How to Buy Fire Records Management Products

"How to Buy Fire Records Management Products" as recommend post by Brian Ward writing for FireServiceSLT.com
I ran across this article by Brian Ward on Firerescue1.com in which he summarizes the process quite well. There is no mention of Emergency Reporting, nor are we affiliated with Brian in any way. See story.

SQL Connections 2009: A week of SQL Server classes

This week I have been at the SQL Connections conference in Las Vegas. With 7 to 9 hours of classes and presentations every day, all on Microsoft SQL Server. The classes included the Next Generation of SQL Server, Distributed Applications with Service Broker, Building High Availability Using Microsoft SQL Server 2008, Virtualization, Installation and Migration Strategies, Logging and Recovery, Minimally Logged Operations, Building the Right Backup Strategy, Securing and Hardening a SQL Server, iPhonify your Web App, Memory, Analyzing with SQL Trace and RML utilities, Sparse Columns, Structures, Storage and Speed, and Indexing for Performance. It has been a very busy week.

So what does this mean to the Emergency Reporting customer? As you read the list above, there are many terms that you might not be familiar with. The point here is that as an Emergency Reporting customer, you don’t have to be familiar with any of this since we handle it all for you.
Imagine if you were responsible for hosting the database at your site, you would need to know about many or all of the topics that I have studied this week, and would have to send your IT person to a conference like this. At Emergency Reporting we host all of the systems and databases so that you don’t have to. This means a tremendous savings in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of your reporting system.

So whether your agency does ALS transport, wildland firefighting, a rural volunteer agency, a 50 or more station metro agency, or a specialty agency like firefighting at an oil refinery, your time is better spent training for the skills you need to do your job and stay safe. Let us do to training on the IT side so that you don’t have to.

Brainstorming 2010

Photo shows Dan Bess, Eastern Region Sales; Steve Stedman, CTO; Scott Newton, Director Customer Support discussing new services.
Emergency Reporting successfully finished up the first of a series of planning sessions for 2010 new products and services. It's being called successful because many good ideas from our customers and employees were discussed with the top ideas being presented in mini-product launch presentations. Most importantly, ownership has obtained high-impact deliverables that are supported by enthusiastic technical and sales teams.

Jay Gunsauls, Training Director, was the facilitator and he did a fantastic job keeping us on task. His 40 years in the fire service has taught him well how to keep discussions on course and within a time schedule.

I can also testify the new products and services our customers will see from Emergency Reporting will make a positive impact on the way their data is captured and utilized! Stay tuned for more as details become available.

What's the Difference Between a Filing Cabinet and a Firefighter?

Both can assimilate and store an incredible amount of information.... but the information in a filing cabinet is just INFORMATION.

A firefighter assimilates information through training and experience and uses stored information to weigh options, evaluate conditions and make decisions.

Actions are dependent on a firefighters ability to retrieve, sort and filter information very quickly and he/she must rely on the information's validity and accuracy.

So how does this question relate to information management?

Many fire service database programs are filing cabinets. They are a repository of information with limited or no ability to react to conditions. They are like a warehouse of filing cabinets, with data stored in rows, columns, folders, aisles, boxes, in which a person must search and massage bits and pieces into cogent information.

Emergency Reporting provides users with immediate, relevant information based on plans and objectives. With the 'Notifications" feature on the home page, a user can personalize information displayed on login that is relevent to that user's job responsibilities. They do not have to open any page beyond the welcome screen to learn, what has happened, what is planned to happen and what is overdue according to planned events or planned objectives.

Emergency Reporting System Updated

At 9:15am (PST) today, Emergency Reporting performed a system upload, which included 59 bug fixes, performance enhancements, and small features.

There was no downtime associated with this upload.