Alerts

[bittenyakka]

I was at the CFSVA AGM last week and this Alerts was discussed. I haven't had any issues with it and was just wondering for a wider perspective of how people are finding it?

[Zippy]

ive heard plenty of storys of Callers "hanging up" because they could not speak to the Adelaide Fire call taker, they could only are the Noise from the other phones connected to the call.

[Mike]

We have had mixed success. Its all dependant on the call takers assessing their environment before answering the call. With discipline it works well, with stupidity its as good as useless.

[OMGWTF]

ALERTS is a waste of time in my opinion.. All calls would be better off directed straight to triple zero.

Local knowledge is nice, but not when it completely sacrifices any proffesionalism in the call... Members logging in and answering "hello?" or "bob's phone", locals logging in and just starting blabbing on, logging in in noisy areas, talking over everyone, talking just for the sake of talking....

Very confusing situation for the caller, who is probably already under enough stress, and doesnt need to wonder if there call is actually getting through properly.

[jaff]

In my brigade we have found ALERTS to be excellent, it requires some discipline, whereby the initial call recipient continues the conversation with the caller and other alerts members listen in and ONLY interject if needed with relevant information.
Over the years this system has saved my brigade being responded to incidents that weren't in our primary patch or with the ALERTS call taker knowing the area of concern responding another appropriate resource immediately.
All in all the system works very well if the ALERTS call recipients are trained and disciplined in its use, exactly the same as using the GRN or VHF, if your ALERTS call recipients are being unprofessional in this role, either train them or lose em!, blame the users not the system.
The system is here to stay as a backup to pagers learn to use it properly, its just another tool to train with!

[bittenyakka]

Sorry i specicifally ment Alerts in it's latest form of MFS calling us so when they don;t know who to respond.

[OMGWTF]

Aaaah... well then its a load of crap.

Why dont they just use ozi and the SOPs to response appropriately. SOCC managed somehow...

[jaff]

Adelaide Fire are having trouble acheiving using the ALERTS for resource and brigade confirmation(it doen't happen) The issue is that as they call the ALERTS number of the relevant brigade, the phone also rings in AF tying up another phone line and potentially a operator breifly.
A fix for this has been bandied about but as yet no action.
Bring on SACAD "all hail SACAD"

[Pipster]

I thought that plan was thrown out, before it really got started...(it was something discussed at length at the initial "consultation" SACAD meetings)

Problem is if you ring ALERTS, and the only people who answer the call are the ones not going to the call, the crew ( who may be there), are unaware of the call and any additional information that might help them locate the incident / get a stop call etc

Pip

[Zippy]

how about Mute Alerts operators voices for the first 30-60 seconds of the call?

[Darren]

As someone who is on the other end , comms, Alerts can be VERY handy, or a total embarrassment to the fire service. Most of the time its the latter. It ranges from very competant call takers to dead silence, so we make a response based on maps.

The current arrangement of ringing those who don't have data in the system came about due to pressure from various groups who didn't want us direct paging, fair enough, but if you want this done, train your Alerts calltakers, for goodness sake, listen before starting to talk, don't answer in noisy areas, so many times I have had the member of the public question what on earth is going on.... and don't be a smart arse, its doesn't help us, we try, so don't give us a hard time, you are looking after a tiny little patch, we have the whole state. I know we aren't all perfect, and we are using the system to its ability.

Just out of interest, we have had the reps from Intergraph sitting in with us on calls, so things are moving forward. The system they are telling us sounds fantastic, so as long as your data input is correct it should work well,
BRING IT ON !

PS: this is my own opinion, not the opinion of the people I work for.

[Zippy]

Bring on SACAD "all hail SACAD"

Is there a Sect now worshipping SACAD?

[jaff]

As someone who is on the other end , comms, Alerts can be VERY handy, or a total embarrassment to the fire service. Most of the time its the latter. It ranges from very competant call takers to dead silence, so we make a response based on maps.

The current arrangement of ringing those who don't have data in the system came about due to pressure from various groups who didn't want us direct paging, fair enough, but if you want this done, train your Alerts calltakers, for goodness sake, listen before starting to talk, don't answer in noisy areas, so many times I have had the member of the public question what on earth is going on.... and don't be a smart filtered, its doesn't help us, we try, so don't give us a hard time, you are looking after a tiny little patch, we have the whole state. I know we aren't all perfect, and we are using the system to its ability.

