Initial Impact Assessment data

Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) and other agencies may provide councils with impact data after major events. This Playbook covers how to efficiently receive, verify, and use this data.

QUICK CHECKLIST

Important notes:

• Photo links in FRV data expire within 24 hours - review and import promptly. If the links have expired, request a fresh download of data.

• Records with Status of Assistance Required - review as a priority.

• For more information, see FRV data.

• Use the Assessments (General) import rule for any non-FRV impact data, see CSV Template for Non-FRV Data

Next steps:

• Contact [email protected] when you know you’re expecting some IIA data, especially from FRV, so we can advise you on the latest process.

• Import the data into the Assessments register.

• Verify Records

  • Check address and reported impact

  • Add owner contact details

  • Update Status to Secondary Assessment Required where applicable.

  • Bulk Create Cases to create a Recovery Case for these records.

For User Administrators

• Ensure key staff (eg MSIA officers, EHOs, Building Surveyors) are correctly set up with the appropriate positions. See Players.

• Refer to this Playbook for more information or delegate the task to one of your Crisisworks Champions.

• For assistance, contact [email protected]

Use this Playbook to

• Import initial impact assessment data from FRV

• Import impact data from other response agencies (such as SES)

• Verify and review the data

• Transition records to Cases to conduct Secondary Impact Assessments

Workflow

This guide provides a step-by-step workflow for requesting, importing, verifying, and managing Initial Impact Assessment (IIA) data in Crisisworks.

1. Request IIA Data: Contact FRV or other response agency and get in touch with Crisisworks support ([email protected]).

2. Import IIA Data: Import into the Assessments Register. Records begin as 'Unverified Assessment'.

3. Assess & Verify Records: Check address, reported impact, owner contact info. Prioritise 'Assistance Required'. Update status to of impacted properties to 'Secondary Assessment Required'.

4. Next Steps: Create Recovery Cases for impacted properties, Infrastructure Assessments for council assets, and close off IIAs with no impact.

5. Cross-Council Data Exchange: Export and import property impact records with neighbouring councils.

6. User Administration: Ensure key staff (MSIA officers, EHOs, Building Surveyors) are set up. Delegate tasks to Crisisworks Champions.

Fire Rescue Victoria (FRV) data

Following a major event, FRV may provide councils with Initial Impact Assessment (IIA) data. This data may not always match the format required for the custom FRV import script in Crisisworks (see Format of the data section).

Important:

• Liaising with FRV - if you experience issues obtaining data, requests should be made through established EMT channels via the MEMO.

• Data quality - the data will need some cleaning before being imported into Crisisworks, see checklist below.

• Photo links - FRV data includes photo links that expire within 24 hours of file generation. Import promptly, or request a new file from FRV to reset the links and gain another 24-hour window.

• Contact Datalink - Crisisworks has a custom IIA import feature that requires correctly formatted data. Because files are sometimes supplied incorrectly, we recommend contacting [email protected] for the latest guidance.

Workaround expired photo links

Data can be imported without photo links (leave the column header blank) and updated later.

Updating Later: When you receive a refreshed file, re-import with:

• Options: “Update only” + “Match to external ID”

• Columns: include only _record_id and photo_urls to avoid duplicate data.

Format of the data

How to know if you’ve got the right data format

Your IIA data should consist of approx 190-200 columns. The Crisisworks custom import will map key data columns to corresponding fields in CW where possible. Any additional columns not explicitly matched will be uploaded as a table in the record under "Report Full Details."

Your data must includes the following headings. If any are missing, we recommend going back to FRV and requesting the data in the correct format:

FRV Data Heading	Description
_record_id	FRV’s reference
_status	eg No Damage/Habitable (No further assessment required), Assistance Required, Hazard/Safety, Inaccessible/No Access, Affected (Property Affected)
photos_urls	eg https://web.fulcrumapp-au.com/api/v2/file?context=60c48e95… link to photos
_latitude/_longitude	for the location of the property
address_sub_admin_area	the local government area
address	address of the property
comments	likely to be the last column and contains the inspectors notes.

It should look something like this…

Tips for working with FRV data

• Contact the Crisisworks Help Desk first for the most current advice

• Check the photo URLs are still working

• Only import your own council's data (it is often mixed with other councils - you may need to filter or remove records relating to other councils)

• Omit status of Hazard/Safety - these are usually for Infrastructure assessments - if you don’t want these, remove them from list

• Omit status of No Damage / Habitable

• Omit addresses that don't have a street number

Inspections and re-inspections are supplied by FRV in the same file, these need to be imported in two batches:

• Import on Address text (for new FRV Inspections)

• Update only based on external ID (FRV record ID)

EXCEL NOTE: The FRV address data has a non-standard Unicode character for “-” (used in ranges like 35-45), which excel has issues with. If you edit the data, you will need to look for weird characters like “â€" and re-enter the “-” character.

Importing IIA Data

System Administration > Imports

Once you've verified your data, proceed with the import into your Crisisworks event. The IIA data will be imported into the Assessments register within the Recovery module. All records imported will initially have their Status set to Unverified.

