IMS Help

This page explains what the Incident Management System (IMS) is, what each part of it does, and how to use it. It's written for everyone, and it assumes no technical background.

Table of contents

What is IMS?

IMS is the Black Rock Rangers' system for keeping a shared, written record of what happens during an event. When Rangers respond to a situation, like a lost kid, a medical call, a fire hazard, or a dispute, the details go into IMS so that everyone working the situation, now and later, sees the same information.

IMS keeps four main kinds of records, each covered in its own section below:

A good rule of thumb: If it matters, write it down, and write it down as it happens. IMS records are used during the event to coordinate responses, and after the event to understand what happened.

Logging in and out

Log in with your Ranger Secret Clubhouse credentials. That's the same email address and password you use for the Clubhouse. To log out, open the menu under your handle at the top right and choose Log out.

Your session lasts a while, but you'll occasionally be asked to log in again. If a page tells you you're not authorized, see Who can see and do what.

The bar at the top of every page has, from left to right:

Events: one per year

Everything in IMS (Incidents, Field Reports, Visits, Places) belongs to an Event, which is usually one burn year (such as "2026"). Numbering starts over for each event, so "Incident 12" means "Incident 12 of the event you're looking at." Make sure the event picker shows the event you expect before creating or looking up records. Records from past events are kept and can be browsed or searched at any time.

Incidents

An Incident is the main record of a situation that Rangers are dealing with. Incidents are usually created and kept up to date by shift leads (Operators and Khaki), based on radio traffic and reports from the field, but anyone with write access can contribute. Each Incident gets a number (its "IMS #") that everyone can refer to.

The Incidents list

The Incidents page lists the Incidents in the current event, one per row. Click a row to open that Incident. To create a new Incident, click New (or press n).

You can narrow down the list with the controls above the table:

The list updates by itself as other people make changes, so there's no need to refresh the page.

Reading and editing an Incident

An Incident page has these parts, top to bottom:

Check Show history and stricken above the entries to also see system-generated history (a log of every field change) and entries that have been stricken.

What the Incident states mean

Attaching Field Reports, Visits, and files

The Attached Field Reports/Visits card pulls related records into the Incident so their contents show up in one place. To attach one, pick it from the Add dropdown, which lists the available Field Reports and Visits (grouped into ones not yet attached and ones already attached). Once attached, the record's entries are folded into the Incident's entries, and the two records point at each other. Click the X next to an attached record to detach it. Attaching a Field Report needs write access to Incidents, which is why Reporters, who can write their own Field Reports, don't attach them themselves.

Where file attachments are turned on for your deployment, the entry box also has an Attach file button, so you can add a photo or document (such as a picture of a whiteboard or a scanned form) alongside the written entries. An entry with a file on it gets a Download button, plus a Preview button on files a browser can display, such as images and PDFs. Either button shows how far along the transfer is while it runs. If a slow preview finishes long after you asked for it, the button reads Preview Ready; click it again to open the file, which your browser won't do on its own after that long a wait.

Linking related Incidents

Linking connects one Incident to another when they're related, such as a follow-up the next day, two Incidents that turned out to be the same situation, or a recurring problem at the same camp across years. Unlike attaching, linking doesn't merge the entries; it just puts a clickable reference to each Incident on the other, so you can jump between them.

To link, use the Link IMS # box on the Linked Incidents card and enter one or more Incidents:

Press Enter to make the links. Linking is mutual: the other Incident gets a link back to this one, and a note is added to its entries recording the link, so people reading either Incident can see the connection. To remove a link, click the X next to it. You can only link to events you're allowed to read; if you don't have read access to a linked Incident's event, you'll still see the link but not its summary.

Field Reports

A Field Report is a firsthand written account from a Ranger: what you saw, what you did, and anything worth remembering. Any Ranger with access can write one. You don't need anyone's permission, and it doesn't have to relate to an existing Incident. When it does relate to one, a Field Report can be attached to that Incident, so people reading the Incident see the report too.

The Field Reports page lists reports in the current event; click one to open it, or click New (or press n) to write one. Like Incidents, a Field Report has a one-line summary and a series of timestamped entries. Write your account as one or more entries.

Write Field Reports promptly, while details are fresh. Include specifics: who, what, where, when. Depending on your access, you may only be able to see Field Reports you wrote yourself; Operators and others with broader access can read all of them and attach them to Incidents. The Field Report page has a How to write a great Field Report section near the top; expand it for a checklist of what to include and a reminder to stick to firsthand facts.

