IN THE FIELD — GROUP LEADERS
When a group splits in two in Madinah, each group leader needs to know where the others are and what has been decided. Here is what the app and the Field tab give you for that.
On a trip with several group leaders, each one may end up with part of the group, away from the others. They then need to tell each other where things stand, agree on a place to meet, and let the agency know that everyone has been counted.
Take a trip with two group leaders, Youssef and Samir. It is late afternoon in Madinah, after the visit. The group splits up: half goes back to the hotel with Youssef, and the other half stays with Samir near the Prophet's Mosque until the prayer.
At that moment, neither wifi nor mobile data gets through on Samir's phone. He takes the roll call, ticking off the pilgrims with him and excusing those who went back with Youssef. Then he writes in "Messages": "My group is complete, we'll head back after the prayer." The roll call and the message wait on his phone, marked "Waiting to send".
At the hotel, Youssef has a signal. He takes the roll call when they arrive, excusing those who stayed with Samir. He then adds a meeting point for the next morning in front of one of the mosque's gates, and announces it in the thread. Both of them have signed the latest version of the charter and let their phones share their position. When Samir's phone gets a signal again, his roll call and his message go out on their own, and Youssef's message reaches him. The new meeting point shows up in his Places tab the next time he opens the app with a signal.
At the agency, you see both messages in the Field tab, the meeting point added by Youssef and both roll calls on the map, both green, since excused pilgrims do not count as absent.
You can name one lead group leader for each trip. In the back office, your group leaders appear as "group escorts". You name the lead in the "Add a group escort" window, with the "Lead group escort for this departure" box, or in the Field tab with the "Make lead" button.
There is only one lead at a time. Naming someone else replaces the previous one, and "Remove the lead role" leaves the trip without a lead. The person must be part of your team and on this trip, meaning assigned to the package or with access to this trip in the app. If he is not, OmraDesk asks you to add him first.
The lead is marked with a "Lead" badge in the trip's list of group leaders, in the team shown in the app, in the thread and on the call map. If he has a group leader account, he is told in his space and by email. The role gives him no extra rights in the app. It tells the whole team who is coordinating.
Every trip has its own message thread, in the "Messages" tab of the app. Every group leader with access to the trip reads it and writes in it, whether he uses his account or a link. Your agency reads the thread and writes in it from the Field tab of the package.
The thread is for text. There are no attachments and no private messages between two group leaders, and a message cannot be deleted once sent.
A message written with no signal stays on the phone as "Waiting to send", then changes to "Sent" once it has gone. The time shown is the time it was written. On your side, it carries the note "Written without network · received" followed by the time it arrived.
When your agency writes in the thread, group leaders who have an account get a notification in their space and an email. They get at most one per hour for each trip, and it never includes the text of the message. When a group leader writes, nobody is notified. You see his message in the Field tab, which updates itself every 30 seconds, or straight away with the "Refresh" button.
The thread is wiped from the phone with the trip. Your agency keeps it with the rest of the trip's records.
In the Places tab of the app, a group leader can add a meeting point with the "Add a meeting point" button. He gives it a name, a landmark (for example "in front of gate 21"), the city and a position, which is required.
For the position, he has two options. "My current position" takes the phone's position and works with no signal. "Place on the map" opens a map with a "Search for an address or a place" field. The map and the search need a signal, and the app says so when there is none. A point created offline is kept on the phone and goes out as soon as the signal returns.
The points you set in the Field settings, such as the airport, stay locked in the app and carry the note "Set by the agency". Points added on site show who added them. The other group leaders on the trip see them the next time they open the app with a signal. A point cannot be edited: the group leader who added it can remove it, and so can you.
In the Field tab, the "Meeting points added on site" section lists each point with its author, the day and time, a "View on the map" link and a "Remove" button.
When a group leader completes a roll call, with "Group complete!" or "Send the roll call", the phone attaches its position, with its accuracy and the time, if it was able to get it. For the call map, this is the only moment the position is taken, and nobody is tracked continuously.
Two conditions apply. The first is the charter. Its new version says: "The phone's position is only taken at a roll call or a group report, never continuously." Each group leader must read it again and sign it again to reopen the trip in the app. Until he has signed this version, no position is kept for his roll calls.
The second is his phone's permission, which he is asked for at the first roll call. If he refuses, the roll call still works and the app shows "Roll call saved without a position". With no signal, the position waits with the roll call, goes out with it and keeps the time of the call.
In the Field tab of the package, the "Call map" shows one point for each roll call received with a position. A green point means "All present" and an orange point means "With absentees". The two also have different shapes, so the colour is not the only signal.
You can filter by group leader and by day. Clicking a point shows the time, the group leader, the number present and absent, anyone excused, the accuracy of the position and a "View the roll call in the feed" link. Next to the map, each group leader's "Last known position" is the one from his latest roll call with a position. The lead is marked there, and anyone who has sent nothing shows "No position received".
The map only shows your agency's trips. If a group leader also works for another agency, nothing from his roll calls there appears on your side. If the map background does not load, the roll calls are still listed below it.
To get started, open the Field tab of a package and name the lead group leader for your next departure.
We walk you through the message thread, the meeting points and the call map, using one of your upcoming departures as the example.