Amy Sebring: Welcome to the EIIP Tech Arena! Today we will be taking a look at a new software product developed by BC Gas, Emergency Manager. Amy Sebring: For the benefit of any first-timers, if you see a blue web address, you can click on it and the referenced Web page should appear in a browser window. Amy Sebring: After the first one, the browser window may not automatically come to the top, so you may need to bring it forward by clicking on a button at the status bar at the bottom of your screen. Then you will need to bring your chat window back to the top in the same way. Amy Sebring: We will start with a presentation, and then follow with a Q&A session for your questions and comments. Right before we begin the Q&A portion we will review the procedure. Amy Sebring: Please do NOT send direct messages to the speaker or moderator as it makes it difficult for us to follow the discussion. Amy Sebring: Background information for today's session may be found at http://www.emforum.org/varena/000927.htm ... Amy Sebring: Now it is our pleasure to introduce Ray Nadeau and Greg Bennett from BC Gas, Inc. Also behind the scenes assisting is Amy Hennessy. Amy Sebring: Ray is the Business Leader of Emergency Planning, and is responsible to ensure the company is prepared for all types of emergencies and disasters. He has extensive experience in emergency operations and management and serves as Chairman of the Emergency Preparedness for Industry and Commerce Council (EPICC). Amy Sebring: Greg is Manager of Emergency Planning, and is responsible for rolling out many of the programs for employees and the public. He also has extensive experience and serves as BC Gas representative on numerous Regional and Municipal standing committees on Emergency Preparedness. Amy Sebring: Welcome to you all, and thank you for taking the time to be with us today. Ray, please begin. Ray Nadeau: Thanks Amy, and thanks to the EIIP Forum for allowing us to participate. It's a pleasure to be here. Ray Nadeau: Emergency Manager is an affordable, user-friendly intranet based software that allows all those involved to share information and participate from any location in the world, any time. It's software that resides on your company's server, on your company's intranet. Ray Nadeau: The software makes it easy to manage, share and track events and actions as they occur, thereby solving the communication problems normally experienced during emergencies. Ray Nadeau: Emergency Manager was developed by the Emergency Planning Department of BC Gas Utility to handle the many emergency situations we encounter in our business. Since then, interest from outside agencies and the lack of web based products on the market have led us to offer this product for sale. Ray Nadeau: Emergency Manager's unique features include: Ray Nadeau: *Intranet web based, so it's accessible from anywhere, *Pre-defined roles and action checklists, *Employee/Family Message Centre, *Multiple levels of access, *Easily customized to fit your emergency plans; *Easy to use Ray Nadeau: Emergency Manager creates a complete record of activities that may be crucial for legal purposes and/or reimbursement/compensation. And it can be used for day-to-day incidents as well as emergencies. Ray Nadeau: Today we'll only have time to give you a quick snap shot of what the software looks like and what it can do. We'd be pleased to demonstrate Emergency Manager for any interested parties. We'll give you the details at the end of the session. Ray Nadeau: ACCESS LEVELS When you log in to Emergency Manager your access has been predetermined by your system administrator. Access levels include: *BBS Viewer - high level bullet board viewer access, *EC Guest - view only access, *EC User - full access, *Administrator - full access with administrative privileges. Administrators can customize Emergency Manager to your organization's emergency plans. Ray Nadeau: CONTACT INFORMATION SCREEN. The log in screen is followed directly by a contact information screen. By logging in with all your contact information, you let other users see where you are and how to contact you. Ray Nadeau: Amy, slide 1 please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide01.htm Ray Nadeau: OVERVIEW. The second slide will give you an overview of what the software can do. Please look at all the headings to get an idea of the functions Emergency Manager offers. Ray Nadeau: You'll find: View BBS (Bulletin Broadcast System), Assume & Release Roles, View Roles & Update Actions, Incident List, Activity Log, EC (Emergency Centre) Contacts, Summary Reports, Employee & Family Message Centre, Admin BBC and Admin System, Change Password, and Logout. Ray Nadeau: Because of time limitations today, we'll just touch on the highlights. Again, we'll be happy to give you a full demonstration if you like. We'll give the information on how to do that at the end of this presentation. Ray Nadeau: Slide 2 please, Amy. