IT, Mobile Devices, and Browsers FAQ

Frequently asked questions regarding IT topics on AngelTrack

Where are AngelTrack cloud servers hosted?

AngelTrack cloud servers are hosted exclusively at Rackspace, the top-shelf hosting provider.

Is AngelTrack NEMSIS certified?

Yes.

AngelTrack is certified compliant with NEMSIS v3.4.0 and v3.5.0, the two newest versions of the specification.

Which NEMSIS versions are supported?

AngelTrack natively supports both v3.4.0 and v3.5.0. It does not use a translation XSLT to do so. The user-interface is unified in a clever way, so that your crews will not require any retraining when your state moves to v3.5.0.

Data can also be output in the older v3.3.4 format, in case your state trauma registry requires it.

Is AngelTrack NFIRS approved?

Yes, AngelTrack is FEMA approved / listed for NFIRS v5.0.

How long has AngelTrack been around?

AngelTrack's first live dispatch with patient transport was February 14th, 2012. That was AngelTrack 1.0.

Since then, AngelTrack has updated twice or thrice a month, every month. Some updates are minor, some are major, depending on which feature requests and bugfixes were included. AngelTrack is in a state of continuous improvement. See for yourself by checking the index of release notes.

Is AngelTrack based on the "WebEMS" open source code?

No.

AngelTrack was designed from scratch in America by two American EMS owners, and 100% written from scratch in America by American software developers.

What language is AngelTrack written in?

As of February 2023 (build 464), AngelTrack's codebase is as follows:

Language Lines of Code
C-Sharp 496,779
ASP.NET 119,177
Razor/Blazor 4,995
Transact-SQL 570,114
Javascript 168,722
HTML, CSS, and XSL 104,347
TOTAL 1,464,134

The numbers include comments and the help documentation. They do not include whitespace, external libraries, third-party XSLTs, and stock data like lists of cities (263,908 pre-installed) and medications (628,906 pre-installed).

Is AngelTrack open source?

No.

However, all source code is open for inspection to anyone appearing in person at our office in Texas.  This invitation does not extend to employees of competing software firms.

What kind of database back-end does AngelTrack use?

All of your data lives in a dedicated Microsoft SQL Server 2016 database.

All of your data is stored on RAID-10 SSDs ("solid state drives"). Your data will never touch a spinning hard-drive.

What about downtime?

Your AngelTrack cloud server is available 24/7/365, subject to the weekly maintenance windows.

What are "maintenance windows"?

Maintenance windows are times that AngelTrack support staff may update or upgrade your cloud server, in order to deploy new AngelTrack features plus any new operating system patches from Microsoft.

Every Sunday morning (i.e. late Saturday night) from 02:00 to 04:00 Central Standard Time, your cloud server might be inaccessible if it is being updated with AngelTrack improvements and/or Windows operating system patches. We say might be because these interruptions usually only last for ten or twenty minutes.

What if I have a problem?

AngelTrack Support answers the phone 24/7/365, including holidays. There is always someone standing by to meet your needs.

The main AngelTrack Support phone is answered only by American citizens with EMS experience. If your question stumps the support guys, they have direct access to the developers.

What if the internet service goes down at my dispatch office?

No problem, they can just tether their workstations to their smartphones.

Or they could grab an available tablet from the crew area. AngelTrack allows them to do their entire job right on the tablet, without need of any installation or configuration process. All AngelTrack needs is a web browser and an internet connection.

Just make sure you've got a backup plan for your telephone service. If your telephones are VoIP, then they will go down too. Fortunately it is easy to configure your VoIP service to ring through to your dispatchers' cellphones. Just make sure you set that up before an internet outage occurs!

Which browsers are supported?

AngelTrack supports:

  • Chrome
  • Chrome for Android
  • Edge (the IE replacement)
  • Safari on MacOS
  • Safari for iOS
  • Android Browser

Firefox is not supported. AngelTrack will allow you to use Firefox anyway, and it will work fine most of the time... but you will not receive technical support for Firefox-related issues in AngelTrack pages.

Can I use a MacBook or other Apple computer?

Yes.

You may use the built-in Safari browser, but we think you'll like Chrome or Edge better.

Do I need Java, Cookies, Javascript, et cetera?

You need Javascript and Cookies, which are already built in to all web browsers.

If someone has turned them off in your browser, AngelTrack's login page will let you know.

You do not need Java. Java is an add-on software package that integrates with your browser, totally unrelated to Javascript. Symantec says Java is one of the three main virus vectors (the other two being Flash and Acrobat), so AngelTrack does not use it. It is a dangerous piece of software to have on your computer. If you have it installed, you should remove it unless it is absolutely necessary.

