What is an Operational Status Board?
Historically, a checklist or other pre-defined summary information drawn on a whiteboard was a status board within an emergency operations center or incident command center. Individual elements of a status board were manually updated by emergency management personnel. Status boards have migrated from whiteboards to electronic Word files, Excel spreadsheets, and locally designed web pages. Electronic documents and web pages are usually displayed via an overhead projector. These techniques are inadequate for timely sharing of information across multiple locations to other emergency management centers, agencies, and facilities.
WebOSB's three types of status boards—summary, table, and list—provide the ability to display and update highly dynamic information simultaneously at all locations involved in emergency management—sharing information. WebOSB has the ability to:
- provide a single location to view information collected from many different sources–multiple users and multiple jurisdictions (emergency management centers, incident command centers)
- easily add or update pertinent information and share it in real time
- provide visual notification that changes to a status board have been made
- quickly identify and view new information regardless of location
- control the access and distribution of status information among multiple users and jurisdictions
- quickly create new status boards to respond to changing events and needs
- quickly update the design—structure and organization—of an existing status board.
Summary Status Board
WebOSB provides a summary list of all status boards shared across multiple Emergency Operations Centers and jurisdictions. Information about the status boards’ content, who owns it, when it was last modified, and other context about all of the status boards within a hazard is provided. WebOSB provides visual cues for users to “see” which status boards and records have been updated.
Table Status Board
The table status board displays rows of similar information. The example below has a New Data button that indicates updates have been made to that record.
List Status Board
The list status board example displays a unique set of items. The example below lists the open/closed status for several schools.
