User manual

The app: chat and PTT

The Dronetrake app for Android puts three things in your pocket: chat with the people of your organisation, PTT to talk with a button like on a radio, and the bodycam that sends live video and position to the room. It works with the screen off and, where the organisation asked for it, carries its name and logo.

This page has two parts. In the field is for whoever holds the phone. In the room is for the owner, administrators, operations centre and room operators, who decide from the panel who talks to whom.

In the field

Linking the phone

The app asks for no password. It asks for an 8-character code that works once and for a few minutes: you get it from the panel, under Communications → App and devices → Link a device. Type it in the Link the phone screen or scan the QR with the camera: the phone comes in under your name.

If you belong to several organisations, the app shows them all: channels, chats and people of each. If the code has expired, the app says so and you ask for a new one. Log out unlinks the phone: to come back you need a new code.

A phone of a collaborator without panel access is linked by an administrator with Link a collaborator's phone: the phone comes in with that person's name and the log records who asked for the code.

The list

The app opens on three tabs: Channels, Chat and People. Above them is Bodycam and position, at the top your profile with photo. Refresh re-reads everything from the server.

The Chat tab is split in two blocks. At the top Groups and channels: the organisation chat, service groups, operational chats, free groups and PTT channels. At the bottom People: one-to-one conversations. Each conversation shows the last message and, if any, a dot with the unread count; a message arriving while you are on another screen appears as a notice at the top.

The chats, one per use

• Organisation chat: always there, with everyone in the organisation. Moderated by the owner and administrators. It is the place for messages to all.
• One-to-one: from Write to… pick a person of your organisation. It stays until you delete it, and you can download it as a text file, also to carry it to a new phone.
• Free groups: from New group pick a name and people. For the pizza after the mission or the guard of honour: they never go into the dossier and whoever creates them closes them for everyone.
• Service groups: always on, one per qualification (wildfire, hydrogeological risk) or for a routine service. Inside, automatically, those who hold the qualification, plus owner, administrators and room operators. Whoever lacks the qualification enters only with a temporary qualification, 1 to 7 days, granted by whoever manages.
• Mission or activation chat: one per mission or activation, opened by the room. Everything goes into the dossier, messages cannot be deleted, you enter by invitation.
• Emergency chat: when the room opens an activation, the chat is born by itself with everyone alerted and PTT already on. No pre-alarm: it fires for all.

Operational and service chats carry the banner Everything goes into the dossier: what you write there stays on record.

Writing

The Write a message field takes text; with Attach you add a photo taken or from the gallery, a video up to 50 MB, the position of the phone. A voice note is recorded by holding; you can pause, resume and listen again before sending. Photos, videos, voice notes and positions sent in an operational chat also carry the sending point.

In free chats a message can be deleted for everyone. In operational chats it cannot: it stays, because it is evidence. Leave the group takes you out of a free group; you leave an operational chat only if the administrator removes you, or with Leave, knowing you will not read it any more.

Download the chat in the More menu produces a text file with every message, to share or keep. Every participant can do it.

Talking with the button

A PTT channel is a group of people who talk with the button. There are pair channels (two people) and team channels (two to thirty). In the Channels tab you tap the channel and then Join the channel: from then on you hear all the other members, even with the screen off, until you press Leave the channel.

To talk, hold the big HOLD TO TALK button. One at a time: the server grants the turn and it lasts at most 60 seconds, then it passes. If someone else is talking you see Talking and their name; if the channel is free you see Channel free. Whoever has a higher priority, for example the room, takes the floor even while you are talking. The PTT button of a linked radio or bodycam works too.

Speaker moves the voice from the earpiece to the loudspeaker. Black screen turns the screen off without stopping listening: hold to come back, and do not use the phone's power button, because it stops the video.

PTT is also inside service and operational chats: when whoever manages turns it on, every participant gets the notice PTT on and the chat shows Open PTT. Everyone listens, one at a time talks. A group with more than 30 people cannot turn PTT on.

