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Q3 2008
IN THIS ISSUE


FEATURE
Historic Portland, Maine Combines Comprehensive Situational Awareness and Emergency Management Tools in a Post-9/11 World

SITUATIONAL READINESS SPOTLIGHT
NC4 supports one of its critical Federal customers in developing a federated identity management solution

E TEAM PRODUCT STEERING COMMITTEE (PSC) UPDATE
Jaclyn Barcroft, PSC Chairperson

PRODUCT NEWS & TIPS

ESA Release 5.0


ESA Product Tip: Creating Alert Criteria that will ACTIVATE and DEACTIVATE on Specified Dates

E Team Live and Dashboards 

E Team Product Tip: Simplifying the Resource Management Workflow


READER_CONTRIBUTIONS
Do you have an interesting tip on how to best use ESA, ESP or E Team? What about input on an aspect of emergency or security management? We welcome contributions to the Readiness Quarterly, so please contact us at info@nc4.us if you have a story idea.

FEEDBACK

Is there something else you'd like to see in this newsletter? Contact us at info@nc4.us.

NC4 CUSTOMER SURVEY


Thank you to everyone that provided feedback to our customer survey last quarter. We reviewed all the input and are reacting to your suggestions. Our next customer survey is scheduled to be sent out in November.

The customer survey helps to guide us in improving our products and services for you. Our door is always open to your valued feedback.

EXECUTIVE CORNER



 NC4 President,
Jim Montagnino
 

NC4 is proud to support the the University of North Texas (UNT), Department of Public Administration's Emergency Administration and Planning (EADP) program.


Established in 1983, EADP is the pioneer resident emergency management degree program, serving students from the world over. To date, over 1000 UNT students have earned degrees in Emergency Administration and Planning. The UNT EADP program introduced both NC4's External Situational Awareness (ESA) service as well as the E Team incident management software into their program at the beginning of this year.
 

The use of NC4's Situational Readiness solutions illustrates to students how emergency management officials can have ready access to both time-sensitive information concerning hazard events and geographic data, adding value to the EADPs training in situational analysis techniques. The ability to access map views has been extremely useful for in-class analysis exercises where students use the available information to derive factors which may be relevant for the initial response to disaster events.


NC4 is pleased to collaborate with UNT in bringing a dimension of realism to the classroom environment.

 

MARK YOUR CALENDAR


E Team Customer Call
Thursday, Dec. 11
11am PDT / 2pm EDT

 

5th ANNUAL
USERS CONFERENCE
NC4 READINESS '09

April 6-8, 2009
Dallas, TX
The Westin Resort
 

SITUATIONAL READINESS SPOTLIGHT

 

NC4 is supporting one of its critical Federal customers in developing a federated identity management capability. This allows access to and from other government websites, portals and information sources.

Identity Federation allows users to seamlessly access other information systems using a single set of credentials - decreasing system administration costs while increasing security and lowering risk by enabling an organization to identify and authenticate a user once.

Through its adoption of the Office of Director of National Intelligence's (ODNI) Trusted Broker and Department of Justice's (DOJ) GFIPM (Global Federated Identity and Privilege Management) identity federation standards, this capability enables federal customers supported by the NC4 portal to function as content providers to other federal systems such as the Law Enforcement Online (LEO) and RISSnet systems without the need for additional passwords and credentials.
 

Additionally, this customer has also established a secure connection to DOJ's National Criminal Intelligence Resource Center (NCRIC), allowing its users to seamlessly access NCRIC's suspicious activity reports.
 

For additional information, please contact info@nc4.us

 


FEATURE

Historic Portland, Maine Combines Comprehensive Situational Awareness and Emergency Management Tools in a Post-9/11 World

The City of Portland is the largest metropolitan area in the state of Maine. Home to almost one quarter of the entire state’s population, Portland’s picturesque location and its access to both water- and land-recreational activities make it a popular vacation spot. The city hosts more than 3.5 million tourists each year – swelling the city during the cruise ship season and summer months – and Portland’s Office of Emergency Management is responsible for the safety and well-being of each and every person that lives in, works in, or visits the area.

The Rising Need for an Emergency Management Solution

Prior to September 11, 2001, Portland’s greatest emergency management needs were weather-related, as the area often experienced severe winter storms and hurricanes. During an emergency, the city leveraged the most basic and assured means of coordination – face-to-face meetings. Emergency management leaders from each department would convene to summarize the previous few hours and plan operations for the next few hours. The department heads would repeat this meeting structure through to the end of the incident. This collective decision-making process worked for the city, because most of the events they managed were quite similar. Each department knew its roles and responsibilities, which enabled a very competent, silo-based approach to emergency management.

