Incident Overview
A tour of the incident workspace and the four tabs you use to read, communicate, navigate, and track everything tied to an event.
When you open an incident from the Incidents List, it opens into a tabbed workspace. Each tab groups a different part of the incident so you can move quickly between the facts, the conversation, the map, and your supporting paperwork. The header shows the incident number and a live timer for open incidents (or the total duration for closed incidents).
Overview
The incident workspace is divided into four main tabs. Each tab is itself split into sub-tabs, and each carries its own unread badge so you can see at a glance where new activity has landed.
| Tab | Sub-tabs | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Info | Current, ICS, History | The incident's core record. See Info Tab. |
| Comms | Radio, Messages, Phone | Every way of reaching the field. See Communications Tab. |
| Maps | Directions, Overview, Tracks | Navigation, the interactive map, and track playback. See Maps Tab. |
| Additional | Checklist, Personal, Notes | Supporting items. See Additional Tab. |
| Header element | Description |
|---|---|
| Back button | Leaves the incident and returns to the list. Any requests still loading are cancelled so nothing keeps running in the background. |
| Incident number | The reference number for this incident, shown at the top of every tab. |
| Incident timer | For an open incident, a clock counting up from the start time, refreshed every second. For a closed incident, the fixed total time. |
| Menu button | Opens the extra options available for the tab you are on. |
| Unread badges | A number on a tab or sub-tab counts unread items. It clears as you read them. |
How the sub-tab bar behaves
| Element | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Sub-tab buttons | Three buttons along the bottom of the tab. Tapping one switches the view. |
| Active label | The selected sub-tab's label turns red; the others stay in the normal text color. |
| Active underline | A short line appears under the selected sub-tab only. |
| Swipe | You can also swipe left and right to move between sub-tabs. The label colors and underline follow the swipe. |
| Remembered position | The sub-tab you leave open is saved per tab, so reopening Info, Comms, or Additional returns you to the same view. |
| Inside Command View | The sub-tab bar shifts right to clear the command tools menu, so nothing is hidden behind it. |
How time is shown
| Elapsed time | Displayed as |
|---|---|
| Under one day | 04:12:37 (hours : minutes : seconds) |
| Exactly one day or more | 1 Day 04:12:37 |
| More than one day | 3 Days 04:12:37 |
| Closed incident | The total time recorded when the incident closed — it does not tick. |
note
The same four tabs also appear inside the full Command View, where they sit alongside the command board and its left-side menu. See Command View and Command Tabs.
Getting Here
- Open the Incidents tab on the dashboard.
- Open the incidents list and tap the incident you want to work.
- The incident opens on its last-used tab. Tap any tab to switch.
Switching Between Tabs
- Tap Info, Comms, Maps, or Additional to change tabs.
- Within a tab, tap a sub-tab button — for example Current, ICS, or History — to change views.
- Or swipe left and right to page through the sub-tabs of the tab you are on.
- The app remembers your last sub-tab in each tab, so reopening a tab returns you where you left off.
tip
Because each tab remembers its own position independently, you can leave Comms on Radio and Info on History and flip between them without losing your place in either.
Reading Incident Activity
- Watch the unread badges on each tab to see where new information has arrived.
- Open the relevant tab. Entering a sub-tab marks that view's new items as read and removes their share of the badge.
- A tab's badge is the total across all of its sub-tabs, so it may not clear until you have visited each sub-tab with unread items.
- Use the incident timer in the header to keep track of how long the event has been running.
| Badge behavior | What it means |
|---|---|
| Number on a tab | Unread items somewhere inside that tab. |
| Number on a sub-tab | Unread items in that specific view. |
| Badge disappears | You have opened that view and its items are now marked read. |
| Badge reappears | New activity has arrived since you read it. |
tip
If a badge keeps reappearing, new activity is still coming in on that tab — open it to catch up in real time.
Screen Orientation
| Device | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Phone | The incident workspace stays in portrait. |
| Tablet | Follows how you were holding the device — portrait stays portrait, landscape stays landscape — and the layout adjusts to match. |
note
If your account has the setting that keeps the phone awake enabled, the screen will not dim while an incident is open. That is deliberate, so a running incident stays visible.
How This Connects
An incident is one shared record on the server. The four tabs are four windows onto it, not four separate files.
- Where the data comes from. When you open an incident, the app loads its whole record: the forms behind Info and Additional, the radio channels, message threads and phone contacts behind Comms, the destinations and map objects behind Maps, and — if enabled — the command board. Every tab reads from that same loaded record.
- What updates it. Anything anyone changes is pushed out live: a form field someone edits appears in Info, a new message raises the Comms badge, a map object someone draws shows up on the Maps tab, a task someone creates on the command board appears on the board for everyone. Your own edits go the other way, to the server and out to everyone else.
- How the tabs tie together. A task on the command board can be linked to shapes drawn on the map, so the assignment and its location travel together (see Add a Command Item). Radio traffic on the Comms tab is recorded against the incident. Destinations you drive to from the Maps tab come from the incident's own address list. Personnel counted in PAR are the same people listed under Additional → Personal.
- Permissions. Whether you can change a form, add a note, or edit the command structure depends on the add and edit permissions your agency granted you for this incident tool. Read-only access shows the same information but with the controls unavailable.
- Offline. Everything already loaded stays readable, and the incident timer keeps counting because it is calculated on the device. What stops working is live updates, radio, phone calls, route calculation, refreshing a form, and anything that has to reach the server.
- On reconnect. Live updates resume and the badges catch up. Open the tabs you changed while offline and confirm your edits landed before relying on them.
Troubleshooting
| If this happens | What to do |
|---|---|
| A tab's badge will not clear | The count covers all of that tab's sub-tabs. Visit each sub-tab that still shows a number. |
| The incident timer is not moving | The incident is closed — closed incidents show a fixed total time, not a running clock. |
| The incident opened on an unexpected view | Each tab remembers the sub-tab you last used. Tap the sub-tab you want and it will be remembered from now on. |
| Swiping between sub-tabs does nothing | Tap the sub-tab buttons along the bottom instead, then try swiping again. |
| Form fields are greyed out | Your account has view-only access to this incident. An administrator has to grant edit permission. |
| The screen will not rotate on a tablet | The workspace locks to the orientation you were in when you opened the incident. Back out, rotate, and open it again. |
| Nothing is updating and everything looks stale | You have lost your connection. Reconnect, then leave and reopen the incident to reload its record. |
| You backed out by accident and lost your place | Reopen the incident — it returns to the tab and sub-tab you were on. |
Related Pages
⬅️ Previous: Incidents List | Next: Info Tab ➡️