust privacy protection measures.
Release four includes a number of key improvements to the app's functionality in response to agency and user feedback.
These include:
- Re-design of availability functionality (setting and viewing individual and group availability) and the introduction of new availability types
- Changes to event functionality including automatic closure of incidents (Events) after 24 hours and the ability to manually close and re-open incidents (Events). Incident tracking will also now automatically stop after one hour (after selecting Attending)
- Location tracking improvements
- Introduction of new search options in Chat
- Do not disturb functionality for iOS users
Brigade Management Teams and CFA support staff can use the application's dashboard functionality to manage a brigade's pager groups, create reports and add new users, including brigade members who do not have an EAS pager.
Release four has some new features for these administrators including the addition of paging group view and improvements to reporting functionality.
CFA worked with EMV, SES, Ambulance Victoria and ESTA on the development of the SAS which works with EAS Paging to provide members with increased functionality and enhanced communication during fire and incident response.
A further two SAS releases are expected in 2021.
EAS and pagers remain the primary means of receiving alerting and other important messages due their reliability and extensive coverage across Victoria, and CFA members are expected to continue to use and carry their pagers.
For more information on the SAS including the SAS User Guide, training videos, FAQs and more, visit www.cfa.vic.gov.au/sas
| Submitted by |
Shaunnagh O'Loughlin |