Getting Started

Patrol Guide · Setup & First Day

Getting Started

This page takes a brand-new Patrol deployment from switched-off to a working guardhouse in a handful of steps: enable the module, decide who can do what, describe your property (sites, zones, gates, posts), add your guards, and then walk through a real first day — logging an activity, checking in a visitor, and filing an incident. No prior experience with Patrol is assumed.

Key concepts before you start

Four ideas explain almost everything about how Patrol behaves. Keep them in mind and the rest of the module makes sense.

• Append-only records. Once you submit an activity, incident or handover, it can never be silently edited or deleted. Corrections are made by amending, which keeps the original and adds a new version. This is what makes Patrol a trustworthy legal record rather than an editable notepad.
• Reference numbers. Every important record gets a human-readable number the moment it is created — EVT-2026-0001 for a blotter entry, INC-2026-0001 for an incident, VIS-2026-0001 for a visit. Use these when you talk about a record.
• Privacy by default. Patrol deliberately has no field for a government ID number, ID photo, or date of birth. You verify identity visually and move on. This protects both your organisation and your visitors.
• Sites tie everything together. A site is a physical location (a building, subdivision, or compound). Locations, routes, shifts and reports all hang off a site. A default site called Main Site already exists, so you can start without configuring anything.

Before you begin — checklist

What you need in place before working through this page

Requirement	Who provides it	Why
An ERPat staff account you can sign in with	Your ERPat administrator	Every Patrol screen (except public reporting) requires a signed-in staff session.
The Patrol module enabled	Administrator (Step 1)	Until module_patrol is on, no Patrol menu or permission appears.
Patrol permissions on your role	Administrator (Step 2)	Each screen is gated by a permission key; without it the menu item is hidden.
Incident-alert recipients (optional)	Administrator (Step 5)	Severity and escalation alerts ship with no recipients so nobody is spammed.

Step 1 — Enable the module

An administrator turns Patrol on once, for the whole tenant.

1. Sign in as an administrator and open Settings → Manage Modules.
2. Find Patrol in the Security category and switch it On. This sets the module_patrol flag that gates the entire module and all of its background jobs.
3. Refresh the page. A Patrol item (shield icon) now appears in the left menu, and the Patrol permission keys become available in the Roles editor.

Step 2 — Grant Patrol permissions to roles

Patrol has a rich set of on/off permission keys, all in the Security: Patrol category of the Roles editor. Rather than tick them one by one, think in terms of three roles — guard, supervisor, and administrator / DPO — and use the recipes below as a starting point. Administrators bypass every check automatically, so you only need to grant these to non-admin roles.

Front-line guard

What a guard on shift needs to do their job at the gate and on the property — but not the ability to delete records, view restricted incidents, or manage the roster.

Suggested permissions for a front-line guard role

Permission key	What it lets the guard do
patrol	Access the module at all (the Enable/module gate).
patrol_dashboard	See the Patrol dashboard on sign-in.
patrol_log, patrol_log_create, patrol_log_update	Read the blotter, add entries, and amend their own entries.
patrol_visitor, patrol_visitor_create, patrol_visitor_update	Check visitors in and out and update a visit.
patrol_incident, patrol_incident_create	See the incident register and raise a new incident.
patrol_run, patrol_run_execute	Start a patrol round and scan checkpoints.
patrol_handover, patrol_handover_acknowledge	File and acknowledge shift handovers.
patrol_asset_assign	Sign equipment (radios, keys) out and back in.

Shift supervisor

Everything a guard can do, plus the ability to move incidents through their lifecycle, handle evidence, manage the roster and shifts, and pull reports.

Additional permissions for a supervisor role (on top of the guard recipe)

Permission key	What it adds
patrol_incident_update, patrol_incident_acknowledge, patrol_incident_close	Update, acknowledge, and close/reopen incidents; add people involved and follow-up tasks.
patrol_evidence_view, patrol_evidence_manage	Open restricted incidents, and add evidence with chain-of-custody entries.
patrol_shift, patrol_shift_create, patrol_shift_update	Plan shifts and assign guards to them.
patrol_guard, patrol_guard_create, patrol_guard_update, patrol_guard_delete	Maintain the guard roster and license records.
patrol_route, patrol_route_create, patrol_route_update, patrol_route_delete	Build patrol routes and their checkpoints.
patrol_asset (+ create/update/delete)	Maintain the equipment register.
patrol_location (+ create/update/delete)	Maintain sites, zones, gates, and posts.
patrol_report_export	Export the daily activity CSV and the incident-register PDF.
patrol_public_report_triage	Triage public/anonymous security reports and convert them to incidents.

Administrator / Data Protection Officer

Compliance-sensitive controls that should sit with a small number of trusted people — typically your administrator or Data Protection Officer.

