Crisisworks Newsletters

We send regular Newsletters packed with tips and tricks, timely information and updates on our Training Program.

To opt-in to receive Newsletters, simply edit your communication and email subscription preferences in your Crisisworks User Profile. More on updating your communication preferences.

2026 - February: recent platform and mobile app improvements; bug fixes and reporting updates; user tips for searching and using the app; getting support from the Help Desk.

Welcome to the February 2026 Crisisworks update.

It’s been a hectic start to the year with all the emergencies across the state. It’s amazing to see all the hard work going into supporting communities through these tough times.

These events have certainly tested the new Crisisworks 5 platform. We’ve identified some challenges and are working hard to respond quickly and adapt. We appreciate your feedback and remain committed to being a strong partner in the work you do.

Crisisworks 5 – Updates, Features & Fixes

A full release history is available on Releases page.

Merge Tool for Recovery Cases

Our new and improved Merge tool for Recovery Cases was released on 10 February. More information on Case Merging is available here.

There is also a Duplicate Recovery Cases Report in the Reporting module you can use to identify candidate records to merge. However take care doing so as it is perfectly valid for multiple cases to have the same address.

Reports

We've been working on Reports and some issues had been identified by users. These only affected some reports and were fixed either in or prior to tonight's release. Crisisworks has 30+ built-in reports that can be generated multiple ways. If a specific report fails for you, please raise a support ticket. If it's urgent, we can usually generate a report for you while we investigate and fix the issues. Please include the following in your ticket:

• Error message/code or screenshot

• Event name and Report id (e.g. RPT-80 the ID will be different in each site)

• Name/email of the user generating the report

• Whether you ran the report via the reports menu or from the records list

Relief Registrations

Some users have experienced an intermittent error saving Relief Registrations in a very specific scenario which we were previously unable to replicate. However we believe we’ve identified the cause and have fixed it in tonight's release. Thanks to Kylie from Hepburn who helped solve the mystery!

If you previously experienced an issue saving Registrations, please try again next week and let us know if it reoccurs.

Mobile App Updates

Three weeks ago we released some improvements to the app for working offline and data syncing, including a new Save as Draft feature.

However, we have seen issues with the app managing lots of photos in a record (e.g. 25+). As such we are planning an additional major release to the app next week which will significantly improve management of images. We expect the new app to be released early to mid next week, as QA testing has gone well. Another update (expected the following week) will have an auto-draft saving feature.

Councils have generated over 30,000 Fire Prevention Notice records in CW5 since the start of the season. During this time a number of mobile app updates were released and we will continue to make improvements to the app.

Tips for Working Offline

• Add required records to your Offline Store before leaving the office (while coverage is good).

• Records remain on your device until you sign out (closing the app will not remove them).

• If you attempt to sign out with unsynced data, you’ll receive a warning.

• For security, users are automatically signed out of the app every 7 days, so don’t leave unsynced data on your device overnight.

• If syncing issues occur, contact the Help desk — we can usually assist.

• See our How to Videos for guidance and tips on using the mobile app.

Search Function

Direct search within the app is not currently available. This wasn't possible in V4 either. The new app technology has the capability and it is on our development road map. For now, working from the map is the best way, as it was in v4 (see tips below).

User Tips - Preventing Duplicates & Managing Workflows

• Use Map View on the app to identify and select existing records (also helps prevent duplicates).

• Create searchable geospatial zones in the Library (see our help docs for more on this). You can then use the Location search to bulk manage records within a zone (assign, tag, update status).

• Use case statuses for recovery and SIA coordination (e.g. cases awaiting SIA set to Inspection Required).

• Use filters, assignments and tags to make it easier for field officers to manage records and prepare for offline usage.

We have short videos available in the Help documentation covering these features.

Getting Help

We have been working hard to help everyone, and we're good at responding to help tickets and getting back to people. For a priority response make sure to indicate a higher level of urgency when sending messages to Help Desk. This helps us ensure balance customer needs during periods of high demand.

Help Docs… now with AI.

Our new documentation platform is AI-enabled and features smart searching. Enter a question or topic, and the AI will summarise an answer and provide relevant links.

Access it via the “?” icon, select Online Documentation and then use the Ask or Search field at the top right. If you receive an AI prompt, press enter or the Ask icon to get an AI answer.

