Journal Screen

Automatic Journal-Keeping

Automatic Journal-Keeping

OpsCenter automatically captures and journals relevant events, changes, status reports, and decisions made and actions taken during the course of responding to a situation.

The OpsCenter journal is designed to meet the most stringent requirements for documenting activity. Accountability is made much easier, and after-action reviews of response staff performance are facilitated.

Automatic journaling frees staff to concentrate on response decisions, free of the drugery of documentation.

Journal Priority Levels and Journalized Content

OpsCenter contains six levels of journaling priority. These levels are completely customizable and can be changed online, allowing each response team to determine how much information should be captured.

Examples of information captured in the journal for each priority level include the following:

Flash	Information and events that require immediate Director and emergency response organization leadership action or attention: New incident notification Significant worsening of a current incident Increased potential for loss of life and/or property in a current incident Loss of life, limb, or eyesight by emergency response personnel
Critical	Information and events that require significant Director or leadership involvement and cause a major change to current operational plans: Hazardous material accidents or incidents Issue or receive tasking Update to existing tasking Lost person tasking/information Warning Order for new tasking Decision support information Organization assignment lists
Significant	Information and events that seriously impact current operations, but do not require any significant change to taskings or operational plans: Changes in subordinate element status boards: Location Personnel Status Boards Logistical Status Boards Property damage After Action Review (AAR) creation Cost accounting data creation Changes in situation of event Weather data Receive or issue status reports Road closure
Routine	Information and events that are required and anticipated, have an impact that requires no change, or supplement the operational plan: Issue or receive a Format Type or report not covered above AAR changes Cost accounting data changes EOC check-in list Staff section checklists Contract and procurement authorization report Log and maintenance annex and expenses Meals and lodging expenses
Administrative, Significant	Changed or deleted journal entry Purged journal Archive journal Changing the system journal priority level
Administrative, Routine	Users logging on and off the system

Emergency response organizations are normally required by current laws, regulations, or policies to record the events of an emergency response in some type of historical journal. These journals contain valuable information about the execution of the emergency response and can be used in post-event reviews and analysis.

The primary component of OpsCenter that is used for post-event analysis is its journaling capability. One of the benefits of OpsCenter journaling is that EOC staff has a complete chronological history (with as much detail they choose to maintain), of the prior event. The OpsCenter Journal facilitates the analysis of an EOC's performance during the emergency using journal information that was both manually and automatically gathered during the emergency.

Using OpsCenter journalizing, EOC's can clearly see the event chronology and their response to the unfolding incident and thereby further fine-tune their methods and procedures to prepare for the next event.