It's been a busy week. Stations have been telling us what slows them down, and most of it is now fixed. There's a new crew board for the crew room, a one-tap way to answer a callout, a proper record of who responded and when, a way for every station to keep an admin, and a long list of improvements to the app. It's a long one, so here's what's in it:
- A crew board for the crew room
- Answer a callout straight from the notification
- A record of who responded, and a proper stand down
- Crewing rules that match how you crew
- Every station keeps an admin
- More for station admins
- In the app
- Getting it
A crew board for the crew room
Put the crew board up on a TV in the crew room and everyone can see who's on call without picking up a phone. It's a web page, so any smart TV, spare monitor or old laptop will do. Station admins copy its link from Station settings on the station dashboard.
When it's quiet, the board shows:
- Whether you can go. A banner across the top checks your station's crewing rules and says plainly whether you have enough crew. With two boats or appliances, it also tells you whether you can crew both at once or only one at a time.
- Everyone, grouped by role. Who's available, who's available until a set time, and when people who are off will be back.
- Who's on call for each role. A bar for each role shows how many are on call against the number you need.
- The last callout, with who sent it and when, and when it was stood down.
When a callout goes out, the board changes straight away. It shows who's responding, who's delayed and who's on scene, whether your minimum crew is on the way, and who's available but hasn't answered yet. When the job is stood down, the board stops its timer and goes back to standby.
You can set it up to suit your station:
- Choose whether it says Shout or Callout, and use your own names for roles.
- Hide rank groups you don't want on the wall. Anyone responding still shows.
- Switch between light and dark from a button on the board itself.
- Crew can add a profile photo in the app, cropped on the phone. It only shows on the board if they choose to show it.
- Coastal stations can show live tide heights and wind on the board. We set this up for you wherever we can get live readings for your harbour, so get in touch if you'd like it.
The board's link is open, so it never shows where anyone is. If you want a map of responders on the way in, pair the TV first. It shows a short code, a station admin enters that code on the dashboard, and from then on only that screen shows the map.
There's more about the board in The Crew board: your station on the crew-room TV.
Answer a callout straight from the notification
The pager goes. You're already moving: keys, boots, out of the door. Somewhere in there you're meant to let the station know whether you're coming, and that has always meant the same routine: unlock the phone, open the app, find your status, tap responding. It only takes a few seconds, but they're seconds you'd rather spend getting there.
So in the next app update we've cut it down to one tap. You can answer a callout straight from the notification, without opening the app, with one of three answers:
- I'm responding
- Responding but delayed
- I'm not responding
The last one matters as much as the first. Knowing who isn't coming means the officer in charge isn't left waiting for an answer that will never arrive.
On iPhone: right on the callout
The callout notification itself carries the three buttons. Press and hold the notification (or swipe it to the left and tap View) and they appear underneath. Tap one and you're done.
If your phone is locked, it asks for Face ID or your passcode first. That's deliberate: nobody who picks up your phone can answer for you.
On Android: just below the callout
On Android, the callout itself hasn't changed at all. It still sounds the alarm exactly as it always has, even with your phone on silent. Directly beneath it you'll see a second notification, "Callout: tap to respond", with the three buttons. You can tap them straight from your notifications or the lock screen.
That second notification is deliberately quiet: no extra sound and no buzz. The alarm is the thing that needs your attention; the buttons wait underneath until you're ready for them. It tidies itself away after an hour.
You'll know it worked
As soon as you tap, the app confirms it. For example: "You're marked as responding. Your station can see you are on your way." Everyone watching the crew list, the station dashboard or the crew board sees your answer straight away, just as if you'd set it in the app.
If it can't get through, with no signal say, it tells you that too, so you're never left guessing: "Couldn't set you as responding. Open the app to set your status."
The right station, every time
Plenty of crews cover more than one station. Your answer always goes to the station the callout came from, even if the app was last showing a different one. So you won't turn up as responding at the wrong station.
Try it first
A test alert carries the same buttons, so you can see how it works on your own phone before a real callout. Pressing them on a test changes nothing at your station.
In the car
If you're already driving, there's a hands-free way too. On iPhone, say "Hey Siri, iFire I'm responding" (or iCrew, or iRescue); it works over CarPlay and there's nothing to set up. On Android, the app can notice your phone connecting to your car's Bluetooth soon after a callout, and either offer you the buttons or mark you as responding by itself. You choose which in Settings > Notifications settings > In the car.
A couple of things worth knowing
- Your position on the live map starts when you open the app. If your station watches crew on the en-route map, open the app when it's safe to, and your position will appear.
- iRescue teams that report to Alerting & Tasking still send that text from inside the app, as now.
- On scene is still set in the app. The buttons are for the answer that matters in the first few seconds.
A record of who responded, and a proper stand down
Every callout on the dashboard now has a responding log. It shows who answered, what they said and how long after the page, and whether they used the notification's buttons or the app.
When the job's over, open the callout on the dashboard and press Stand down:
- Everyone at the station gets a "Stood down" notification.
- The crew board stops its timer and goes back to standby.
- Anyone who goes responding after the stand down is shown in red, so there's no more relying on memory to work out who turned out after it.
Station admins and launch authorities can both stand a callout down. Callouts paged from the app now appear in the dashboard's callout list too, so you can stand down a job however it was paged. A Stand down button in the app itself is coming in the next update.