Reporting Issues

To help us resolve issues quickly and save a lot of back and forth, it really helps us if you can provide the following info in your requests:

• User name and email

• Relevant Event name

• Date and time the error occurred

• Error messages or codes

• Detailed description of the issue

• Full-screen screenshots (including date/time)

• Screen recordings are super helpful where possible

• Level of urgency

Also if possible tell us:

• Does it happen all the time, or sometimes, or in certain situations?

• Is it just happening to you? Is it a new issue? Has it worked OK before?

2025 - December: holiday support arrangements; rollout and ongoing improvements to Crisisworks 5; EM Impact Portal integration progress; training opportunities; FPN tips and future enhancements; planned features for 2026.

One final update from us for 2025. We all here at Datalink would like to wish you a safe, happy and uneventful festive season!

2025-26 Holiday period

Crisisworks support will be reduced from 22 December to 2 January 2026. During this time skeleton support staff will be available on non-public holidays, but we won't be taking live calls. To access support, please leave a voice message or email [email protected] and indicate the level of urgency in your message. We will respond to high-priority issues within one business day.

For urgent Crisisworks assistance, customers can use our 24/7 paging service: Call [phone] or 1300 328 254, press 1 for support, then 2 to page the on-duty technician. They’ll call you back within the hour.

Crisisworks 5 latest

The upgrade to Crisisworks 5 has been successfully rolled out across all Vic Councils, with sites progressively going live between August and October.

KNOWN ISSUES: We've encountered a few issues during the rollout, and we're actively working to resolve them. Here is an update on the status of these items:

• Refresh Issue: Occasionally, not all expected menus display when you first join an event. We are working on a permanent fix; in the meantime, a browser refresh should correct this. (This is a circular reload button next to the URL)

UPCOMING FEATURES & ENHANCEMENTS: We have several new features and improvements planned for the coming months:

• Single Sign-On (SSO): SSO has been successfully tested with a lead council and will be rolled out to councils who use this function in the coming months. If you are a keen to get SSO, please ask your technical Council rep to contact [email protected]

• Track My Route: This feature is currently unavailable on the mobile app, but we anticipate it will be implemented by the end of the year.

• Dashboard: We are planning significant enhancements to the Dashboard for early 2026.

• Rostering System: The Rostering System will be redeveloped to focus on increased flexibility and ease of use.

FIXED ISSUES:

• FPN Merges: We saw intermittent issues when generating merge letters in batches, where the combined PDF for printing was missing. We are confident this issue is now sorted.

• Reports: Reports were temporarily unavailable for a week in mid-November but are now fully operational.

• Import of Assets Contacts: The issue of sometimes causing duplicate records during the import of Assets Contacts has been resolved.

Accessing Crisisworks 5

If you haven't accessed the new version yet go to crisisworks.com and press login, then reset your password. All previously active Crisisworks 4 users can access CW5, you will just need to do a password reset. Please bookmark app.cw.crisisworks.com and delete any bookmarks for the previous version of Crisisworks.

For introductory videos and more detailed information, check out our Help Documentation, accessible via the Help “?” menu in Crisisworks.

EM Impact Portal

EMV has made extensive changes to their EM Impact Portal. We’ve been working with them to make the necessary changes to Crisisworks so that the Integration tool works seamlessly. In September we completed the first phase, updating our EMV Recovery Reports to align Crisisworks data with the EM Impact metrics. The next phase, the work to automatically upload data directly to the Portal, will be completed in the next couple of weeks. It will work in the same way that Crisisworks connected to the previous version of EM impact.

Training

All our training is now run on Crisisworks 5 and we are offering additional Crisisworks 5 Overview sessions until the end of February. For a list of session dates and to register, go to our Eventbrite page.

We recently completed a multi-council training session in Glenelg, and we'll be conducting more sessions in different regions around Victoria in the new year. If you would like to host a multi-council Roadshow type training event in your region, please let us know.

Crisisworks tips & tricks

Merge Template Reference Guide Available

We've published a Merge Template Reference Guide under the Technical References section of our Help Docs. You can access it directly here: Merge Template Reference Guide. This guide is an essential resource and includes composing and editing your HMTL templates, worked examples and a handy Tips & Troubleshooting section.

Sending emails and SMS from Crisisworks

Crisisworks’ Communications module can be used for sending both bulk and individual emails and SMS messages directly from the Operations and Recovery registers and includes the capability to request acknowledgement and to recipient to respond from a couple of options, a great feature. However, the process for emailing fire prevention notices is a bit different, please read on…

Emailing FPNs from Crisisworks

To facilitate emailing Fire Prevention Notices (FPNs) from Crisisworks, owner email addresses must be included in your asset contact import. There are two methods available to you for sending these notices:

• DIY (manual, multi-step process): Involves generating batches, downloading PDFs, manually sending emails with Outlook + attachments, and then tagging records for tracking using a Crisisworks Query Language (CQL) search.

