Watch this short video covering the Dispatch Tab in NERIS for a guided walkthrough of this section
The dispatch tab is the main home page of the NERIS report
From here, you can fill out your incident times with more detail and information compared to the old NFIRS system as seen below:
Note: PSAP stands for Public Safety Answering Point, such as a Dispatch center or Call Center. Both PSAP times are Mandatory for NERIS submission.
The Same dispatch times button is used for departments that do not have a CAD interface or self dispatch system. Similar to the Same buttons within a NFIRS report, this copies the Call Create time, into the following sections:
- PSAP Call Answered
- PSAP Call Arrived
- Incident Clear
Mutual aid:
You can then select if there is a different type of support agency providing aid other than a fire department
To create a mutual aid record, click New
Then fill out the respective information, whether mutual aid was given, or received by the department, type of aid and the department ID
Note: You will need to enter the NERIS ID of each Mutual Aid department in your system in order for the ID to appear in the following section, and be submittable to NERIS for Mutual Aid Reporting
Then it will update the record
The ID will not populate if the department does not have the NERIS ID entered under the agencies section of System Setup.
If you provided mutual aid to a department, and it was not your alarm, you can specifically select the "Aid Given" Option in the "Direction Aid Was Provided" dropdown, this will not require you to complete the following reports depending on which incident type you select:
- Fire Report
- Hazardous Situation Report
- Medical Report
Incident Type Select:
From here, select the incident type like you would in a NFIRS report, and any special modifiers relating to the alarm
You can sort your incident types by using the radio buttons that pertain to a specific alarm type, as an example, clicking the Fire Type button will filter down to just fire incident types in the drop down:
Or, if the alarm is a chimney fire, you can type Chi and the respective incident type will show in the list:
Once you select an incident type it will be added to the list:
You can also configure Sub Types for your department for even faster entry of NERIS incident times within NERIS Setup
This way, if your department refers to an incident of an MVA Rescue as a code 52, you can create a "Subtype" of code 50, and link that to a NERIS incident Type. We cover how to make Subtypes here: NERIS Setup Subtypes
With NERIS, you will have to select the primary incident type, but you can add a maximum of 3 Incident Types, including the primary, under the incident if applicable.
You can also track the service awards type that is applicable to your department for this specific incident
You can choose from Ignore, Fire LOSAP, or EMS LOSAP types, and specify what you would like these to be called if applicable to your department. If your department does not use LOSAP types for incidents, this field can be disabled. This is configured in the NERIS Setup section here: 4. Service Awards Tab (NERIS Setup)
Authorization is handled the same way in NERIS as it was in NFIRS, and is visible at the bottom of the report under the incident types
You can also track any property losses, or damages similar to the old NFIRS system at the bottom of the screen below authorization