Incidents List
Your starting point for everything that is happening in the field — open active incidents, review closed ones, and jump into an incident workspace.
The Incidents area is reached from the Incidents tab on the main dashboard. It shows the incident-related tools your agency has turned on, laid out as a grid of tappable icons. Tapping a tile opens that tool — most commonly the live list of incidents, where you can review what is active, search for a specific event, and open one to start working it.
Overview
The Incidents screen presents the tools enabled for your agency as a grid of icons. The grid re-measures itself every time the screen appears or the device rotates, so it always fills the width you have.
| Screen size / orientation | Tiles across |
|---|---|
| Phone, portrait | 2 |
| Tablet, portrait | 3 |
| Any device, landscape | 4 |
| Element | Description |
|---|---|
| Tool tiles | Each tile is one incident tool your agency has enabled. Tiles are square, evenly spaced, and always show an icon above a label. |
| Tile label | The tool's name, exactly as your agency named it. Text is larger on tablets than on phones. |
| Tile colors | The icon color, tile background, and label color all come from your agency's setup — enabled tiles use one color set and disabled tiles another, so a tile you cannot open looks visibly dimmer. |
| Unread badge | A small number in the corner of a tile counts unread items (for example new messages) tied to that tool. The badge is hidden when the count is zero. |
| Up arrow | Scrolls the grid back to the first tile. Hidden when you are already at the top. |
| Down arrow | Scrolls the grid to the last tile. Hidden when there are no more tiles below. |
The exact tiles you see depend on how your agency has configured the Incidents area and on your permissions. A dimmed tile is currently turned off for your account — tapping it does nothing, and there is no error message.
What the arrow colors mean
The scroll arrows do more than scroll. They tell you whether unread activity is waiting off-screen.
| Arrow appearance | Meaning |
|---|---|
| White arrow | There are more tiles in that direction, but nothing unread among them. |
| Red arrow | A tile that is off-screen (or only partly visible) in that direction has unread activity. Scroll that way to find it. |
| No arrow | You have reached the top or the bottom of the grid. |
Loading and empty states
| State | What you see |
|---|---|
| Icons still downloading | A tile briefly shows without its artwork while the icon is fetched, then the icon fills in. Once downloaded, icons are stored on the device and appear instantly next time. |
| No tools enabled | The grid is empty. Nothing is broken — your agency has not enabled any incident tools for your account. |
| Counts still syncing | Badges may appear a moment after the grid draws, as unread counts are read from the device's local store. |
Getting Here
- From the main dashboard, tap the Incidents tab.
- The grid of incident tools appears.
- Tap the tile for the incident list (or the tool you need) to open it.
Returning to the Incidents tab always re-reads your agency's tool list, so a tool an administrator just enabled for you shows up without restarting the app.
Browsing Active and Closed Incidents
Inside the incidents list, incidents are organized so you can separate what is happening now from what has already wrapped up.
- Open the incidents list tile from the Incidents grid.
- Use the Active view to see incidents that are currently open.
- Switch to the Closed view to review incidents that have been resolved.
How time is shown differs between the two:
| Incident state | Time display |
|---|---|
| Open | A live clock counting up from the incident's start time, refreshed every second. Under a day it reads as hours, minutes, and seconds (for example 04:12:37). Past a day it adds the day count (1 Day 04:12:37, then 3 Days 04:12:37). |
| Closed | A fixed total duration recorded when the incident was closed. It does not change. |
Open incidents update live. The timer you see on an active incident counts up in real time, so you always know how long an event has been running.
Searching and Filtering
When the list is long, narrow it down to find the incident you need.
- Tap the Search field at the top of the list.
- Type any part of the incident name, number, or address.
- The list filters as you type.
- Clear the field to return to the full list.
Search looks at the incidents already loaded onto your device, so it works even on a weak connection. If an incident you expect is missing, pull the list to refresh it while you have signal.
Creating a New Incident
If your account has permission to add incidents, you can start a new one directly from the list.
- Tap the Add (+) button.
- Fill in the incident details on the form that appears. The fields are defined by your agency's template — commonly name, type, location, and any required reference numbers.
- Tap Save to create the incident and add it to the active list.
The Add button only appears if your agency has granted you the add permission for this tool. Editing an existing incident is a separate edit permission. If you do not see the control you expect, contact your administrator.
Opening an Incident
- Tap any incident in the list to open it.
- The incident opens to its tabbed workspace — Info, Comms, Maps, and Additional.
- From there you can review information, communicate, work the map, and — if enabled — open the full Command View to run the incident.
See Incident Overview for a tour of the tabbed workspace.
Opening Other Incident Tools
Not every tile opens an incident list. The grid can also hold communication tools, and each one opens its own screen:
| Tile type | What opens |
|---|---|
| Messages | The incident messaging list, where you pick a conversation to read or reply. |
| Audio | The audio streaming screen for listening to agency channels. |
| Phone | The phone screen for placing calls over the network. |
| Anything else | A form-based screen built from your agency's template, such as an incident log or report. |
How This Connects
The Incidents grid is a window onto what your agency has configured on the server, and the incidents inside it are the shared record every responder works from.
- Where the tiles come from. Your agency defines which tools appear, what they are called, what icon and colors they use, and whether your account can view, add, edit, or share each one. That list is refreshed when the Incidents tab appears, so changes an administrator makes show up on their own.
- Where the badges come from. Unread counts are read from the copy of your messages and incident activity held on the device. New traffic arriving over your live connection updates the badges in place — you do not need to reopen the tab.
- What updates the list. Opening an incident loads its full record into the workspace, which is what the Info, Comms, Maps, and Additional tabs all read from. Anything you or anyone else changes there — a form field, a note, a map object, a PAR check — belongs to that one shared record.
- The same incident, two ways in. The four tabs are the read-and-report view. The Command View is the run-the-incident view, and it embeds those same four tabs alongside the command board. See Command Tabs.
- Offline. Tiles, cached icons, and the incidents already downloaded stay visible and searchable without a connection. Live timers keep counting because they are calculated on the device from the incident's start time. What does not work offline is creating an incident, refreshing the list, downloading a new tile icon, or opening a tool that has to fetch fresh data.
- On reconnect. Unread badges and the incident list catch up on their own. Anything you changed inside an incident while offline is sent when the connection returns — open the incident and confirm your changes are still there before relying on them.
Troubleshooting
| If this happens | What to do |
|---|---|
| A tile looks dimmed and tapping it does nothing | Your account does not have view permission for that tool. Ask your administrator to enable it. |
| The Add (+) button is missing | You do not have add permission for this tool. An administrator has to grant it. |
| A tile has no icon | The icon has not finished downloading. Make sure you have a connection and reopen the Incidents tab. |
| The grid is empty | No incident tools are enabled for your account, or your agency list has not synced. Reconnect and reopen the tab. |
| An incident you expect is not in the list | Refresh the list while you have signal, and check whether it has been closed — switch to the Closed view. |
| A scroll arrow is red but you cannot see anything new | The unread item is on a tile that is off-screen. Tap the red arrow to jump that way, then look for the tile with a number badge. |
| The timer on an open incident looks wrong | The clock counts from the incident's recorded start time. If the start time was entered incorrectly, it has to be corrected on the incident record. |
| Tiles are cramped or overlapping after rotating | Leave the Incidents tab and come back. The grid re-measures itself when the screen appears. |
| The screen keeps dimming while you are monitoring the list | Turn off the setting that allows the phone to sleep, so the screen stays awake while the app is open. |
Related Pages
Next: Incident Overview ➡️