Near the top of a Field Report, the IMS # field shows which Incident, if any, the report is attached to. If you have write access to Incidents, you can type an Incident number there to attach the report to that Incident, or clear the field to detach it. When the report is attached, the IMS # becomes a link you can click to open that Incident.

If a Field Report describes something that should have its own Incident but doesn't yet, and you have write access to Incidents, a Create new incident from FR button appears. Clicking it opens a fresh Incident, carries over the report's summary as the Incident summary, adds the report's author as a Ranger on the Incident, and attaches the Field Report to the new Incident, all in one step. Only use it when you're sure no Incident already exists for the situation; if one does, attach the report to that Incident instead by entering its number in the IMS # field.

Sanctuary Visits

Sanctuary Visits track guests at the Sanctuary space, and are mainly used by the Sanctuary team. Each Visit gets a "VS #" and records the guest's info, arrival and departure details, camp and contacts, resources provided, the Rangers involved, and a running set of timestamped notes, much like Incident entries.

Open the Sanctuary Visits page from the top bar and click a row to open a Visit, or click New (or press n) to start one. A Visit is organized into collapsible sections. Any section that already has something recorded in it starts open, so you can read an existing Visit without clicking through it; expand the rest as you need them and fill in what applies:

If a Visit relates to a regular Incident, enter the Incident's number in the IMS # field at the top of the Visit; the two records then link to each other, and the IMS # becomes a clickable link to that Incident. The Visit page also has an Instructions section at the top; expand it for guidance specific to that page. Editing Visits is limited to the Sanctuary team and other Visit Writers (see Who can see and do what).

Places

The Places page, linked from the top bar, is a reference list of the city's camps, art installations, and other named locations, with their addresses and descriptions. Click a row for details like a location description, landmark notes, and contact info, and use the Map link (where available) to see the location on the city map.

Places also power location entry elsewhere: when you type a location name on an Incident, IMS suggests matching Places and fills in the address automatically.

How addresses are tidied up

Where an administrator has turned this on for the event, addresses you type by hand are rewritten into standard Black Rock City form when they save, so that everyone writes them the same way and searching for them works. This applies to an Incident's location Address and to a Visit's guest camp address. For example:

Anything IMS can't confidently read as an address, such as "behind the porta potties at center camp", is left exactly as you typed it. So write the address however is quickest. A real address gets cleaned up, and anything else is kept exactly as you wrote it.

Searching

There are a few ways to find things in IMS:

All searches are case-insensitive. If you know regular expressions, you can use one anywhere by enclosing it in slashes, like /lost (kid|child)/.

The Search page matches differently from the list pages: it looks for your text as one continuous substring, so searching cat dog matches "Bobcat Dog" but not "cat and dog". On a list page, the same search would match a row containing both words. When a search on the Search page comes up emptier than you expect, try fewer words.

How saving works

Printing

Incidents, Field Reports, and Visits are designed to print cleanly: use your browser's print command (usually Control+P, or Command+P on a Mac) and the editing controls, buttons, and navigation are left off the printout, so you get a readable paper copy of the record. If you want the history and stricken entries to appear on the printout, turn on Show history and stricken before printing.

Who can see and do what

Access to IMS is granted per event, so what you can see depends on who you are and which event you're looking at. In broad strokes:

Everyone with access can view Places. If you can't see something you think you should be able to, your access level for that event is probably the reason. See Questions or problems? below.

Keyboard shortcuts

Most pages have single-key shortcuts that work when you're not typing in a field. Press ? on any page to pop up the full, authoritative list of shortcuts for that page (press ? again, or Escape, to close it). The common ones:

If the single-key shortcuts get in your way (such as when using speech input), you can turn them off on the Settings page.

Settings

The Settings page (under your handle in the top bar) lets you set:

These preferences are stored in your browser only, and they reset when you log out.

Admin pages

Administrators have an extra Admin link under their handle in the top bar, leading to a set of tools for configuring IMS. Most Rangers never need these, but if you help run IMS, here's what each one does:

Questions or problems?

If something looks broken, you can't access something you need, or you have ideas for making IMS better, contact the Ranger Tech Cadre, or specifically Ranger Abraham. During the event, Abraham is available by Burning Man Slack, Clubhouse message, email, Signal, phone, etc.