Kick off an Event

This Playbook uses the Events, Works Summaries, Information and Logs registers and requires MRM, MEMO, Communications, System Administrator rights or similar.

QUICK CHECKLIST

• Create a new event - use the Emergency Sample Template if you don’t have your own customised template.

• Put your team ‘on Duty’

• Check that all the key team members have a Crisisworks account? If not, create one for them and send them a welcome email. Users with System Admin-User Management position can assist with this.

• Ensure the MEMO and MRM have Communications Coordinator rights to enable sending emails and text messages.

• Create an Activation Briefing for your team using an Information entry and send to all involved via email or text.

• Read the remainder of this Playbook or delegate the task to one of your Crisisworks Champions, and contact [email protected] if you need assistance.

Create an Event

Events allow you to securely group together all the records, people, positions and audit history associated with an incident.

Crisisworks comes standard with Event templates to make setting up a new Event easy. The Emergency Sample template is a good starting point if you’re unsure what options you will need for your event. Additional Registers and Positions can be added (and removed) at a later time if necessary. The Emergency Sample template uses Operations, Recovery, Communications and Library Registers.

Tips for creating events:

• Use consistent naming conventions to make it easier to navigate and search events. We recommend - Event-type-Location-MMM-YYYY, eg Riverine Flood-Campbells Creek, Oct 2025

• Tick to automatically put yourself and your On-call users on duty will save you time. Users must have ‘On call’ ticked in their user profile.

• Consider which Positions you will need for your event, and make sure they are active by ticking them in the Positions section.

• Manage multiple events separately. For simultaneous or overlapping events, create a separate Event for each. This is essential for separate reporting for each event.

Event Templates

Custom Event templates allow you to quickly and easily create events for each type of incident with the necessary Positions and Registers enabled. You can even embed Contacts, and create and assign Requests and Information entries to be carried out at the start of the emergency.

See Event Templates and Managing Events for more information.

Going on Duty

When you go ‘on duty’ you become linked to that specific Event. This enables you to view Event data, be assigned records, (your name will appear in relevant drop-down lists), and receive notifications based on your User Profile Preferences. The data you can access within an Event is determined by the position(s) you have gone 'on duty' as for that Event.

Put your team on duty

Coordinators can set users to 'on duty' by selecting a single or multiple users from the Contacts register and selecting 'Bulk on duty' from the Actions menu.

Ensure your core EM Team has 'On Call' ticked in their User Profile to quickly put them on duty when creating a new event. Any users with a Position included in the Event can go on duty for that event.

Brief your Team

Communications Coordinator or Officer Positions needed for this

Once your team is on duty, message them with incident details and next steps.

• Create a new Information entry, select the Briefing/Handover form type.

• Include all current information, next steps, actions and advice.

• Tick 'Share this record via email or SMS' and specify recipients, eg 'All on-duty in current event' plus others as needed.

Do key team members have Crisisworks access?

Check your Contacts register to ensure all key staff involved in the event have a Crisisworks Users account. Ideally, this should be done as part of your regular Crisisworks Preparedness reviews.

• Users with System Admin - User Management rights can create new users, and importantly edit existing user accounts to ensure they have the correct level of access.

• Send Welcome Emails to any users who have forgotten their password, this can be done by selecting a single or multiple users from the Contacts register and selecting 'Send Welcome email' from the Actions menu. Alternatively, direct users to https://app.cw.crisisworks.com where they follow instructions on screen to reset their password.

Take a moment to list all the Players in the Business Rules section of this document and confirm they are correctly configured.

Create an Incident Action Plan

An Incident Action Plan is one of the pre-loaded templates available in the Information register. It follows a SMEACS format of - Situation, Mission, Execution, Administration, Communication, Safety.

• Assign the Incident Action Plan to the person or role responsible and set a Review date and time.

• Promote the Incident Action Plan to the Dashboard to ensure everyone sees it.

• Links to reference materials in your Crisisworks Library and other Information items can be included in the Incident Management Plan.

Using the template Type field of the Information record will provide consistency and make it easier to quickly find entries using the counters on the left side.

Non major emergencies

Non major emergencies (eg. single house fires) can be managed in one event or as single stand alone events. To manage them in one, create a new Event each year, called something like NME-Non Major Emergencies 2025 , individual Events would be called something like NME 25 Smith Street Camperdown,Jun 2025

• Record any operational actions required of Council as Requests.

• Create a New Case to record details of the impacted household/resident and add any follow up services as Needs & Tasks.

Using Crisisworks for as many day to day activities as possible will help your team maintain skills and give them practice in a low-stress environment.

• Non-Major emergencies are a perfect example. Keep your Building Surveyors, EHOs and Emergency Team on duty in your standing Event and refer Needs & Tasks and Requests directly to them so they can enter their responses directly into Crisisworks.

• Get your staff to enter their availability directly into Crisisworks under Roster Availability.

Why use Crisisworks?

It’s crucial for your team to understand why they will be using Crisisworks to manage emergency events. It may be new to some users and they may question the benefit of using it as opposed to other council systems.

See, Playbook - Preparedness for more on using Crisisworks.

Things you can do to be prepared

Create Event templates to suit your own council arrangements. Requests and Information records can be added to the templates to act as an activation checklist, eg Steps to set up your CEOCC (MECC), Steps to set up an ERC, Sample Incident Action Plans and Briefings.

Useful links

• Event Templates

• Creating an Event

• Working with Events

• Communications

Business Rules

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

Players

Council role	Crisisworks Position	People
MEMO (Municipal Emergency Management Officer)	MEMO MEMO Deputy
MRM (Municipal Recovery Manager)	MRM MRM Deputy
MECC / CEOC	MRM/MEMO Assistant Operations Coordinator / Officer
Secondary Impact Assessment	SIA - EHO SIA - Building Surveyor

Training and exercies