Agencies

An agency is an emergency responder the alarm company can dispatch — police, fire, medical, or a patrol service. Agencies are records of their own, maintained centrally and then attached to installations through action plans; when an operator treats an alarm, the agency's phones, comments and response time are what the operator works from. Attaching agencies to plans is the Action Plans module; calling them is the Dispatch module. This module is about the register itself.

How the module progresses

1. Find an agency and read its record.
2. Add, copy, and correct agency records.
3. Link agencies to postal codes so installations find them.
4. See where an agency is used, and replace it everywhere at once.

1. Find an agency and read its record

Task: locate any agency and read from its record how the operator will experience it during dispatch.

Four programs, one way of working. Police (#1546), Fire (#1547), Medical (#1552) and Patrol (#1717) agencies each have their own program, and all four work identically: an upper pane with search parameters, a left pane listing agencies, a right pane with the selected agency's details. Search by agency ID, name, phone, zip code, or dealer — a blank dealer searches all dealers. Search [F6] fills the list; Get [ALT+F1] (or a double-click) fills the details.

The fields the operator lives on. Beyond name and address: the primary and secondary phones (with extensions), a third phone with a Phone Type — the type decides what dialling does, so a pager type opens the paging dialog instead of the dialer; four Comment lines (30 characters each) that appear when the operator zooms on the agency in Dispatch; Spec Info, whose text shows after the number is dialled but before the Call Resolution box opens; and Response Time, the agency's maximum response time in minutes.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): open #1546, search with all parameters blank, and Get the seeded training police agency (TRAIPD). Read the record aloud: which number the dialer will use, what the operator sees on zoom, and what shows after dialling.

Guided practice: find the seeded fire agency (TRAINF) two different ways — once by partial name, once by ID — and say which search parameter you would use when all you have is a phone number scribbled on a note.

Independent practice: from the record alone, answer for TRAIPD: what happens if an operator dials the third phone and its Phone Type is a pager type — and where would a "call before 22:00" instruction have to live so the operator sees it at the right moment?

2. Add, copy, and correct agency records

Task: create a complete agency record, base a second one on it, and correct an existing record.

Three fields make an agency. New [F3] opens the detail fields; the agency ID, Name and Phone are the required core — complete the rest: full address (the postal code matters in section 3), secondary phones, comments, response time.

Copy is the fast path. Copy Current Record [SHIFT+F3] fills the detail fields from the selected agency and leaves them open — change the ID, name and city and save.

Deleted is not gone. Delete [SHIFT+F10] removes the agency after a confirmation; Undelete [ALT+F10] lists deleted agencies and restores the one you pick.

Steps:

1. In the agency program, choose New [F3].
2. Enter ID, Name, Phone — then address with postal code, and any comments.
3. Save [ENTER].

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): in #1546, enter your own city's police agency from the workbook's Agencies to Enter sheet — training-suffixed name, fictitious phone, full address with the city's postal code.

Guided practice: the seeded police agency's name carries a typo. Find it, enter Change mode, fix the name, save — and confirm the corrected name in the list pane.

Independent practice: create your city's medical agency in #1552 and its patrol agency in #1717 from the workbook sheet; then delete the patrol agency, prove it is gone from a search, and restore it with Undelete.

3. Link agencies to postal codes so installations find them

Task: attach an agency to a postal code and predict which agencies an installation's action plan will offer.

The lookup is driven by the installation's postal code. When an action plan on an installation asks for an agency, SBN reads the installation's postal code and offers the agencies linked to that postal code — one list per agency type. An agency that exists but is linked to no postal code will not surface for any installation; an agency linked to the wrong code surfaces for the wrong premises. The links live in Zip Codes (#1718): zoom into a postal code and its agency grid lists the police, fire, medical and patrol agencies serving that code.

Steps:

1. Open Zip Codes (#1718) and Get the postal code.
2. Zoom into the sublevel — the agency grid.
3. Add a row per agency serving this code, and save.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): link the police agency you created in section 2 to your training city's postal code in #1718, alongside the seeded training police and fire agencies.

Guided practice: link your medical agency to the same code, then state — without opening Data Entry — the exact agency list an installation with that postal code will be offered for each of the four types.

Independent practice: one of your installations from the Creating Installations module has a postal code nothing is linked to yet. Decide which agencies should serve it, make the links, and explain what an operator would have faced on a fire alarm there before you did.

4. See where an agency is used — and replace it everywhere

Task: list every installation that relies on an agency, and swap an agency out of service without touching installations one by one.

The Installations tab in the agency program's sublevel searches all installations that carry the selected agency on an action plan; Get on a result opens the installation in Service/Data Entry (#559). This is the impact list — read it before changing or retiring an agency.

Swap Agency [F8] replaces the selected agency with another agency on the action plans of every installation that uses it, in one operation. When a responder reorganises — a detachment closes, a patrol contract changes hands — this is the tool.

Worked example (Branch TRAIN): in #1546, select the seeded training police agency and search its Installations tab — read which installations would be affected if this agency changed.

Guided practice: describe the Swap Agency steps you would take to retire the seeded police agency in favour of the one you created — and name the check you would run before pressing it.

Independent practice: the fire brigade for your training city merges into a regional service with a new name and number. Lay out the complete sequence — record, links, swap, verification — that leaves every installation dispatching correctly, and state which single step did the heavy lifting.

5. Quick reference

One-liners: four programs (#1546/#1547/#1552/#1717), identical handling, one shared register · agency ID + Name + Phone are the required core · comments show on zoom in Dispatch, Spec Info shows after dialling · the action-plan lookup offers agencies linked to the installation's postal code in #1718 · the Installations tab is the impact list; Swap Agency is the bulk replace.