The kit option is designed to assist all volunteers of whatever level and involvement to better manage their kit so they when they turn up for a task they are adequately equipped and to speed up the time it takes them to get ready to before leaving home for a task.

Personal gear

I am a rescue volunteer for a SAR group based in British Columbia and a requirement is to have a 24hr ready pack, this is ideally a pack ready by the door that has everything required to survive for 24hrs in the wilderness.  The reality is that most volunteers, myself included, use their personal gear for other activities and it is not realistic to have a complete ready pack pre-assembled for when a call comes in.  Further due to the diverse seasons and climates where I live a ready pack for summer is different from a ready pack for spring and fall which is different from a ready pack for winter; at the start of each season I always find my pack usually has one or two items I do not need that is adding weight and one or two items are missing.

The idea behind the kit option is to allow the creation of checklists of items that you need for a particular piece of kit, this could be

• A 24hr ready pack
• The base layering system under a drysuit for summer swiftwater rescue
• The base layering system under a drysuit for winter ice rescue
• What personal gear you need on your harness for a technical rope rescue
• etc...

I actually have a shelving system in my basement with all my outdoor gear and I do not keep the items in a pack but place them on the shelving system, using the kit option I can

• Go to my basement
• Pull out my phone
• Select the kit list I need for the task using the app
• Looking at the list of items required for the kit I can see what I need to add to the pack, where it can be found on the shelving system, in which pocket in the pack it should be placed and finally how many are required
• As I add the item to the pack I can tap the item and a green check mark appears informing me it has been added to the pack and if necessary I can adjust the quantity field as a reminder of how many of the items I have added
• Once I have added all the items I can then Lock the list to avoid any accidental updates and put the phone back in my pocket and leave for the task

When I have completed the task and returned home I can 

• Go to my basement
• Pull out my phone
• Select the kit list I used on the task
• Unlock the kit list so I can make updates again
• Unpack the items from my pack and from the app see where they should be put back on the shelving system
• By tapping on the item as I put it away it is marked as unselected

Using this approach I can also see if I have returned with everything I set out with and where items are missing I can see the replacement value for if and when I need to submit a claim to the group for lost or used items.

Group gear

Groups can also use this option to define kit lists such as

• Stretcher kit
• Portable repeater kit
• Ice resue kit
• Swiftwater kit
• etc...

Using the save to and load from cloud feature (subject of another blog) members can download group kit lists to their devices and when sent to get the items required for a kit before setting out can 

• Pull out their phone
• Select the kit list they need for the task using the app
• Looking at the list of items required for the kit they can see what items they need, where they can be found and finally how many are required
• As they add an item they can tap the screen and a green check mark appears informing them the item has been selected and if necessary they can adjust the quantity field as a reminder of how many of the item they have added
• Once they have added all the items they can then Lock the list to avoid any accidental updates and put the phone back in their pocket and leave for the task

When they have completed the task and returned to base they can 

• Pull out their phone
• Select the kit list used on the task
• Unlock the kit list so they can make updates again
• Unpack the items and see from the app see where they should be put back
• By tapping on the item as they put it away it is marked as unselected

As with personal gear they can also see if they have returned with everything they set out with and where items are missing they can see the replacement value for if and when the group needs to submit a claim for lost or used items.

In the future

The app has been designed for use by any group regardless of whether they use the main VolunteerRescue service or not but for groups that do use the main VolunteerRescue service a future release will provide the ability with group gear for a member once they have built the kit to submit this to the main service and assign it to an ongoing event.  When this is done the items will be automatically added to the event and the quantities currently available updated so group leaders can see what assets they have available at any one time.

When the team returns and the items replaced again the member responsible for disassembling the kit can submit this to the main VolunteerRescue service to update the available quantities.

To put in simple terms a check out and check in feature for assets.

The plan is to add a barcode reader to the app so items can be scanned when checked out and checked back in to be used as an alternative to screen taps.