Administrator's Guide

01

Accounts & Signing In

An account is entirely optional — running a net never requires one. It's only needed to keep an organization's own data (its Directory Lookup entries, crew roster, templates, and settings) private to that organization, and to unlock the admin/org-admin tools this guide covers.

Creating an account

At /Register: a Username (3+ characters), Password (6+ characters, confirmed), and exactly one Organization choice — Create a new organization (name it) or Join an existing organization (enter its Join Code). A brand-new organization automatically gets its own private starter copies of the public Command Staff position types and Handover Checklist items, which then evolve independently. You're signed in immediately on success.

Logging in

At /Login: Username and Password. A wrong username or wrong password both show the same "Incorrect username or password" — this never reveals which one was wrong. Forgot password? leads to a reset-link flow (/ForgotPassword → emailed link, valid 1 hour → /ResetPassword); the "if an account matches" wording on that page is deliberately generic so the form can't be used to check which usernames/emails exist.

My Account

At /Account, every signed-in user can manage their own profile: Default Callsign, Name, and Default Net Operating Mode (pre-fills every new net you start), email address (with a verification link), and password. Everyone can also see their organization's Join Code and use Switch Organization to move their own account to a different one by its code — this only changes which organization you belong to, never any data.

An organization admin sees more on this same page: the Join Code's Regenerate button, the Formal Message Log template choice (ICS-213 vs. ARRL Radiogram) and Critical Alerts on/off (an organization-wide kill switch, overriding any one net's own setting), an Organization Members list for promoting/demoting other members to org admin, the org's own private Command Staff Position Types and Handover Checklist Items catalogs, and (if also a site admin) a link to Net Analysis.

02

Organizations & Permissions

There are four tiers, broadest to narrowest:

Net Organization Ownership & Private Editing

Every net records, permanently, which organization owns it (null for a guest-started net) and who created it. A signed-in owner can additionally check Keep this net's editing private at Start Net: this restricts Start/End/Submit, roster, and check-ins to just the owner, an org admin of that organization, or a site admin — everyone else in the organization is redirected to the read-only Viewer instead. It never restricts the collaborative modules (Scribe, Press, Missing Persons, Damage Assessment, Formal Messages, Task/Mutual-Aid, BA Control) — those stay open to the whole organization regardless, by design. Only the owner or an org admin can change this setting later.

03

User Maintenance

Site-admin only, at /UserMaintenance. Search or List All to browse every account (Username, Email, Verified, Organization, Admin, Created). Edit lets you change a user's Email, Email Verified flag, Organization, and profile defaults (Default Callsign, Name, Default Net Operating Mode) — Username and the Admin flag itself are shown read-only here (Admin can only be changed directly in the database, see §2). Delete permanently removes an account and its security tokens/defaults; you can't delete the account you're currently signed in as.

This page also holds the Critical Alerts — Master Switch (a true system-wide kill switch, overriding every organization's and every net's own Critical Alerts setting) and the public Command Staff Position Types and Handover Checklist catalogs used by guest-run (no-organization) nets — an organization's own private copies of these are managed separately, from My Account.

04

Repeater Directory

A shared, crowdsourced catalog every net's "Show Repeaters" map layer draws from (see the Field Ops Guide's Repeater & Frequency Status section for day-to-day use). Browsing is open to everyone; adding, editing, or importing needs an org admin; the cross-organization Review Queue and Full Catalog need a site admin.

+ Add Repeater captures Name, Callsign, Output/Input Frequency, Offset, Tone, Type, Owner, Band, Mode, and location — a "Paste a RepeaterBook.com details page" box can auto-fill most of these from a copied listing. One callsign can legitimately have several rows (different bands/modes, or even the same band/mode at a different site) — entries are matched by Callsign + Band + Mode together, never by callsign alone.

Every new submission lands Pending, visible only to your own organization until a site admin reviews it in the Review Queue and either Approves it (making it public to every net) or Rejects it with a reason. Your own org admins can edit or withdraw your still-pending submissions at any time from My Organization's Submissions.

+ Import Repeaters (org admin) accepts an .xlsx with at minimum a Callsign column; unmatched rows import as new Pending submissions, a row matching an already-approved entry with different details flags that entry for admin review rather than silently overwriting it, and rows matching an existing Pending or Rejected entry are skipped.

