Setup Department

This guide walks you through every step needed to get your Resgrid department configured and ready for day-to-day use. Work through the sections in order — each one builds on the previous.

Before You Begin

Collect the following information so you have it handy as you configure each section:

What you need	Example
Department name	Smallville Fire & Rescue
Department street address	123 Main St, Smallville, KS 66002, US
Response-area centre coordinates (decimal)	38.8783, −77.0687
Time zone	Eastern Standard Time
Station / group names and addresses	Station 1 — 100 Elm St …
Personnel role names	Firefighter, EMT, Captain, Driver
User names + email addresses for each member
Unit types you use	Engine, Ladder, Ambulance, Rescue
Unit names & assigned stations	Engine 1 @ Station 1
Any custom personnel status labels you want	Responding, On Scene, Available, etc.
Any custom staffing-level labels you want	Available, Light Duty, Off Duty, etc.
Any custom unit status labels (per unit type)	In Service, Out of Service, Responding, etc.

Recommended Setup Order

1. Department Settings → 2. Groups & Stations → 3. Roles → 4. Personnel (Users) → 5. Unit Types → 6. Units → 7. Custom Statuses

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1 — Department Settings

Navigate to Department → Settings in the left-hand menu.

General Settings

Field	Description
Department Name	The display name of your department (required).
Time Zone	Select your local time zone from the dropdown (required).
Use 24 Hour Time	Check this if your department uses 24-hour (military) time.
Managing User	The account owner / primary administrator. Select from the user dropdown.
Disable Auto Available	When checked, users will not be automatically set to "Available" status when they log in.

Sorting Options

Field	Description
Personnel Sorting	How the personnel list is ordered (Default, First Name, Last Name, or Group).
Unit Sorting	How units are ordered in lists.
Call Sorting	How dispatch calls are ordered.

Department Address

This is the primary physical address for your department and is used as the default map centre.

Field	Description
Street	Street address (required).
City	City (required).
State	State or province (required).
Zip / Postal Code	Postal code (required).
Country	Select your country from the dropdown (required).
Default Map Center Latitude	Decimal latitude for the centre of your response area (e.g. 38.8783).
Default Map Center Longitude	Decimal longitude for the centre of your response area (e.g. -77.0687).

Personnel Staffing Reset (optional)

If you want every member's staffing level to automatically reset at a certain time each day:

1. Toggle Enable Staffing Reset to On.
2. Set the Time to Reset Staffing (e.g. 06:00).
3. Choose the Reset Staffing Level To value from the dropdown (uses the default levels, or your custom staffing levels if configured).

Personnel Status Reset (optional)

Works the same way as staffing reset but for personnel status:

1. Toggle Enable Status Reset to On.
2. Set the Time to Reset Status.
3. Choose the Reset Status Level To value.

Save

Click Save at the bottom of the page. A green confirmation banner will appear when settings are saved successfully.

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2 — Groups & Stations

Groups organise your personnel and units into logical groupings. Resgrid has two group types:

Type	When to use	Location required?
Station Group	Represents a physical location (fire station, precinct, base).	Yes — street address, GPS coordinates, or what3words
Organizational Group	A logical / administrative grouping (team, division, squad).	No

Navigate to Department → Groups in the left-hand menu.

Create a New Group

1. Click Add New Group.
2. Choose the Group Type:
   • Station — you must provide a location (address, lat/long, or what3words).
   • Organizational — no location required.
3. Enter a Group Name (required, max 50 characters).
4. Optionally select a Parent Group (for nesting organizational groups under a station, for example).
5. For Station groups, fill in at least one location method:
   • Street / City / State / Postal Code / Country, or
   • Latitude / Longitude in decimal format, or
   • what3words address (e.g. humble.echo.sticky).
6. Add Group Admins — select users who can manage this group.
7. Add Group Users — select the members assigned to this group.
8. Click Save.

info

A user can only belong to one group at a time. If you try to add someone who is already in another group you will receive a validation error.

tip

After creating a Station group you can draw a Geofence polygon on the map by clicking the Geofence button on the group list. This defines the station's response area boundary.

Edit or Delete a Group

• Click Edit next to the group to change its name, members, or location.
• Click Delete to remove a group. Deletion is blocked if the group still has users, child groups, units, or shifts assigned — you must move or remove those dependencies first.

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3 — Personnel Roles

Roles describe what function a person performs in your department (e.g. Firefighter, EMT, Captain, Driver/Operator). A person can hold multiple roles.

Navigate to Personnel → Roles in the left-hand menu.

Create a New Role

1. Click Add New Role.
2. Enter the Role Name (required, must be unique within the department).
3. Optionally add a Description explaining the role.
4. Click Save.

Repeat for every role your department uses.

Assign Users to a Role

1. Click Edit next to the role.
2. In the Users multi-select, choose the department members who hold this role.
3. Click Save.

tip

You can also assign roles to users when you create or edit their personnel record (see the next section).