Crewing rules that match how you crew
The Crewing rules page has been reworked. There's one card for each appliance or boat, and one line for each rule. You can also set times and days for a rule, such as a higher minimum on Friday and Saturday evenings.
- Role ladders. Put roles in training order and each one counts towards every role below it, so you only need to tick a person's highest role. Crewing rules, low-crew alerts and the crew board all count this way. Roles that are trained separately, like tractor drivers, go on a ladder of their own.
- Names for roles. Call a role whatever your station calls it. The name you choose shows on profiles, crewing rules, the crew board and in the app.
- Lifeboat crews get boat crew, shore crew, tractor and navigator roles, and iCrew's dashboard now says Lifeboats instead of Vehicles.
Lifeboat stations can read more in Crewing rules that understand a lifeboat station.
Every station keeps an admin
Every station on iOnCall has at least one admin: the person who invites the crew, sets up vehicles and crewing rules, and looks after the subscription. Usually that's whoever set the station up. But crews change. People move on, retire or swap stations, and sometimes the one person who could manage things leaves without handing over.
Until now, the fix was to email us and ask for someone to be made admin. That works, but it's slow, and it means your station is stuck waiting on someone outside it. So we've changed two things.
Admin is handed over when the last admin leaves
If the last admin leaves the station, deletes their account or is voted off, admin now passes automatically to the longest-standing member of the crew. They get a notification telling them, and from then on they can make anyone else an admin from that person's profile, as before.
If you're the admin and you're leaving, nothing changes for you: leave as normal and the station is looked after.
A station with no admin can choose one
Some stations already have no admin, usually because the person who set them up left before this change. If that's your station, you'll see an amber Your station has no admin strip at the top of the Team tab in the app, and at the top of the Overview on the station dashboard.
From there, any member can nominate someone as admin, including themselves. The rest of the crew can then back the nomination. Once three other members back someone, they become the station admin straight away, and everyone at the station gets a notification saying so.
- Smaller crews aren't stuck. If your station has fewer than four members, the nomination needs every other member's backing instead. If you're the only member, nominating yourself makes you admin.
- Your own backing doesn't count. If you put yourself forward, it's the rest of the crew who decide.
- Changed your mind? Tap Backed to withdraw your backing at any time before the nomination carries.
- Each member counts once. Backing someone twice does nothing, and if a backer leaves the station their backing stops counting.
On the station dashboard it's the same, as a card at the top of the Overview: choose a member and press Nominate, or back someone who is already nominated.
It can't be used to replace an admin
Nominations only open while a station has no admin. Once someone is admin, the nomination strip disappears and nominations are refused, so they can never be used to work around the person already managing the station. If your station has an admin and you'd like someone else to have admin rights, ask them: they can make anyone an admin from that member's profile.
More for station admins
- Crew hours export. Line managers can download up to six months of their crew's hours as a spreadsheet, ready for development reviews. Hours are only ever visible to the member and the line manager they've chosen. If someone hasn't chosen one yet, Ask crew sends them a notification asking them to.
- Keep my plan off the dashboard. A member can choose for their future availability not to appear on the dashboard's planning grid. It still counts towards your crew numbers.
- More than one station? Switch between them from the dashboard menu.
- Station defaults for the app. Choose light or dark and whether ranks show for your whole crew. Anyone can still choose their own setting.
- The dashboard now uses the same green, orange and red status icons as the app.
In the app
Dark mode, everywhere
Go to Settings > Appearance and choose Light, Dark or Automatic, which follows your phone. Every screen now follows your choice, not just the Team screen. The Team list can also show each person's rank before their name, and the header shows your next planned change, such as "Next: Course from 19:00".
A clearer Edit availability screen
The Edit availability screen has been redesigned. It shows every hour of the day in its real status colour. Tap or drag across hours to pick them, then tap a status to save. There are shortcuts for the morning, the afternoon or the whole day.
Calendar: pick a run of days, change your mind
- Pick a run of days. Tap the first day and the last, then choose Leave, Course or Book off. You can also set a start and end time, for example from Friday 18:00 to Sunday 20:00.
- Change or cancel a booking. Tap anything in Coming up to change it to something else or cancel it.
- Working shifts? Set my rota can now mark only certain hours on your days off, like 19:00 to 07:00, so you show as available for the rest of the day.
And a few smaller things
- Team list settings now live on one Crew list page: sort order, ranks, and which view the Team tab opens on.
- If someone's said how long they're available for, the crew list shows it, for example "Available until 12:00 pm".
- The Overview grid has an Available per hour row, and an hour with nobody available shows in red.
- If test alerts stop arriving, Re-register this device in Notifications settings fixes it in one tap.
Getting it
Live now: the crew board, the responding log, stand down (for admins and launch authorities, on any callout), the dashboard changes, and automatic admin hand-over, which needs nobody to update anything.
In the next update of iFire, iCrew and iRescue for iPhone and Android: answering from the notification, nominating an admin, a Stand down button in the app, dark mode, the new Edit availability screen and the calendar changes. There's nothing to switch on: once you've updated, it's there. Like callouts themselves, answering a callout and choosing an admin are never locked, whatever your station's subscription.
Thank you to the crews whose feedback shaped this week's work. If something in your day-to-day could be easier, tell us. There's a good chance it ends up in the next update.
Screenshots are from made-up stations and crews. The phone screens are illustrations of how the notifications look.