Dispatch

Civilian Services Presence

Not every problem is a police problem. A stranded driver needs a tow, a wrecked car needs a mechanic, an arrested suspect may want a lawyer. The presence counters in the topbar tell you, at a glance, which of those are actually staffed right now if correctly set by the admin of the server.

Reading the counters

Each online civilian service shows as a short code with a count. Click one and you get who is on: their business name and contact, if they gave one.

Only services that are actually on duty appear. An empty spot means nobody is working that service — not that it does not exist.

Which services show up here is a community setting: each service picks the audiences it is visible to, and dispatch is one of them. So the counters are the ones your community decided a dispatcher should care about.

Why it is on your screen

You are the one being asked. A unit on a scene radios in for a tow, and the useful answer is either "one on the way" or "county/city tow is on its way" — and the second answer is only possible if you can see it.

It also saves the pointless version of that exchange: sending a request into a service with nobody on it, and everyone waiting for an answer that is not coming.

Requesting one

Civilian Services in the incident card is where you actually send the request. Services with somebody on duty can be requested; the rest are not shown.

The full civilian side of this — how providers go on duty, how a request is accepted and worked — is in Civilian Services.