Mutual Aid Management

If you have a mutual aid arrangement with another department that is also using First Look Pro, you may wish to share each other’s preplans. When you bring in records from a department as mutual aid, you can view those records but you can not edit them unless you first “Take Ownership” of those records.

To share your First Look Pro preplans with another department use the Backup command (under Database Management) to create a backup file of your records. The other department can then use Import Mutual Aid to bring your backup file into their First Look Pro.

To work with mutual aid databases, select Mutual Aid Management from the Database Tools Menu. There are three options for Mutual Aid Management – Delete Mutual Aid, Take Ownership, and Import Mutual Aid.

· Delete Mutual Aid Database

This command removes the mutual aid records of the chosen department from your database and removes the name of that mutual aid department from First Look Pro’s list of available mutual aid department records.

To delete a department’s mutual aid records from your database:

1.      In Edit Mode, select Mutual Aid Management from the Database Tools menu, then select Delete Mutual Aid Database.

The Delete Mutual Aid dialog box will appear, displaying a list of available mutual aid databases. 

2.      Checkmark the mutual aid department you wish to delete.

3.      Click the Delete button to complete the command
 

· Take Ownership

Normally, mutual aid records are kept separate from those of your own department and you can not edit mutual aid records. If, for some reason, you want to permanently incorporate some or all of the mutual aid records into your own First Look Pro database, you can use the Take Ownership command.

To take ownership of selected mutual aid records:

1.      Select Take Ownership from the Mutual Aid Management toolbox.

The First Look Pro Take Ownership box appears. 

2.      Select the name of the mutual aid department whose records you want from the drop-down list.

 The records from that department will be displayed in the box.

3.      Select the records you want to own by checking the boxes in the  “Own” column.  Uncheck the records you don’t want to take ownership into your database.

4.      Click the Take Ownership of Checked Rows button to complete the Take Ownership process. 

5.     The records you selected will be removed from mutual aid and permanently added to your database, and you will no longer have to go into Mutual Aid Mode to view them. 

You can now edit and delete these records just as you would your own records.

· Import Mutual Aid Database

For the purpose of providing mutual aid, you may want to import another fire or police department’s records into your First Look Pro database. The department you are sharing with will need to create a backup copy of their database onto a CD-ROM or a ZIP disk and supply you with it.  

To import a mutual aid database:

1.      Copy the other department’s database into its own folder on your computer. 

CAUTION!  DO NOT COPY IT INTO THE SAME FOLDER AS YOUR OWN FIRSTLOOKPRO DATABASE!!  IF YOU DO THAT YOU WILL OVERWRITE YOUR OWN DATABASE.

2.  Select Import Mutual Aid from the Mutual Aid Management toolbox.

3.      If you are importing from a backup file, check the “From Backup File” radio button and browse to the location of the file.

4.      If you are importing the records over a network, check the “From Network” radio button and then click the Search Network button. A message will appear notifying you how many First Look Pro servers have been located.

If more than one FLP server is located, click the drop-down arrow to display the list of servers. Choose the server from the list where the desired mutual aid database is located.

5.  Click the Show Information button.

The records contained in the database on the selected server are displayed in the records preview window. If you do not want to import all of their records, you can uncheck the records you don’t want before performing the Import.

7.      Click the Import Selected Records button.

A network install progress dialog appears displaying the progress of the import process.

Note:  If there are a lot of records involved, the import process can take several minutes.

8.      When the process is complete a notification box will appear. Click the OK button to complete finish the import process.

The mutual aid records will be added to your database, but you will only be able to view them by switching to Mutual Aid mode.  To view the Mutual Aid records, choose Select Mutual Aid from the File menu (in View Mode only) and select the name of the mutual aid department from the list of mutual aid departments.  You cannot edit mutual aid records unless you first Take Ownership of the records and add them to your own database.