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide02.htm Ray Nadeau: BULLETIN BROADCAST SYSTEM. The Bulletin Broadcast System, or BBS for short, displays one-line summaries of all events and activities. From here you can see what's going on at a glance. Ray Nadeau: We display this screen on the wall in our Emergency Centre to keep everyone up to date on what's going on. It automatically refreshes every 15 seconds. Ray Nadeau: Slide 3 please, Amy Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide03.htm Ray Nadeau: The BBS can also display photos, which allows those in the emergency centre to see what's going on at the scene of the emergency. Ray Nadeau: Slide 4 please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide04.htm Ray Nadeau: ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES. One of the first things you do when you log in to Emergency Manager is to assume your role, or roles. (If you don't use roles in your Emergency Centre, you can set up a single role for all users.) You can select as many roles as you want. Ray Nadeau: From here it's a quick click to view the responsibilities and initial actions associated with the role or roles you have selected. Ray Nadeau: Amy, slide 5 please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide05.htm Ray Nadeau: VIEW ROLES & UPDATE ACTIONS. Emergency Manager can be easily customized to use the roles, responsibilities and initial actions from your company's emergency plans. In addition, all those logged on to the system can see which tasks have been completed and by whom. Ray Nadeau: This page is especially helpful if you can't find, or are not familiar with your company's paper emergency plans. Ray Nadeau: Slide 6, please Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide06.htm Ray Nadeau: INCIDENT SCREEN. From the incident screen, shown in the next slide, you can drill down to see all the details associated with the incidents and activities on the list. Ray Nadeau: The screen shows both "incidents" and "activities". The overall situation, a fire or explosion, for example, would be the incident. Activities are linked actions associated with the incident. Ray Nadeau: When users input new incidents or activities, they are led through screens to help them collect consistent and relevant information. Ray Nadeau: Slide 7 please, Amy Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide07.htm Ray Nadeau: EMPLOYEE & FAMILY MESSAGE CENTRE. The Employee and Family Message Centre is a unique feature that helps employees stay in touch with their families in an emergency. Ray Nadeau: Our company has set up a pre-designated phone number for employees' family members to call and leave messages for the employees and to receive any messages left for them. The messages are posted here. It's a feature that helps employees and their families feel more at ease, because they know the status of their loved ones, especially during major events. Ray Nadeau: Amy, please show Slide 8. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide08.htm Ray Nadeau: SYSTEM ADMINISTRATION SCREENS. From the Admin Screens, administrators can add users, Emergency Centres, roles, incident types and incident checklists on the fly simply by using the tabs at the top of the screen. If you need a new role, like "Helicopter Pilot", it can be added easily and quickly. The same goes with new users, or a new incident type. Ray Nadeau: The Admin System screen lists all authorized users and their status (whether they are logged on or not). It also lists the type of access each user has. Ray Nadeau: Slide 9 please, Amy Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide09.htm Ray Nadeau: LOG OUT. When you're ready to log out, there are three ways to do it. Ray Nadeau: If you're just taking a break, you can log out without releasing your roles. Ray Nadeau: For shift changes, you can log out by releasing your roles but retaining the role initial action status, so there is a record of what you've done. Ray Nadeau: For exercise purposes, or when the event is all over, you can log out by releasing your roles and resetting the role initial action lists. Ray Nadeau: Slide 10 please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/emmgr/Slide10.htm Ray Nadeau: Emergency Manager runs on a Windows NT 4.0 Server with MS Internet Information Server 4.0 and MSSQL Server 7.0 On the user side, Emergency Manager works on any computer with MS Internet Explorer 4.0 (or higher) browser. Ray Nadeau: If you'd like an on-line demonstration of Emergency Manager, go to our Website (www.emergencymanager.com) to see our flash demo or email us at emergencymanager@bcgas.com to arrange a personal demo of the software. One note regarding the flash demo -- some people have had trouble viewing it from a Netscape browser. We're