September 11, and the resulting reflection and assessment of critical vulnerabilities in both Portland and the country as a whole, highlighted the fact that the emergency landscape had changed. Portland recognized that it too needed to modify its emergency management practices. With the very real possibility of man-made, as well as natural disasters, the city needed tools and processes that could provide a more sophisticated way to manage crisis situations.

“September 11 was a defining moment for Portland,” says Fred LaMontagne, fire chief and director of emergency management, City of Portland. “We wanted to be able to respond appropriately to incidents as they happened, and understand what each discipline within the city was dealing with at any point in time. In the past, we were managing predicable events that we could prepare for and respond to, but today we need a solution that can prepare us for the unpredictable.”

“NC4’s ESA solution helps us determine what actions are necessary based on what’s going on nearby,” LaMontagne said. “E Team then provides the tools to manage and execute the plan in place. Together, ESA and E Team provide Portland with a comprehensive solution that everyone can use easily and successfully.”

Read the full story of how NC4 delivered a solution that provides a real-time view into incident activity across the entire city and its many organizations.



  

E TEAM PRODUCT STEERING COMMITTEE UPDATE

by Jaclyn Barcroft, PSC Chairperson



Networking – It’s such a valuable tool. I recently had the opportunity to talk with some folks from the Province of British Columbia as they are looking to expand their E Team project. It was a great opportunity for us to share our story on how we rolled out the E Team product across our state and for us to learn how they will deploy E Team on a different database platform than we are using. Whether you are a new customer with NC4 or have been using E Team for several years, I believe it can be extremely beneficial to speak with other customers, share your success stories and learn about other ways to use the system to its fullest potential. Approaching the same tasks from a fresh perspective just may be the key to greatly improving workflow.

Along those same lines, I believe it is important to share ideas within your region; this is where E Team Users’ Groups come into play. As you work together in your community to exchange thoughts and ideas, your result will be a system that everyone believes in.

Please continue to share those great achievements and lessons learned as you journey through exercises, disasters, and other special events. Everyone will benefit!

________________________

E Team PSC Members:

 

   

ESA PRODUCT NEWS

ESA 5.1


A number of enhancements are now available. These upgraded features are designed to provide improved mapping capability, data export functionality, and better control of your alert profiles.

Upgraded Virtual Earth Map
A new, easier to use Virtual Earth (VE) map is now available in ESA which provides the following features:

  • NIMC incidents and advisories can be toggled on and off, as well as incidents of specific severity

  • Browser-style forward and back buttons allow you to easily retrace your steps

  • A global view button allows you to reset the view with a single click of the mouse

  • Drill down to a zoomed-in view and get the incident description with a single click

  • The map can be configured to show your registered locations in the system – the simple click of a toggle allows you to turn them on or off on the map display

  • Clicking on any of your locations, you will be able to view key information about it and get a link which will allow you to edit that information

  • A location search box has been added, which allows improved navigation to well-known places


A key benefit of the new mapping system is that you no longer need to open multiple maps to view NIMC incidents and locations – they can be viewed together on a single map which gives you immediate awareness of how far an incident is taking place from one of your locations.
 


NOTE: The map now defaults to the aerial satellite view. To switch to the traditional roadway view, click on Road in the top right of the screen.

HINT: Press Ctrl while clicking and dragging the mouse to create an expandable box which zooms in to the area defined by that box.

Print/Export Capability
ESA Admins will be able to view and print a PDF document of all Registered Locations, Alert Profiles, Device Profiles, Groups, and Users in the system. The PDF will include the most relevant data fields for each report. ESA Admins will also be able to export locations, profiles, etc. to an Excel spreadsheet which can be used for further manipulation and analysis. The print and export capability will allow you to assess your data in order to search for something in particular, to clean up and maintain the data, and to troubleshoot when something seems amiss. Standard non-Admin users are able to print/export any Locations visible under their own login ID (subject to any existing security access controls).

We hope that you find these new enhancements valuable. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact NC4 Support.