05

Operator Cache Maintenance

Site-admin only, at /OperatorCacheMaintenance. This is the cache of every callsign's last QRZ lookup (Name, Grid Square, coordinates) that's checked before ever querying QRZ again — a stale or wrong cached row otherwise keeps resurfacing on every future check-in for that callsign. Search or List All, then Edit a row to correct its Name/Grid/coordinates (saving a name marks it so a future QRZ lookup won't silently overwrite your correction), or Delete the row entirely so the next check-in does a completely fresh lookup. A Clear Entire Cache button wipes every row at once — the same action available from NetControl's own Setup menu.

06

Crew Maintenance

At /CrewMaintenance — a roster private to your own organization; a signed-out visitor sees only a login prompt. Any signed-in member can view it; adding, editing, deleting, or retiring a crew member needs an org admin. Each record has a Name (required), Badge Number, Phone, and an optional default Asset — a crew member with a default Asset shows up automatically wherever that Asset is added to a net's Resource Status Board; one with no default is a "floater" who can still be assigned live during any net.

Deleting someone who's never actually been assigned on a net removes them outright; deleting someone with assignment history instead retires them, so past nets' records stay intact.

07

Net Cleanup

Site-admin only, at /NetCleanup — deliberately not linked anywhere in the app's navigation. This is where you recover from a net whose operator never got to properly end or submit it (e.g. a crashed browser mid-net), or permanently purge bad/test data.

Three tables — Open, Ended, and Submitted — each with a checkbox per row and a "select all." Open nets can be Force Ended or deleted; Ended nets can be Force Submitted or deleted; Submitted nets can only be deleted. Every delete removes a net and every table it touches in one transaction, so a bulk delete either fully succeeds or changes nothing.

08

Resources (Directory Lookup)

A shared reference catalog — Agency → Resource Type → Resource — of contacts reused across every incident, reached from NetControl, Command Overview, or the main navigation. Browsing needs no login.

A public Agency is visible to everyone; a private Agency is visible only to your own organization's members. Creating/editing a public Agency (or the shared Resource Type catalog) needs a site admin; creating/editing your own organization's private Agency only needs your own org admin. Adding an individual Resource (a contact, with any number of phone numbers and emails) needs org-admin access to that Resource's Agency, whichever kind it is.

Import Resources (org admin) accepts an .xlsx with Contact Type and Name columns at minimum; every row in one import lands under exactly one Agency (new or one you already own), and Contact Type text must match an existing type in Manage Contact Types exactly — import never creates a new type on the fly.

09

EOC & Position Templates

Reached from NetControl's ⚙ Setup menu — EOC Maintenance and Position Maintenance — open to any visitor, guest included; there's no admin gate on these two, unlike everything else in this guide.

EOC Maintenance ("Manage Templates")

Create/rename/retire named templates, then add "Questions" (categories) to a selected one: a Name, a unique Shortcode (used by the command-line shorthand in the Field Ops Guide), and an Answer Type — Color (Green/Yellow/Red), Yes/No, or Choice (custom labeled options, each with its own abbreviation and color). A template can't be retired while it's the system default or in use by an active Operating Mode. Editing a category never retroactively changes a net already using it — every net snapshots its own copy of the category list the moment EOC status is turned on.

Position Maintenance ("Manage Position Templates")

Simpler: each template is just a list of Labels (with an optional map marker color), feeding the autocomplete suggestions on NetControl's Assigned Position field. Nothing typed there writes back into the template — it's a suggestion list only, and the field always stays plain free text.

10

Net Operating Modes

Site-admin only to manage, reached from NetControl's Setup menu → Manage Operating Modes (the button itself is hidden from anyone who isn't a site admin — but picking an already-defined mode when starting a net is open to everyone).

A Mode is a named, saved bundle of every field on the Start Net form: default Net Name/Repeater/Frequencies/Callsign, every module checkbox in this guide's companion Field Ops Guide, and even terminology overrides — e.g. relabeling "Check In" as "Report In" or "Log Contact," or "Net Control" as "Incident Commander" or "Base," for non-ham use cases like event or SAR operations.

Picking a Mode from the dropdown at Start Net fills in and then collapses the detailed checkboxes (a "»" toggle still lets you peek); changing any individual field by hand afterward silently flips the picker back to "Custom." A mode can also be selected by typing MODE <partial name> into the Callsign field before starting.