working on that problem right now. If it happens to you, please send us an email and we'll let you know when the problem is fixed. Ray Nadeau: Thanks very much for your attention. We'll be happy to take any questions you have. Amy Sebring: Thank you for that overview Ray, and we can get into some more detail during Q&A... Amy Sebring: Audience please enter a question mark (?) to indicate you wish to be recognized, go ahead and compose your comment or question, but wait for recognition before hitting the enter key or clicking on Send. Amy Sebring: We now invite your questions/comments. Obhie Robinson: ? Donald Whytock: ? Amy Sebring: Obhie please when you are ready. Mike McNeill: ? Obhie Robinson: Can you make free form entries to the log? Ray Nadeau: Yes. Absolutely. Amy Sebring: Donald next please. Donald Whytock: Is there any means for sharing information...situation maps, etc? Obhie Robinson: ? Ray Nadeau: The entire software is a means of sharing information... Ray Nadeau: You can look at summary reports... Burt Wallrich: ? Ray Nadeau: And, of course, the entire software access allows anyone to share information... Ray Nadeau: However, we have found that most organizations already have a mapping system... Amy Sebring: ? Ray Nadeau: and we have opted to allow them to set up linkages from their mapping to our system... Ray Nadeau: If they don't have a mapping function, it can be purchased separately. Amy Sebring: Mike next please. Mike McNeill: How many users can use your system at one time? Ray Nadeau: 50 - 100 concurrent users. tim murphy: ? Amy Sebring: Obhie please. Obhie Robinson: I think you said that the program works with Internet Explorer. Does it work with Netscape as well? Ray Nadeau: Not at this time... Ray Nadeau: We've had inquiries and are looking into it. Amy Sebring: Burt next please. Cam King: ? Burt Wallrich: What is the cost. If size matters, ours is a nonprofit human services organization of about 70 people in one primary and about 10 satellite sites. Ray Nadeau: Cost depends on number of users... Ray Nadeau: And varies from approx. $12,000 Canadian for 10 users... Ray Nadeau: to $35,000 Canadian for 50 users... Ray Nadeau: Of course, these prices are somewhat negotiable. Amy Sebring: Am I correct in assuming that you can display any type ... Amy Sebring: of Web image where you showed the photo? Ray Nadeau: The software supports a jpeg format. Amy Sebring: Tim next please. tim murphy: I arrived late and this may have been briefed - what database software does it use? Ray Nadeau: Greg, that's a good one for you... Greg Bennett: Microsoft SQL server 7.0 Amy Sebring: Cam next please. tim murphy: thanks Cam King: Can it operate on the Internet say through a chat group and does it only work through your server? Ray Nadeau: It's intranet based software... Avagene Moore: ? Ray Nadeau: It can run on the internet, as we do for demonstration it,... Ray Nadeau: but most organizations prefer to keep in in-house, due to security issues. Lewis Roussel: ? Amy Sebring: Avagene please. Avagene Moore: What type of learning curve is there for the software? How many hours, etc? Is there a tutorial with the package or does it require your personnel to help? Ray Nadeau: We developed Emergency Manager to be extremely simple... Ray Nadeau: Many emergency responders are new, or under stress at the time of the incident... Ray Nadeau: Formal training is 2-3 hours... Mike McNeill: ? Ray Nadeau: The package comes with a user guide... Ray Nadeau: After that, it would take a user about 10 minutes to get up to speed... Ray Nadeau: We've actually had executives able to use it without training! Amy Sebring: Lewis next please. Isabel McCurdy: ? Lewis Roussel: What sort of activity logs are kept and can they be edited after they are created? Ray Nadeau: Greg, I'll send this one to you. Greg Bennett: You can add information to the activity.... Greg Bennett: but the initial information cannot be touched for due diligence reasons Amy Sebring: Mike next please. Mike McNeill: What customers currently use your software? Jim Acosta: ? Ray Nadeau: Right now we're just launching the software... Ray Nadeau: We've sold it to a local major electric utility, BC Hydro... Ray Nadeau: And have numerous corporations interested at this time. tim murphy: ? Amy Sebring: Isabel next please. Isabel McCurdy: How do the messages from family get posted? Are the families able to log into the message centre to post their messages from home? Ray Nadeau: The families are given a phone number to a call centre... Ray Nadeau: the messages are posted from the call centre. Amy Sebring: Jim next please. Jim Acosta: Will it be Windows 2000/Prof. and Server compatible? Amy Sebring: ? Greg Bennett: We have done preliminary tests with windows 2000..... Greg Bennett: and have not encountered any issues so far. Amy Sebring: Tim next please. tim murphy: