OpsCenter conforms to your procedures and methodology through “Configurability” which is at the core of the OpsCenter design. Configurability provides your organization the capability to easily define and reflect your terminology, methodology, processes, and checklists.
You do not have to change your practices to satisfy the emergency management software. Furthermore, configuring OpsCenter is easy to do and contributes to a lower total cost of ownership than systems requiring customization.
The configurability of OpsCenter provides your organization the means to easily define and change the default settings in the system. A few examples of the things an authorized non-technical user can configure in OpsCenter:
- Determine which roles exist in the system and easily increase or decrease the number of screens visible for each role in their Navigator.
- Determine which columns appear on each Status Boards and the terminology for each column.
- Determine what fields appear on each form within the product, the name of the field, the in-line and hover help, the contents of the dropdown boxes and so forth.
- Change the order of tasks within a checklist, add to a checklist, or delete items from a checklist.
Configuration verses Customization
It is important to understand the difference between configuring a product and customizing it.
- Configuration changes are those the system accommodates without changing the software’s source code.
- Customization changes involve changing the code of the product.
Advantages of Configuring
A few advantages offered by OpsCenter configurability:
- A very high degree of flexibility for adapting the system to match the terminology, structure, processes, and roles to the way your organization responds to incidents.
- When integrating lessons learned from real emergencies, exercises, or changes in your plans, configurability allows a non-technical user to do this quickly and without help from a vendor.
- Configuration changes automatically migrate when upgrading to a newer version of OpsCenter and have no long-term costs to you.
- Configuration does not require the skill of a computer programmer.
- A system tailored to your methodology and familiar terminology is easier to learn, and the users attain a level of proficiency to use the system quicker.
Other Considerations
Alert Technologies can also help with the following:
- Modification of OpsCenter Documentation Alert consultants will modify existing Alert documentation to meet your specific requirements. Personalized documentation helps an organization save training time, improve productivity, and minimizes the impact of turnover.
- Assessments of Emergency Response Methodologies Alert consultants will review your existing EOC plans, identify critical functions and resources, and suggest ways to improve current processes.
- Conducting Benchmark and System Testing Alert's consultants perform testing to ensure that your deployed OpsCenter system is performing optimally. Alert consultants make recommendations and will further tune the system (if required) to ensure peak processing efficiency.
- Applying Your Corporate Look and Feel
- Language Translation
- Customizing Reports
- Adding Internet Links
- Organizing and Defining Roles
- Setting Role and User Security
- Setting Journal Levels
- Integration of Existing External Data into OpsCenter
- Transferring data from various existing data sources into OpsCenter