• patrol_legal_hold — place or release a legal hold that blocks deletion and retention sweeps.
• patrol_retention — define and activate data-retention policies (Governance).
• patrol_privacy_request — manage data-subject (privacy) requests.
• patrol_disclosure — record when data is disclosed to third parties.
• patrol_ai, patrol_ai_approve — request and approve AI suggestions (only relevant if AI-assist is switched on; it ships off).

Step 3 — Describe your property (Sites, Zones, Gates, Posts)

Open Patrol → Locations. This one screen has a tab for each level of the location hierarchy. You can operate Patrol using only the pre-made Main Site, but describing your property properly makes routes, shifts and reports far more useful.

The four location levels and what each is for

Level	What it represents	Key fields
Site	A whole location — a building, compound, or subdivision.	Name, a short unique code, time zone.
Zone	An area inside a site — lobby, basement, Tower B, perimeter.	Name, parent site.
Gate	An entry/exit point.	Name, site/zone, direction (in, out, or both).
Post	A guard position.	Name, site/zone, type (fixed, roving, or gate).

1. On the Sites tab, either keep Main Site or add your own site with a name, unique code (for example HQ), and time zone.
2. Switch to the Zones tab and add the areas inside each site.
3. Add your Gates (choose the correct direction) and your Posts (choose fixed, roving, or gate).

You can come back and expand this at any time — nothing here is locked once you start using the module.

Step 4 — Add your guards

Open Patrol → Shifts and go to the Guards tab (the guard roster). A guard record can either link to an existing ERPat staff account or stand alone for an outsourced agency officer who has no login.

1. Click Add Guard. Either pick a linked staff user, or type a full name for an external/agency guard (one of the two is required).
2. Fill in the optional details — guard number, agency, rank — and choose which sites the guard covers.
3. Save, then use the license action on the guard to record any security-license type, number, and expiry date. Patrol automatically reminds you before a license lapses.

Your first day — a walkthrough

With the module enabled, permissions granted, and at least the Main Site in place, here is exactly what a guard does during a normal shift. Try each of these once to confirm your setup works end-to-end.

1. Log an activity (the digital blotter)

1. Open Patrol → Activity Log and click New Entry (Log Activity).
2. Choose the site and a category — one of patrol, visitor, maintenance, observation, incident, or note.
3. The date and time default to now; change it only if you are recording something that happened earlier. Write a short summary and a fuller narrative of what happened, and note any action taken.
4. Attach a photo if it helps, then Submit. The entry receives a reference like EVT-2026-0001 and is sealed into that day's tamper-evident record.
5. Made a mistake? Use the pencil / Amend action. Patrol creates a new version (marked v2) and keeps the original as "superseded" — you can always see the full history.

2. Check in a visitor

1. Open Patrol → Visitors and click Check In Visitor.
2. Enter the visitor's name (the only required field), plus the host or unit they are visiting, the purpose, an expected departure time, and a vehicle plate if relevant.
3. Verify their ID visually and tick ID visually verified. Do not type an ID number, photograph the ID, or record a birth date — Patrol has no field for those on purpose.
4. Save. The visit gets a reference like VIS-2026-0001 and appears in the "currently inside" occupancy list. When the visitor leaves, open the visit and click Check Out. Visitors who stay past their expected departure are flagged as overstays automatically.

3. File an incident

1. Open Patrol → Incidents and click Create Incident. (You can also escalate an existing blotter entry into an incident from its detail view.)
2. Pick a category and a severity — low, medium (the default), high, or critical — then give the incident a clear title and factual narrative.
3. For sensitive matters, tick Restricted so only staff with patrol_evidence_view can open it. If you want the security team notified, tick the send alert option before saving.
4. Save. The incident receives a reference like INC-2026-0001 and starts its lifecycle at open, moving through acknowledged → investigating → action required → resolved → closed as your team works it.
5. From the incident's detail view, a supervisor can attach evidence (each file is hashed and given a chain-of-custody trail), add the people involved, and create follow-up tasks.

Step 5 (recommended) — Turn on incident alerts

Patrol registers two notification events but ships them with no recipients, so no alert is sent until an administrator opts people in. Do this once so critical incidents actually reach someone.

1. Open Settings → Notifications.
2. Find patrol_incident_raised (fired when a guard raises an incident with the alert flag ticked) and patrol_incident_escalated (fired automatically when a critical incident is left unacknowledged), and choose the recipients for each.

Escalation timing is controlled by patrol_escalation_minutes (15 minutes by default): a critical incident still sitting at open past that window is escalated by a background job and the patrol_incident_escalated alert is sent.

Where to go next

• Daily Operations — the deeper, day-to-day playbook for the blotter, visitors, incidents, shifts, rounds, and handovers.
• Administration — the full permission reference, location and notification settings, governance/retention, and the AI-assist controls.
• Data & Screen Reference — every screen, field, status, and reference-number prefix at a glance.
• FAQ & Troubleshooting — quick answers to "why can't I…?" questions like editing entries, missing alerts, and restricted incidents.