AngelTrack uses Javascript, not Java. JavaScript is the safe one, already built into your browser for free.

Nor do you need FlashSilverlightMicrosoft .NETAcrobat, or any other browser addons. Those addons introduce security vulnerabilities into your browser, so you should uninstall them if possible.

Error when clicking a telephone link

AngelTrack's pages render phone numbers as clickable links of type "tel:", like this one:

(800) 946-1808 click to call AngelTrack headquarters

If you click a tel: link, your browser searches your computer for an application registered to handle it. If no such application is installed, an error message is displayed.

Usually a VoIP "soft phone" or "software telephone" application will register itself as the handler for tel: links. Once that's done, clicking a link will pop up the VoIP software and dial the number automatically, it's super convenient.

Naturally, tel: links work nicely on smartphones, and sometimes tablets.

No 'doorbell' or 'timeclock' sounds in mobile Safari browser

AngelTrack's doorbell ("ding-dong") and timeclock ("ker-chunk") sounds do not play in mobile Safari on iPhones and iPads. This is a restriction imposed by Apple Inc. for business reasons, and there is no workaround.

I clicked "No" when Safari asked to use my location, how do I change it to "Yes"?

On older versions of Safari, you must kill off the Safari process, then relaunch it. When it connects back to AngelTrack, it will then prompt you again to use your location. To kill a process on an iPad, quickly double-click the home button. Swipe left or right to find the desired process. Swipe the process up as if throwing it off the iPad. Then click the home button again to return to normal.

On newer versions of Safari, you can click the "aA" icon at the top-left corner, select "Website Settings", and change the "Location" setting to "Allow".

Why does Safari keep prompting me to allow AngelTrack to know my location?

By default, and unlike Chrome, Safari always asks for location permission for each new page.

On newer versions of Safari, you can click the "aA" icon at the top-left corner, select "Website Settings", and change the "Location" setting to "Allow". It will then permanently stop asking.

Why does it keep taking me back to the login page?

You need to restart your browser.

Why do certain checkboxes and radiobuttons have a  symbol next to their name?

The ∵ symbol indicates that the associated checkbox or radiobutton will remember its setting, even when you close your browser and come back later.

Some will remember their setting just for an hour, or just for the day, or for longer, as we judged was appropriate.

Why are the times showing up in AM/PM format instead of 24-hour (military) format?

AngelTrack allows your mobile device to display dates and times in whatever manner it sees fit. Therefore you just need to configure your mobile device to display 24-hour times.

What about military-style YYYY-MM-DD date format?

AngelTrack normally allows your browser to decide how to display the date in a date-picker; your browser, in turn, obeys the date/time settings configured in your computer's operating system. Therefore you must change your computer's date and time format settings, and then restart your browser.

The date/time picker is driving me nuts... help?

AngelTrack allows your browser to provide the date and time pickers, if your browser is known to support HTML5 date and time controls. However, not everyone likes the controls provided by the browser.

If you would prefer to use AngelTrack's traditional (non-HTML5) date and time pickers, then go to your AngelTrack home page, click Support, and find the link to the "Date/Time Control Preference". That page will let you try both control formats, and choose the one you prefer.

Your preference will be remembered on your current computer; it will not affect your other computers or mobile devices; in this manner, you can set a different preference on your desktop (where you may prefer the traditional controls) versus on your tablet (where the HTML5 controls are usually better).

When viewing an employee file, next to their messaging address it says "HTTP error 500 checking address"...?

You need to restart your computer. Then, when you return to the affected AngelTrack page, press CTRL+F5 to force reload all of the page's scripts.

My browser is displaying a popup message saying, "Page Unresponsive"...?

First, force-reload all content on the page:

  • On Windows, press CTRL + F5. If that doesn't work, try SHIFT + F5, or CTRL + SHIFT + R.
  • On a Mac using Chrome, press SHIFT + COMMAND + R.
  • On a Mac using Safari, press COMMAND + OPTION + E, then hold down SHIFT and click 'Reload' in the toolbar.
  • On an iPhone or iPad, go into Settings and erase the browser's cache.

If still no luck, then restart the browser by closing all open browser windows and tabs.

If still no luck, then restart the computer.

Our service is rural and we don't always have a signal, can we still use AngelTrack?

For crew use, AngelTrack tolerates temporary loss of signal, but needs to have an internet connection most of the time.

If that's not practical, your crews can use AngelTrack's offline PCR while running calls. Later, when back at the station or someplace with a reliable signal, they can switch back to the online PCR to finish up their charts.