• Outsourcing (bulk emailing): Enables bulk emailing by Emergency Managementedding the owner's email address as hidden data within the generated PDF, which third-party mailing services can then extract to distribute the notices.

See this article on the DIY approach Here in our Help Docs.

Future Plans for FPN

We have plans for 2026 to enhance comms and distribution of FPNs within Crisisworks. We plan to introduce the ability to bulk email and SMS Notices via the Communications module, which will provide an audited history of each message and allow for acknowledgement of receipt. Even more significantly, we are exploring a new ‘mail house’ service to automate the physical posting of notices. This feature will allow you to select a 'Post' option for batches of notices, integrating Crisisworks directly with a postal provider or mailing house to handle the distribution. We have a similar high-volume service currently in use by our large transit compliance clients. There will be a cost associated with this new service, but it aims to significantly streamline your distribution processes.

2025 - October: FPN - IMPORTANT updates improvements and details

Hello FPN users,

We’ve made several updates and improvements to the FPN module ahead of the upcoming season and we wanted to draw your attention to some actions required and some support issues we have come across (most now fixed).

Please forward this to anyone else that needs to know.

Action required:

• Please download latest version of the app

• Make sure you are connecting to Crisisworks 5 site - app.cw.crisisworks.com.

Known issues:

We are aware of the following issues related to the fire prevention module, these may not affect you, but if they do contact support:

1. Merge Template

   1. Saving issues due to problems with council’s HTML

   2. PDF letterhead issues

2. Import button: not showing sometimes

3. New merge templates not initially available when doing a print merge

4. Missing Menus (eg Inspections on web): menus sometimes don’t show - to resolve this press reload in your web browser

5. Some councils can't access the new user guides - due to IT security blocks

See details below under 'More Information'.

Key updates and important information

• Legislation changes and notices: we believe there has been legislation changes that will require an update to your notices, please ensure your templates reflect the applicable changes.

• New and Improved Importers for:

  • Fire Prevention Notices

  • Asset Contacts data

  • A new help section has been added to simplify data imports

TIP: ALWAYS use Properties (Vicmap) for selecting your properties (if it is not the default)

FPN CHECKLIST FOR 2025/26

1. Create a new template for this season by copying a working template from the previous year

2. Run a preview of your mail merge to check for errors, including the letterhead

3. Update your template with any new information for this season, including the fine amount and any relevant legislation changes

4. Save your template text/code somewhere outside Crisisworks before attempting to save it

5. Perform a test save

6. Make old templates from previous years ‘inactive’ to reduce potential confusion for officers

ISSUES : MORE INFORMATION

Item 1.1: Merge Templates (mentioned above) Due to increased security and HTML format checking, old HTML may no longer work correctly. If you are experiencing any issues with the following, please contact [email protected] and advise the template name and relevant record IDs:

• Editing templates with advanced HTML formatting: some councils have experienced problems getting these to work. If you're having any problems please let us know, and we will run a fix in the background, include the record ID and title of your template.

• Making HTML templates inactive: due to similar issues, you may be unable to make templates ‘inactive’. Please provide the ID number and we will make those changes in the background.

Item 1.1: PDF Letterhead issues (mentioned above) Some councils have reported issues with uploaded PDF letterheads for templates. Please run a preview test mail merge first. Common issues we are seeing:

• Letterhead not displaying

• Compressed, blurry or low resolution images

If you notice these issues, please contact support. Item 2: Import Button The process for importing FPN records or asset contacts has changed. You MUST follow these steps:

1. Go on duty as the System Admin & Data Entry position to enable importing

2. Go to your user profile menu (the drop-down arrow next to your name)

3. Select “System Administration”

4. Expand the import section

5. Click on one of the counters under ‘Imports’

6. Press the “+ Import” button

7. If “+ Import” button doesn’t show on the top RHS, please refer to this article for troubleshooting.

Item 3: New merge templates not initially available when doing a print merge

If this occurs, please wait up to an hour and if it doesn't show then contact Support and we can make it magically appear for you!, after an hour, you may need to do a browser "reload"

Item 5: Some users can't access the new user guides

If the guides don't look "right", it may be due to some of the items being blocked by your organisation's network filters.

Please ask your IT department to unblock the URL https://static-2v.* They can contact us for clarification.