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Key concepts

A short glossary so the rest of the guide makes sense.

Department

A department is one fire brigade. Each department has its own members, sessions, qualifications, SMPs and reports — they do not see each other's data.

A department is created automatically when its first officer registers. Existing departments invite new members via a per-department invite link (see Department Settings).

Member

A member is a person belonging to a department. Every member has:

  • A name and (verified) email address
  • A password for web login
  • A PIN for recording attendance via QR scan
  • A role: member or officer
  • A status: active, inactive, pending or resigned
  • An optional rank (free-text — e.g. Captain, Senior Firefighter)

Officer

An officer is a member with the officer role. Officers can:

  • Approve pending members
  • Create, edit and delete sessions and incidents
  • Manage department qualifications and SMPs
  • View all reports for every member
  • Manage department settings (timezone, invitations)

There is no separate "admin" role — officer is the highest privilege level.

Qualification

A qualification is something a member has earned or is current in, such as Apply First Aid (HLTAID011) or Operate Communication Systems and Equipment (PUASAR001).

Qualifications can be global (maintained by the application — visible to every department) or department-scoped (visible only to one department).

Each qualification has an optional expiry (in months). Firecrest calculates the expiry date as attained_date + expiry_months and flags qualifications that are expiring soon or expired.

SMP — Skills Maintenance Program

An SMP is a requirement that says: "to stay current in this qualification you must log at least N hours of training in this skill area per year." For example, an SMP might require 6 hours per year of Structural Fire Attack.

Each SMP is linked to one qualification. A member only sees an SMP on their progress report if they hold the linked qualification.

Session

A session is a scheduled training event. It has a name, date/time, location, hours credit (how many hours of training it counts for), and one or more linked SMPs (which SMPs members earn credit toward by attending).

Every session has a unique QR code that members scan with their phone to record attendance. The QR code is valid for 24 hours after the session start time.

Incident

An incident is a special type of session for recording attendance at a real callout rather than scheduled training. It has all the same fields as a session, plus an optional incident number and incident type (e.g. Road Crash Rescue).

Incidents do not have a QR code — officers record attendance manually on the incident's page.

Attendance

An attendance record links a member to a session they attended, with a timestamp, optional notes, and an optional anonymous feedback comment. Attendance can be:

  • Self-recorded by the member scanning the QR code and entering their PIN
  • Manually recorded by an officer from the session page

Attendance is flagged if it is recorded long after the session ends (default: more than 1.5× the session duration after end). Flagged records appear on the Flagged Attendance report for officer review.

Reporting period

SMP progress is measured over a reporting period. Firecrest currently uses the Australian financial year (1 July to 30 June) as the reporting period for every brigade.

Most reports show pro-rata expected hours — i.e. if it is six months into the year and the SMP requires 12 hours per year, the expected target is 6 hours.

Scoreboard

A page visible to every member showing the brigade's Leaderboard (top attendees this period, with medals on the first three) and the Honour Roll (members with perfect attendance, and members who have already met every SMP they're on). See Scoreboard.

SMP status

On any progress report, each SMP shows one of four status badges:

Badge Meaning
Met At least the full annual minimum hours achieved.
Ahead More than 1 hour above the pro-rated target for this point in the period.
On Track Within 1 hour of the pro-rated target.
Behind More than 1 hour below the pro-rated target.