Just out of interest, we have had the reps from Intergraph sitting in with us on calls, so things are moving forward. The system they are telling us sounds fantastic, so as long as your data input is correct it should work well,
BRING IT ON !

PS: this is my own opinion, not the opinion of the people I work for.

There you have it people ALERTS is a just a another tool, train your alerts call takers and enforce discipline and it will work well, if people are not doing the right thing "re-educate them or make em redundant"

[Mike]

It comes down to that with so many things really jaff.....

[Cameron Yelland]

As someone who is on the other end , comms, Alerts can be VERY handy, or a total embarrassment to the fire service. Most of the time its the latter. It ranges from very competant call takers to dead silence, so we make a response based on maps.

The current arrangement of ringing those who don't have data in the system came about due to pressure from various groups who didn't want us direct paging, fair enough, but if you want this done, train your Alerts calltakers, for goodness sake, listen before starting to talk, don't answer in noisy areas, so many times I have had the member of the public question what on earth is going on.... and don't be a smart filtered, its doesn't help us, we try, so don't give us a hard time, you are looking after a tiny little patch, we have the whole state. I know we aren't all perfect, and we are using the system to its ability.

Just out of interest, we have had the reps from Intergraph sitting in with us on calls, so things are moving forward. The system they are telling us sounds fantastic, so as long as your data input is correct it should work well,
BRING IT ON !

PS: this is my own opinion, not the opinion of the people I work for.

Bahahaha....This is so much funnier if you can relate to it at your own group level! 

[Heavy Rescue]

I have it from a good source that there is currently work underway to remove volunteers from the 000 call taking process completely.

Basically all 000 calls will go straight through to the Adelaide Fire lines and not the alerts, then if Adelaide Fire want more info on who to respond they will call you on your Alerts after the initial page has gone out - as is sometimes happening now.

There are a couple of technical issues being worked on at the moment but I am hearing that it will all happen in the next few weeks.

I know that some brigades use their Alerts alot and are well disciplined and do well to extract info from callers, so is this going to have an impact on your operations. I haven't heard this being discussed 'Officially' and suspect you will be told about it once it is done and therefore too late to change.

What do you think, it was going to happen eventually with SA-CAD but I would have thought there might have been some notification about it prior to them pulling the plug.

[Zippy]

think it all comes down to quality of service for the Caller, instead of them hanging up over being confused while on hold, then hearing constant Beeps while operators connect.

It should be up to the Adelaide Fire operator to get information out of the caller (000 only), while the Brigades responsibility to interpret it (through a very quick follow-up "internal" alerts conference with adelaide fire)

[rescue5271]

So once SACAD is running will we still have the ALERT'S?? as we are ment to be promoting triple 000 as the only number to call and if CFS wanted to save money then the alerts system would be removed as it has been in other state's.

The other issue I see with the system is that some captains need to remember it is the group who says who should get connected or removed from the system and that we need to make sure that those on it know a whole group area not just your small patch......

[RescueHazmat]

I vote with remove everyone EXCEPT the Communications Centre. They are the trained professionals. If any further info is needed, they have the responsibility of calling the local brigade / alerts number for further.

Im sure that will upset those that want TOTAL control over everything, but, TOUGH. Its all about quality and reliability of service, and I won't speak for the comms staff, but im sure you can't hear jack when somone answers their phone facing the wind or in their workshop etc..

[Zippy]

Hear Hear.

[jaff]

Yeh!!!! now lets get all of AIIMS done by "trained professionals", then all of incident control done by "trained professionals".

[6739264]

Yeh!!!! now lets get all of AIIMS done by "trained professionals", then all of incident control done by "trained professionals".

Why don't we get the firefighting and rescue done by 'Trained Professionals' while we're at it?

[RescueHazmat]

Topic guys..

[jaff]

Topic guys..

You assume a lot!

[RescueHazmat]

You dribble too much?   


Now come on, keep it on Topic. If you want to trash every thread, do it in the off topic arena.