1st Quarter, 2010
FireVISION is a quarterly publication from ACS Government Systems with fire-industry news, FIREHOUSE Software tips, and other helpful information. We hope you find this and future issues to be both informative and useful.

If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, see the instructions at the bottom of this email. Previous newsletters are available in the Newsletters section of the FH web site. If you have any questions or concerns related to the newsletter distribution, please email: FHdocumentation@acs-inc.com.

CHECK OUT THE NEW DRAWINGS!
FIREHOUSE Software is proud to announce the introduction of FH Sketch.  FH Sketch is an application integrated into the Occupancy module allowing the user to draw, update, and export scenes and plans.

Available both in the field and at the station, FH Sketch allows you to utilize aerial photography like never before or import files from popular preplan programs in DXF/DWG formats, and even hand-drawn plans, drawing right on top of them.

In the field, FH Sketch Mobile with Active Pen technology will allow you to draw on the screen, just like pencil and paper, then import the drawings into FH Sketch for further edits back at the station.

Visit us this April in booth 3424 at FDIC to see the debut of FH Sketch. See FH Sketch in action, learn from our experts, and get started on a 90-day free trial.

Can't make it to FDIC this year....visit www.firehousesoftware.com/fhsketch for more information.

FH Mobile 1.7 Release 
The FH Mobile version 1.7 release will begin shipping in April. FH Mobile 1.7 addresses some minor issues in FH Mobile architecture while providing significant improvements and defect resolutions. Here is a list of some of the changes in the FH Mobile Preplan and FH Mobile ePCR product modules.

Mobile Preplan Changes:

• The Preplan LiveLink provides a quick list of occupancies directly associated to the incidents of a responding unit.
• Added a preplan synchronizing option to download only occupancy records that have been updated since last sync instead of entire database.

Mobile ePCR Changes: 

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  • Updating the Intervention History screen to include Intervention Types.
  • Adding a button to Close and sync a record on the Summary panel.
  • Adding the ability to access completion status from any panel.
Added features like LiveLink and FTP synchronization to import incident and unit data transferred from CAD.
Changed and updated the interface flow for improved efficiency and ease of use, including:
• Added the Incident Narrative, unique from the Patient Narrative.
• Added the option to close and sync on the Summary panel at the end of reports.
• Added support for additional units and staff.
• Update Device Monitor software to provide checks that ensure Device Monitor is recognized by Mobile ePCR.
• Updated fields to include NFIRS required fields and fields required by both EMS and NFIRS and allow them to be defaulted to values.
• Added ability to require completion of ePCR before it can be closed and Synced.
• Fields can be moved in the Master Action Plan to any grid that is available to them or disabled all together.

More detailed information about the changes from FH Mobile 1.7, will be posted soon on our FH Mobile webpage.

2010 FHETS Dates and Location Announced

We're pleased to announce the dates and location of the 2010 FIREHOUSE Software Education and Training Seminar. This year, the seminar will be held Tuesday, November 2nd through Friday, November 5th at The Westin Seattle , in the cultural core of Seattle, Washington. Located in the downtown financial and shopping district, the hotel offers a perfect Northwest escape. We anticipate hundreds of attendees to join us for this year's event. 

The seminar price will be $745 for the 3 day event. Website registration for FHETS 2010 will open before the end of February. The hotel rooms will be available for $139/night, with this special event rate available to our attendees 3 days prior and following the seminar, based on guestroom availability. Breakfast, lunch, and between class snacks will be provided for the attendees during the seminar.

Thinking Differently About FH Software
Over the next few issues of the FH newsletter, we are going to bring you some of the new and interesting ways that specific fire departments and EMS agencies have extended their use of FH beyond the everyday and solved issues using the data they are already collecting.  If you have innovative ways that you are using FH and FH data, write to us at FHDocumentation@acs-inc.com to become part of this series.

FHETS has been the beginning of many who have journeyed into the domain of FIREHOUSE Software. Brad Carico of the Caldwell Fire Department in Caldwell, ID has been at many of the FHETS events and classes and has gained helpful insight from the different opportunities offered, including networking and sharing of information and camaraderie at the conferences.  He now teaches some of the classes.  At the San Diego FHETS, he worked with fellow instructor, Tom Pond, to learn more about using automated tasks to send e-mails containing reports to his department contacts. Brad now uses the FEBOOTI mail processor to send everything from his daily summary report to his department Chief to reminders for fitness tests and physicals for to the firefighters and EMT personnel. 

Manual entries made into the city's payroll system had become cumbersome and inefficient. After the Denver FHETS, Brad created user fields that are associated with payroll activity codes for the account numbers in the city's budget. Staff members now do their timesheets in FH. A query is run and an ASCII text file is created, which is then imported into the city's accounting system for the payroll period.  Prior to this new system, it could take a clerk up to four days to handle handwritten payroll slips and enter them into the system. Now, it takes anywhere from two to four hours for the clerk to review the data, verify any discrepancies, and enter the payroll information.

These are just a few examples of how Brad has been able to identify an issue and use FIREHOUSE to help the department work more efficiently and in a more cost effective way, eliminating some of the older, time-consuming methods. To begin using FH software more proactively, departments should analyze their data needs, look at the sections in FH, and see what data is already being collected in FH. Then, if there is necessary information still needing to be collected by the department, user fields can then be created to collect that data. Another important step is to analyze who needs particular information and how to disseminate that information. A challenge for Brad at the start was determining how to get the data to the right people. He found that his use of FEBOOTI, in conjunction with DOS batch files, helps create a very flexible e-mail handling system, and that using the Windows task scheduler and FH task scheduler has enabled him to further distribute information with little or no pain to the user.

In the next edition of FH, Brad will share additional techniques he has come up with to more fully utilize FH software;  specifically in how to monitor customer satisfaction and how to send reminders to personnel regarding required equipment maintenance, recertification and other department requirements.

Shipping Status of FH 7.5 Maintenance Release

As of April 1st, 35 states have been shipped the 7.5 release. Shipping is in progress for 8 states. 7 other states will be shipped the 7.5 release pending authorization to ship. As we reported before, many new items have been introduced for NEMSIS reporting departments. A NEMSIS Configuration Information form has been introduced to validate the setup of NEMSIS areas within FH. FH will now validate the NEMSIS export file against the NEMSIS national validation as it is being generated. Should any validation fail, the errors will be displayed and the file will not complete.