Calling a person

In the People tab every colleague of your organisation has a Call button: their phone rings, they see who is calling and choose Answer or Ignore. If they answer you are in line and talk together without holding anything, like on the phone; Hang up ends it. If they do not answer or ignore, the app tells you.

To receive calls with the app closed, switch on On duty: the app stays awake with the screen off and uses some battery. The app warns you if something is missing, with the Fix button that opens the right setting: notifications off, battery saver, and on Xiaomi the permissions Show on lock screen and Background pop-up windows, without which the call rings but does not open.

The activation alarm

When the room opens an activation and alerts you, the phone rings full screen with the word ACTIVATION and the event name, even when locked. Press RECEIVED: the room sees you have been alerted. If it is a drill, it says so. If there is no network, the alarm goes quiet and the confirmation leaves by itself as soon as the network is back.

Bodycam and position

Bodycam and position opens the bodycam page under your name: live video from the phone, or position only, to the room. If you belong to several organisations, you choose which one you broadcast for. Closing stops live video and position. The rest is on the Bodycam page.

The phone

Permissions are asked at the gesture, not at start: microphone and notifications when you join a channel, camera and position when you use them. If you deny them, the app explains what is missing.

On Xiaomi and other phones with aggressive battery saving, put the app among those without battery restrictions: otherwise listening falls asleep with the screen off. With On duty on, keep the phone charging when you can.

In the room

Who does what

Owner, administrators, operations centre and room operators are inside all the organisation's operational, service and emergency chats, always. Only they open operational chats and service groups and turn on group PTT. A pilot becomes a room operator from Team → Room operators, also for a limited time.

The organisation chat is born by itself for every organisation with the app; the owner and administrators moderate it.

Communications → Chats and PTT

This is the page that governs voice. It lists the organisation's open chats: organisation, service, operational, emergency, with type, how many people, whether PTT is on and the last message.

• New service group: pick a qualification and the group fills by itself with those who hold it; without a qualification you pick the people, for a routine service. Whoever opens it manages it.
• Turn PTT on / Turn PTT off: participants get PTT on and can talk with the button in the app. At most 30 people.
• People: add or remove in groups without a qualification. In groups with a qualification people enter with the qualification, from Team or temporarily from the app.
• Read the chat: the chat as it is, with the chain.
• Close the chat: it moves to the Archive with all its messages, PTT turns off.

Manual PTT channels, pair or team, are in the second row of tabs: name, type, people, on or off. A channel switched off by the room cannot be used.

Team → Qualifications

Qualifications are the organisation's titles: wildfire, hydrogeological risk, water rescue. Each has its list of holders, with an optional expiry: at expiry the qualification lapses and the person leaves the service groups tied to it. Remove the qualification does the same immediately.

From the app, whoever manages a group with a qualification can add a person who does not hold it: the app asks for how many days it is valid, 1, 3 or 7, and writes a temporary qualification. At expiry the person leaves by themselves.

The emergency

When the room opens an activation and alerts people, the activation chat is born with whoever is in command and everyone alerted, including the contacts of the participating organisations in joint operations. PTT turns on by itself if they are at most 30. Whoever opens the activation is, on record, the one who turned PTT on. When the activation closes the chat is read-only.

Archive → Operational chats

Here operational, service and emergency chats are read: chain intact or altered, people, media by type with the sending point, download as a text file. Every PTT turn enters the chat's chain: who talked, when and for how long. Audio is not recorded: the register of turns remains, not the voice.

In the second row of tabs, Chat media gathers photos, videos and voice notes of all operational chats.

Communications → App and devices

Here each person links their own phone with Link a device and sees their devices: name, linked on, last use, status. Revoke unlinks a lost or replaced phone; to come back a new code is needed. An administrator also links the phone of a collaborator without panel access, under that person's name.