If you frequently operate in rural areas where the cellular signal drops out, where even voice calls become unreliable, then install a weBoost or similar cellular booster in your vehicles. With one of those devices installed, your crews can then use ordinary tablets and smartphones. This is better than an offline PCR, because it allows live progress data to flow back and forth between crews and dispatchers.

Note that a hotspot will not suffice for rural low-signal areas; you need an actual signal booster... but don't worry, these devices cost less than $1000 per vehicle, and do not require any subscription or maintenance.

How much data do crew members use on their personal smartphones?

The short answer is:

  • Wheelchair driver using personal device: about 0.7GB per month
  • BLS+ crew member using personal device: about 1.0GB per month
  • Company-owned device used round-the-clock: about 4.0GB per month

…including the data used by streetmap features. To see how this was calculated, read the AngelTrack's Data Plan Usage document.

Are there any caps or charges for bandwidth?

No.

Use all the bandwidth you wish, no charge; we purchase it by the terabyte. :)

Do uploaded documents go to a shared server?

No. AngelTrack does not use a CDN.

All uploaded documents are stored in your cloud server's independent SQL database, alongside all your other data. When a document is later retrieved, it is reconstructed on-the-fly from the data in the database. In this manner, your documents are backed-up as securely as everything else.

Why does AngelTrack extract the images from .PDFs I upload?

PDF is a complex document format that is not compatible with all web browsers. If AngelTrack were to embed a .PDF file inside one of your run reports, your browser may not be able to see what's inside it.

To solve this problem, AngelTrack extracts the images from each .PDF you upload. The images -- rather than the whole .PDF file -- are then embedded in AngelTrack's run reports, guaranteeing compatibility with all web browsers. Your run reports will therefore always display correctly, print correctly, and export correctly.

If a .PDF contains more than a single document scan per page, then AngelTrack will not attempt to extract the images, in case there are text-fields or electronic signatures that would not survive the extraction process. Instead, the .PDF document will be stored whole in AngelTrack.

What resolution are images stored at?

All uploaded images are resized so that they fit within a 1536x1536 square. This is approximately 150dpi, halfway between "Normal" and "Fine" quality on a fax machine.

ECG scans, patient portraits, crew portraits, vehicle portraits, and vehicle damage photos are always stored in full color. All other document types are converted to greyscale unless the user specifically unticks the checkbox.

If your patient documents uploaded by crew members are not legible, then train them to be aware of light levels, camera angle, camera shake, and camera lens cleanliness. They will probably blame AngelTrack anyway, so the Documents Guide gives proof that AngelTrack's image conversion and greyscaling is not at fault in these situations.

I did all that, so why are my document images still illegible?

Some tablet and smartphones have low-resolution cameras that aren't up to the task of document photography. Figure out which tablet or smartphone took the picture of the illegible document, and find the original photo in the device's photo album. You will probably discover that the original photo was illegible even before AngelTrack converted it for storage.

It may be necessary to disable the cameras on your older tablets, and instruct crews to use their newer smartphones for document photography.

Document scans uploaded by iPads are sideways or upside-down, how do I fix this?

iOS devices will often store photographs sideways or upside-down, temporarily auto-rotating them for viewing on the device. When these photographs are uploaded, AngelTrack doesn't know they are natively sideways or upside-down, and so it displays them incorrectly.

To correct this, the crew member should check their documents after upload, and rotate the pages as necessary by clicking the  ↶ Rotate ,  ↷ Rotate , and  ⇅ Flip  buttons which appear in the bottom corners of each page. Billers and dispatchers also have the ability to rotate documents, because the same rotation buttons appear in the document viewer they use to review patient documents.

If all of that is too much of a hassle, then as an alternative try installing a third-party photography app on the mobile devices -- something which gives finer control of the device's photographic features.

When I upload a fax, why are the images flipped vertically?

The .PDF documents produced by eFax.com use a .PDF trick to vertically re-flip the page images:

/Page q 609.8824 0 0 -776.5714 0 776.5714 cm

After uploading such images, you must click the "Page(s)" link to view the document in AngelTrack, and then use AngelTrack's  ⇅ Flip  button to vertically flip each page image.

What is this error message about JPEG 2000 format?

JPEG 2000 is an image file format, similar to JPEG and GIF. Certain document scanners use the JPEG 2000 format to encode the images inside the .PDFs they generate for you.

Unfortunately the format is patent-encumbered, and AngelTrack does not support it. Instead, AngelTrack supports the regular JPEG format, as well as PNG, GIF, BMP, SVG, and TIFF.