Import Instructions

1. Set your Event selector to 'All Events.'

2. Select the Active filter under Imports from the left side menu.

• For FRV data: Choose the Assessments (FRV) Import Rule.

• For other agency assessment data: Select the Assessments (General) Import Rule.

More on Importing data

CSV Template for Non-FRV Data

Copy the code below into Excel to create a template for non-FRV assessment data. Enter your data into the specified column and save the file as a CSV.

_record_id	source	Other Source	address	residential	businesscommercial	community_facility	accommodation	Property Damage	Report Full Details 1	Report Full Details 2	Report Full Details 3	Report Full Details 4	Report Full Details 5	Report Full Details 6	Hazard Exists	Hazard Info	Given Names	Family Name	Primary phone number	Council Assessment Notes	Tags

Verify and clean data

Recovery > Assessments

IIA data will require some clean up, allowing time to do this at the start will pay off in the long run.

The imported Assessment records will have a Workflow status of Unverified. Each record will need reviewing to ‘verify’ accuracy:

• Verify that the property address is correct; if not, make the necessary corrections. The originally imported address is shown.

• Compare the ‘text’ address with the location auto-selected and showing with a pinpoint on the map, if they are different, correct the map address

• Take note of addresses lacking street numbers, as they may have been mapped incorrectly to house 1 on the street.

Council Assessment

To determine which properties require additional services or a Secondary Impact Assessment, consider contacting the owner. However, in this stage of the emergency, you may not have their contact information, so a site visit may be necessary. Your council’s resources may also dictate which approach you take. For properties needing further inspection, set their status to Secondary Assessment Required to enable batch creation of Recovery Cases.

Document your initial assessment of the IIA in the Council Assessment section of the Assessment record, noting the owner's name and contact details.

• If the property is affected and occupants require assistance, set the workflow status to Secondary Assessment Required.

• If no impact is observed and occupants don't require further services, set the status to Closed - Assessment not required.

Create Case Records for impacted properties

• Use filters to select all Assessments with the status Secondary Assessment Required.

• Tick items and select Create Cases from the Actions menu.

• A Case record will be created under the Recovery tab for each of the properties.

• The Assessment record will be set to Closed - Secondary Assessment Created.

• You will now use the Case record to manage the Secondary Assessment and any recovery needs of the people and property.

Prepare for onsite inspections

Organising records using Geospatial Layers

When dealing with large numbers of Assessment or Case records, organising them into zones can be helpful to break them down into more manageable numbers. Zones can be given shortcut names to use for search strings eg. ‘within:zone1’ and bulk tagged, or bulk assigned. This approach streamlines the process and enhances organisation.

Map Layers can also be created as Library items or through System Administration>Map Layers to show impact areas. To ensure the zones are set up accurately and that no properties are missed, we recommend working with your GIS Officer. Crisisworks supports the import of a number of different file formats, these can usually be obtained from the Incident Control Centre.

More on working with Geospatial Layers

Impacted Infrastructure

Initial Impact Assessment data may also contain assessments of council infrastructure, eg. roads, footpaths, bridges.

Once the data is verified, and the Asset address is correct, an Infrastructure Assessment record can be created. Set the Assessment status to Infrastructure Assessment Required. We don't have an automated bulk action to create Infrastructure assessments from these, instead you can select them all and select Export to Report under the Actions menu. Run the report and download the CSV file. This file can either be imported directly to create new Infrastructure Assessments or they can be entered manually.

More on importing data into Crisisworks

A Bulk Create Infrastructure Assessment feature is planned for future improvements to the Assessment module.

Neighbouring council records

IIA data will often include properties from your neighbouring councils and your neighbouring councils may receive some of your properties.

If your council is part of a Cluster:

• you can simply edit the Assessment record and change the Event and Region.

If your council has a standalone Crisisworks site:

• Tag any of your neighbour’s records with their council name, select them all from that tag’s counter and Export to Report.

• This csv file can then be sent to the other council for them to import as Assessments into their Crisisworks system.

• Conversely, you can import Assessments, Relief Registrations and Recovery Cases and more, from neighbouring councils.

Useful links

• Importing data

• Infrastructure Assessments

• Working with Geospatial Layers

Business rules for your council

Use this section to plan and document specific arrangements tailored to your council’s needs.

Players

Write the names of the people in these roles to personalise before distributing this playbook.

Role	Jobs to be done	People
Municipal Emergency Management Officer (MEMO)	The MEMO has overall responsibilities for activating the EOC and Council’s response to the emergency.
Municipal Recovery Manager (MRM)	The MRM is responsible for relief and recovery, and will be a point of leadership in the event.
Impact Assessment Officers

Jobs to be done

Write the specific services offered as part of this event below before distributing this playbook.

Job to be done	Workflow Method	WHO… is responsible this
Contact Datalink	Let them know you will be receiving IIA data and request assistance to import data (2 days notice required).
Import IIA	With assistance from Datalink
Verify IIA data
Create Case Record (or update if one exists)	For Impacted properties
Create Infrastructure Assessments
Close off IIA record	For properties not impacted

Training and exercises

The following training injects can be used to train users on this playbook. These should be localised to be realistic.

#	For	Scenario	Crisisworks Action
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