Has it been field tested in a real event with heavy stress/ workload? Ray Nadeau: We used the software at Y2k... Ray Nadeau: As did BC Hydro, and it performed excellently... tim murphy: thanks Ray Nadeau: traffic was heavy, and we use it in our full-scale exercises with good results. Amy Sebring: Do the figures you quoted represent a one time cost? Do they include upgrades, tech support? Ray Nadeau: Minor enhancements and 10 hours of tech support are included in the numbers... David Crews: ? Ray Nadeau: And there is a small annual user fee. Amy Sebring: David next please. Bill Lent: Bill Lent? David Crews: Does it have report capability and templates? Ray Nadeau: Yes it does. Amy Sebring: By that you mean the reports are customizable? David Crews: Yes. Ray Nadeau: Yes. Amy Sebring: Bill next please. Bill Lent: Is there 24 hour support 7 days a week? Ray Nadeau: I'd like to add to that last answer -- most of the screens are customizable to your organizations. Ray Nadeau: Bill, we can arrange that if you need it. Amy Sebring: We are to the end of the line ... further questions or comments? Amy Sebring: I have one Ray that is a little off the topic of your software if you don't mind ... Amy Sebring: I am interested in EPICC, is there a Website for it? Amy Sebring: Is it an active organization in Canada? Ray Nadeau: Thanks for asking Amy... Ray Nadeau: There is a Website, I'm just searching frantically for it... Ray Nadeau: www.epicc.org Amy Sebring: Thanks, I would also like to know if you have any future plans for the software? Amy Sebring: Further enhancements, e.g.? Ray Nadeau: We're hoping to link it to a resource database... Ray Nadeau: and perhaps a GIS system... Ray Nadeau: We're also working on a wireless version. Amy Sebring: Finally, I am interested in your experience with using during exercise ... Amy Sebring: do you find good participation and that this is useful for training on your procedures? Ray Nadeau: Because it's linked to the roles and responsibilities from our emergency plans... Ray Nadeau: it helps people understand quickly what to do... Ray Nadeau: the other thing I'd like to mention is that during the exercise, the phones stopped ringing... Ray Nadeau: the confusion and noise and activity settles down significantly ... Ray Nadeau: the phones are not as necessary. Participants can communicate easily on line. tim murphy: is there a web site for the product itself? Ray Nadeau: Tim, thanks for asking... Ray Nadeau: www.emergencymanager.com Lewis Roussel: ? Amy Sebring: Lewis please when you are ready. Christopher Effgen: ? Lewis Roussel: I believe you mentioned earlier that status is updated every fifteen minutes. Correct? Ray Nadeau: The BBS screen is refreshed every 15 seconds. Ray Nadeau: (Bulletin Broadcast System) Amy Sebring: The rest is served dynamically Ray? Ray Nadeau: The rest is refreshed on every visit to the screen. Amy Sebring: Christopher please, last one. Christopher Effgen: Has any consideration been given to the issue of interoperability with other software performing similar functions? Ray Nadeau: Not at this time, if you mean interoperability with other agencies software... Christopher Effgen: yes Ray Nadeau: But we've had some questions about the possibility and we are considering it. Amy Sebring: Thank you very much for being with us today Ray and Greg. Also thanks to Amy Hennessy for her assistance. We very much appreciate your time and effort. Please stand by a moment while we take care of some business. Amy Sebring: Avagene can you tell us what is on for next week please? Avagene Moore: Thank you, Amy. And my personal appreciation to Ray and Greg (and Amy Hennessy in the background) for a fine demonstration in the EIIP Tech Arena. ... Avagene Moore: Next week, Wednesday October 4, 12:00 Noon Eastern time, we will present Monica Zaccarelli with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) regarding guidelines for international disaster donations. Management of donated goods in time of disaster continues to be a problem domestically as well. ... Avagene Moore: This is an area we have touched on only lightly before, and this will be an opportunity to get into the topic in a little more depth. Most of us can relate very well to this topic - we all have stories we can tell about donated goods. Avagene Moore: That's it for now, Amy. Amy Sebring: Thank you Ava. Our schedule for October will be out later this week, and our next issue of our monthly newsletter will also be out shortly. If you are not on our mailing list, see Amy Sebring: http://www.speccomm.com:81/guest/RemoteListSummary/EIIP to subscribe. Amy Sebring: Thanks to all our participants today. We will adjourn the session for now, but you are welcome to remain for open discussion. You no longer need to use question marks. Please help us express our appreciation to BC Gas for today's presentation.