Using Roles to Work Around the One-Group Limitation

Because a user can only belong to one group at a time, roles become the primary tool for organizing people across group boundaries. Unlike groups, a user can hold any number of roles simultaneously, and Resgrid lets you dispatch by role — making roles the key to flexible, cross-group operations.

Example 1 — Cross-Trained Personnel

Your department has Station 1 and Station 2. Several members are cross-trained as both Firefighters and EMTs and may need to respond with either station depending on the call.

Setup:

• Place each person in their primary station group (the one they report to most often).
• Create roles such as Firefighter, EMT, and Paramedic.
• Assign the appropriate roles to each person regardless of which station group they belong to.

Dispatching: When you create a call, Resgrid lets you dispatch by role in addition to (or instead of) by group. Selecting the EMT role on a dispatch will notify every member with that role across all stations — effectively dispatching cross-group without moving anyone.

Example 2 — Specialty Teams That Span Multiple Stations

You have a HazMat team and a Water Rescue team whose members are drawn from several different stations.

Setup:

• Keep every member in their home station group.
• Create roles named HazMat Team and Water Rescue Team.
• Assign those roles to the qualified members, regardless of station.

Dispatching: Dispatch to the HazMat Team role and all qualified members across every station receive the call. No need to pull people out of their station groups.

Example 3 — Officers and Command Staff

Your captains and chiefs need to be reachable for command-level dispatches but they physically belong to individual stations.

Setup:

• Each officer stays in their home station group.
• Create roles like Captain, Battalion Chief, and Incident Commander.
• Assign the appropriate command roles.

Dispatching: A mutual-aid or large-incident dispatch can target the Battalion Chief role to notify all battalion chiefs department-wide, while a routine call still goes to a single station group.

Example 4 — Volunteers Who Cover Multiple Stations

Volunteer departments often have members who respond to whichever station is closest or needs staffing.

Setup:

• Assign each volunteer to a primary station group (e.g. the one nearest their home).
• Create a role called Volunteer Pool (or more specific roles like Volunteer Firefighter, Volunteer EMT).
• Assign the role to every cross-covering volunteer.

Dispatching: When a station is short-staffed, dispatch to both the station group and the Volunteer Pool role. All volunteers across the department will be notified and can respond to whichever station needs them.

Key Takeaway

Think of groups as where a person is physically based (one location) and roles as what a person can do or which teams they belong to (many at once). Use group-based dispatch for routine, location-specific calls and role-based dispatch when you need to reach people across group boundaries.

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4 — Adding Personnel (Users)

Navigate to Personnel in the left-hand menu.

Add a New User

1. Click Add Person.
2. Fill in the Account Information:

Field	Description
Username	The login username (required, must be unique).
Password / Confirm Password	Must be at least 8 characters with uppercase, lowercase, and numbers.

3. Fill in the User Details:

Field	Description
ID Number	Optional badge / employee number.
First Name	Required.
Last Name	Required.
Email Address	Required. Must be unique across all Resgrid accounts.

4. Set the Group Details:

Field	Description
Group	Select the group (station or organizational) for this user, or "No Group".
Is Group Admin	Check if this user should be an administrator of the selected group.

5. Select Roles — choose one or more roles from the multi-select (roles you created in Step 3).

6. Configure Contact Details:

Field	Description
Mobile Number	The user's mobile phone number (optional).
Mobile Carrier	Required if a mobile number is provided.
Call Options	How the user is notified of dispatch calls — Email, Text, and/or Push.
Message Options	How the user receives messages — Email, Text, and/or Push.
Notification Options	How the user receives system notifications — Email, Text, and/or Push.

7. Notify User — check this to send the new user a welcome email with their login credentials.
8. Click Add Person.

Invite Existing Users

If someone already has a Resgrid account (e.g. they belong to another department), you can invite them instead. Navigate to Department → Invites, enter their email address(es) (comma-separated), and click Send Invites.

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5 — Unit Types

Unit types categorise your apparatus or vehicles (e.g. Engine, Ladder, Ambulance, Rescue, Brush Truck). Each unit type can optionally be linked to a custom unit status set (configured in Step 7).

Navigate to Department → Types and find the Unit Types section.

Create a New Unit Type

1. Click Add Unit Type.
2. Enter the Name (required, e.g. Engine).
3. Select the Actions dropdown:
   • Standard Actions — uses the built-in unit statuses (Available, Delayed, Unavailable, Committed, Out Of Service, Responding, On Scene, etc.).
   • Or select a custom unit status set you have already created (see Step 7).
4. Select a Map Icon — choose the icon that will represent this unit type on the map (e.g. Truck, Ambulance, Car, Helicopter, etc.) or leave as Default.
5. Click Save.

note

If you haven't created custom unit statuses yet, select Standard Actions for now. You can come back and edit the unit type later to link a custom status set after you create one in Step 7.