 

   
 

ESA PRODUCT TIP


Creating Alert Criteria Profiles that will ACTIVATE and DEACTIVATE on Specified Dates


It's easy to use Scheduled Alert Profiles for any important event where you want alerts for a specific location during a specified period of time. And, since you pre-set it to deactivate at the conclusion of your event, you don't have to worry about remembering to go back into the system to change anything.


Say, for example, that key employees will be attending a conference or meeting in a city where you don't have any permanent locations and you want to monitor that location during the conference.

  1. Use one of your not yet defined NC4 locations, or a temporary/floating location that you may already have defined.

  2. Create an NC4 location for the conference site and/or hotel.

  3. Create an Alert Profile (see screen shot below). Name it whatever you want, and then click on the Schedule button.

  4. Enter the starting and ending dates that you want this Alert Profile to be in effect.

  5. Click the Location/Region tab and select the DNC location you created in step 2 above.

  6. Click Save.


It's that simple!

 


 

Please contact NC4 Support if you need assistance on setting up Scheduled Alert Profiles: 888-624-4411 or support@nc4.us



  
 

E TEAM PRODUCT NEWS

E Team Live


The E Team Live automation engine further enhances your EOC's common operating picture by enabling users to gather information from any accessible website, such as a direct feed on current weather conditions from NOAA’s Website; school closures from the local school districts; power outages from electric companies; and road closures from transportation organizations. Our technology scans, aggregates and then applies custom, focused logic to filter and extract information. This information is directly imported into E Team and updated as the websites provide new information.


Because every agency has different websites that they need to monitor, E Team Live is based on open-source code. Sample scripts demonstrating programming techniques for incorporating real-time data into the E Team application are currently available for both the R3.0 and R6.4 platforms at our Support Website. The sample scripts are intended to provide the basis for your IT department to define a systems integration project. Customers needing support for an E Team Live open-source integration project can contact NC4's professional services team at 877.624.4999.


E Team Dashboards


Powered by the E Team Analysis and Reporting Engine (ARE), dashboards provide customers with the ability to view sophisticated visual representations of real-time operational information. Displays of information can be consolidated into key performance indicators (KPI) to enhance situational awareness and measure progress towards your goal of securing life and protecting property. KPIs can be viewed across multi-jurisdictional emergency services organizations to communicate status efficiently and effectively.


There are currently four E Team dashboards included as part of the standard R3.0 implementation: incident summaries, hospital, assets, and resource requests. Support for dashboards in R6.4 will be available in the fourth quarter.


For questions pertaining to these new features, please contact support@nc4.us



   
 

SUPPORT CORNER

Tips from Rhonda
for E Team users


  • Remember to restart your servers regularly.
     
  • Send an email to Support to let us know when you are Activated (i.e. during hurricane season).
     
  • Add support@nc4.us to your E Team notification group -- this notifies Support you are in Training or Activated. Your requests will be handled as HIGH priority and put at the top of our ticket queue.
     
  • Please let us know when you return to Normal operations so that we can continue to support other Activated customers promptly.

NC4 provides three ways for you to submit E Team related Support Requests:

Email support@nc4.us

Call 1-800-209-2312

Support Website login at https://support.nc4.us and click on the InfoTrak folder.
 

If you are activated, please help us by putting “ACTIVATED” in the summary/subject line of your request.

 

E TEAM PRODUCT TIP

Simplifying the Resource Management Workflow


You can add some simple workflow to your resource management process by configuring the status color codes for Resource Requests in the Data Dictionary. Color codes can be modified to properly represent the actual positions in your EOC, and the actual position in your workflow.

  1. First, make the color code for black represent New. This would be any resource request being submitted by a jurisdiction or agency.

  2. Set the color code for purple to Operations Desk/Tasker. The request would be taken by the Ops Desk/Tracker for action.

  3. Make the color code for red Tasked to ESF/Agency/Position/Function. This represents that the resource request has been tasked to somebody for filling. If the agency/function or position cannot fill the request, they would make the status purple, sending it back to the Ops Desk/Tasker for further action (could be tasked to another agency or EMAC, State, FEMA etc.).

  4. Define the color code for orange as Tasked to Logistics/State/EMAC/FEMA. In some places, this is another route that the resource request could take. Leave this blank if not applicable to your operations.

  5. Lastly, the remaining color codes define the actual disposition of the resource request: yellow Enroute; green On Scene; teal Released; grey Cancelled; blue Closed.

 

 

By doing the above, anybody can quickly see the disposition of each resource within the jurisdictions workflow/resource management process.

 

    
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