Starting a relief effort.

A steward does this

Start the effort

1. Sign in with your password and your authenticator app's code. Phone the group first, to check it is real.
2. In the Platform view (it says Your team at the top), under Relief efforts, press Start an effort. Fill in Name, Link name, Where it is and Its clocks. Press Start it.
3. Open the new effort. Under Admins, press Invite an admin and type their email. Press Make invite code, then Copy a message to send. The code works once.

An admin does this first

Set it up

1. On the sign-in screen press Join with a code, enter the code, and pick a password.
2. Open Effort settings (under Me on a phone, More on a laptop). Check the Time zone. Under Help numbers on your public pages, 911 is always first. Press Add a line for each local number, then Save these numbers.
3. Open Pods (under People on a laptop, Me on a phone) and press Add a pod for each supply site.
4. Open Accounts and invites. Under Invite as, pick Pod manager, pick the pod, type their email, and press Make invite code. Read the code out or text it. Do the same with Dispatcher for each dispatcher.

An admin does this

Let people apply

1. In Effort settings, turn on Taking applications. Under Your sign-up link, press Copy and share it.
2. Open Applications, then one. Call the number they gave, then press Approve. (A pod shows Approve and set up the pod, a group Approve and add the group.)
3. The code shows once. Copy it or text it before you press Done. It works once, for 14 days.
4. Lost it? Open the approved application and press Make a new code. The old code stops working.

Admins and dispatchers

The first day of dispatch

1. Open Today. Under Do now, confirm every yes: press Confirm, or Confirm all for the ones that look fine. You have a moment to Undo. Call if one looks wrong.
2. Open Board for everything waiting to be confirmed, the most urgent first.
3. Open Log to see every change: who made it, when they said it, and when it arrived. Download CSV saves it.

Pod managers, dispatch and admins

Starlink, pod by pod

1. Open Pods, then a pod. Its Starlink line says Has one, Needs one or Not set. A pod manager changes it under Our pod. Dispatch and admins press Change.
2. The Needs a Starlink filter on Pods lists who needs one. Press Ask a group for a Starlink on that pod.

Everyone

When there is no signal

1. Every change is saved on the phone first and goes out when signal comes back. Open the app once with signal, and after that it opens with none.
2. Reading, counting, saying yes and confirming work with no signal. Signing in on a new phone, making codes, approving, saving help numbers and asking to close do not. Those buttons say Needs a connection.

Admins ask, a steward closes

Closing an effort, and what is deleted

1. An admin presses Download everything in Effort settings (the link works for a day), then Ask to close this effort.
2. A steward opens the effort in the Platform view and presses Start closing. Phones that were offline get 14 days (a steward can pick 1 to 60) to send what they did. Nothing new can start.
3. It then closes: what is still open is cancelled, only its admins can read it, and phones delete their copy. 90 days later its records (names, phones, addresses, jobs, notes) are deleted. A steward can press Reopen before then. Daily numbers and an outline with no names, contacts or places stay.
4. Someone in no other effort gets 30 days' notice, then their account is deleted, unless they choose to stay on the roster.

Stewards and whoever owns the servers

Keep watch

1. Backups. Convex's free plan does not back up by itself. Each morning of a response, the owner presses Backup Now (Convex dashboard, Production, Settings, Backups). A phone's copy is not a backup.
2. Errors. When the app breaks on a phone it sends a short report with no personal details. Stewards read them in the Platform view, under Errors, and press Mark as fixed. They are deleted 30 days after the last one.
3. The health check. Each hour it checks the pages and the server. If something is down it opens a GitHub issue labeled outage, and people watching the repo get an email. An app error spike issue means the site is up but the app is breaking: look at Errors.

Ask the person who set up EndureNC

What still needs email

A relief effort runs without email. Until email is turned on, invite codes are read out or texted, the morning briefing is not emailed (it is on Today), and a steward changes anyone's email for them. Turning email on is a one-time job: ask the person who set up EndureNC. The steps are in the README, under “Plugging in the email domain”.