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6 — Units

Units are the individual vehicles, apparatus, or equipment your department operates.

Navigate to Units in the left-hand menu.

Create a New Unit

1. Click New Unit.
2. Fill in the form:

Field	Description
Name	Required. Must be unique within your department (e.g. Engine 1, Medic 3).
Type	Select the unit type from the dropdown (types created in Step 5).
Station	Assign this unit to a station group, or select "No Station".

3. Add Roles (optional) — these are seat/position roles specific to this unit (e.g. Driver, Officer, Firefighter). Click Add Role to add rows, then type a role name in each row. These are different from department-wide personnel roles — they represent the positions on this specific unit.
4. Click Save.

Assign Personnel to Unit Roles

After creating your units and their roles, you can staff them:

1. Navigate to Units and click Unit Staffing.
2. For each unit that has roles defined, you will see dropdowns for each role.
3. Select a department member for each role slot.
4. Click Save.

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7 — Custom Statuses (Optional)

Resgrid comes with built-in default statuses for personnel, staffing, and units. If the defaults don't fit your department's workflow, you can create fully custom status sets with your own labels, colours, and behaviour.

Navigate to Custom Statuses in the left-hand menu.

There are three types of custom statuses:

Type	What it tracks	How many active sets?
Personnel Status (Actions)	What a person is doing — e.g. Responding, On Scene, Available	One set for the entire department
Personnel Staffing	A person's availability / readiness — e.g. Available, Light Duty, Off Duty	One set for the entire department
Unit Status	A unit's operational status — e.g. In Service, Responding, Out of Service	One set per unit type

Create Custom Personnel Statuses

1. In the Personnel Status section, click Set Custom Statuses.
2. Enter a Name for the status set (e.g. Fire Department Personnel Actions).
3. Optionally add a Description.
4. Click Add Option to add each status. For each option, fill in:

Field	Description
Button Text	The label shown on the status button (e.g. Responding).
Button Color	Background colour for the button (use the colour picker).
Text Color	Text colour for the button.
Base Type	Maps this custom status to a system-level behaviour so Resgrid knows its meaning. Options: Available, Not Responding, Responding, On Scene, Dispatched, Cleared, Returning, Staging, Unavailable, or None.
Require GPS	Check if selecting this status should require the user's GPS location.
Detail Type	What additional picker appears when this status is selected: None (no picker), Calls (pick an active call), Stations (pick a station), or Calls and Stations (pick either).
Note Type	Whether a free-text note is shown: None, Optional, or Required.

5. Repeat Add Option for each status you need.
6. Click Save.

Create Custom Personnel Staffing Levels

1. In the Personnel Staffing section, click Set Custom Staffing Levels.
2. Enter a Name (e.g. Staffing Levels).
3. Click Add Option for each staffing level:

Field	Description
Button Text	The label (e.g. Available, Light Duty, Off Duty).
Button Color	Background colour.
Text Color	Text colour.
Note Type	None, Optional, or Required.

info

Personnel Staffing levels do not have Base Type, Require GPS, or Detail Type options — those fields only apply to Personnel Status and Unit Status types.

4. Click Save.

Create Custom Unit Statuses

You can create a different status set for each unit type. For example, your engines might have different statuses than your ambulances.

1. In the Unit Statuses section, click Add Unit Statuses.
2. Enter a Name (e.g. Engine Statuses).
3. Click Add Option for each status:

Field	Description
Button Text	The label (e.g. In Service, Responding, Out of Service).
Button Color	Background colour.
Text Color	Text colour.
Base Type	Maps to system behaviour — same options as personnel statuses.
Require GPS	Check if GPS location is required when selecting this status.
Detail Type	None, Calls, Stations, or Calls and Stations.
Note Type	None, Optional, or Required.

4. Click Save.
5. Link the status set to a unit type: Navigate to Department → Types → Unit Types, edit the desired unit type, and change the Actions dropdown from "Standard Actions" to your new custom status set.

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Summary Checklist

Use this checklist to confirm you've completed every step:

• Department Settings — name, address, time zone, map centre, and sorting configured
• Groups / Stations — all station and organisational groups created with members assigned
• Roles — all personnel roles created (e.g. Firefighter, EMT, Captain)
• Personnel — all users added with correct group, roles, and notification preferences
• Unit Types — all apparatus types created (e.g. Engine, Ladder, Ambulance)
• Units — all units created with type, station, and unit-specific roles
• Custom Personnel Statuses — configured (if desired) instead of defaults
• Custom Personnel Staffing — configured (if desired) instead of defaults
• Custom Unit Statuses — configured and linked to the appropriate unit types (if desired)

Once all of the above are complete your department is ready for operational use. Personnel can log in, set their status, and dispatchers can begin creating and dispatching calls.