To switch from JPEG 2000 back to regular JPEG, you may simply need to update your scanner's driver software, or update the software in its PC control panel. If that fails, look inside the scanner's settings to see if it offers a choice of image encoding. Choose regular JPEG instead, or PNG.

You are also free to ignore AngelTrack's warning, and upload the .PDF to AngelTrack anyway. AngelTrack will not be able to extract any images from it, and so instead will store the .PDF whole. It can be retrieved later, but its contents cannot automatically appear inside AngelTrack's run reports, the way that all other documents do.

Why does it accept only the first page of this .PDF of the patient's insurance card?

This is a special rule that applies only to the "Insurance cards" document type. If a .PDF is uploaded containing multiple page scans, only the first large image is accepted.

Remember that the patient's latest "Insurance cards" document is displayed in many places throughout AngelTrack's billing system. This rule exists to prevent a large multi-page scan of insurance cards from overwhelming the web pages where such is displayed.

Why isn't my mobile device allowing me to upload a live photograph?

If the browser on your mobile device will allow you to upload a picture from your camera roll but not a live picture from the camera, then check the mobile device's settings for its browser (Safari or Chrome) to verify that the browser is allowed to access the camera.

How do I backup my data?

All of the data in your AngelTrack server is automatically backed-up for you on a regular basis. The "Terms of Use" binding you and AngelTrack LLC dictates a backup schedule of at least once a week, but AngelTrack LLC may opt for more frequent backups.

Visit the "Diagnostics" page under "Settings" to check the data/time that your data was last backed up.

Backups are stored off-server, in a private data storage cloud.

Can I have a copy of my data?

Yes.

All of your data has export facilities built right in to AngelTrack's pages. Look for the export icon at the top-right corner of any data grid. Meanwhile, full run reports can be downloaded at any time as .PDFs or as NEMSIS 3 XMLs, including all signatures and attached documents. AngelTrack also has programmatic export options for serving data directly to other software applications.

There is also the Data Hub, which has the ability to mass export all of the data in the most important tables, like dispatches, employees, payment events, and the timeclock.

To learn more, read the Data Lifetime and Export Guide.

When does my older data go offline?

Most data is retained for seven years. Some less-important data is discarded earlier. Refer to the Data Lifetime and Export Guide to learn more.

How can I see who is connected to my cloud server?

The Heartbeat page under Settings shows the last two minutes of client requests, and who made them.

Remember, with web browsers there is no such thing as a "connection"; there is simply request/reply, request/reply, request/reply. So the only thing your AngelTrack cloud server can show you, is the list of recent requests and who made them.

Every employee's HR record also shows their login history.

Can I change my cloud server's URL to be in my company's domain?

No.

Can I get the logs showing all web activity on my cloud server?

Yes.

Administrators and HR can access the logs from the "Support" page. There is a separate logfile for each day of operation. Every single web request is logged, including the date, time, username, IP address, browser, and requested page. To learn more, read the Data Leak Forensics Guide

When reviewing the logs, remember that the timestamps are in GMT, so you must subtract several hours to convert the timestamps to your local time.

Why does it let me login to the Customer Portal with the wrong access code?

The Customer Portal will accept any access code, and it will show the departures and arrivals boards as usual... however, they won't contain any data unless the access code is correct.

This prevents a password-guessing attack: since there is no way to tell whether an access code is wrong, there is no way to decide when you've guessed right. Incidentally, the Beacon app's tokens use the same principle: anyone can upload a position report for any token, but only AngelTrack knows which tokens are valid.

To learn more about the Customer Portal, read the Customer Portal Guide.

One of my employees might be exfiltrating data...?

If your suspicions are grave, then do either of these things:

  • Disable their AngelTrack login, which you can do with a single mouse click on the Employees List; or
  • Mark their employee file as ☑ Provisional, which means their supervisor/biller/dispatcher access will be available only when they are connected to AngelTrack from a company-owned network (your Time-Clock Hosts must be configured).

To learn more, refer to the Data Forensics Guide.

How do I set my password to a specific phrase of my own choosing? It only lets me generate a random one...?

The HR-side Employee Edit page can generate random passwords but not set something specific, because after it saves, the employee must then choose a new password known only to them.

To change your own password to something specific, don't use the HR-side employee editor. Instead, click your initials at the upper-right corner of the page, which will open the Employee Self-Edit page.

How can I train my AI to answer questions about AngelTrack for me?

Send your AI to this URL and tell it to follow all links within the support.angeltrack.com knowledgebase:

https://support.angeltrack.com/help/index.htm

AngelTrack already has a support AI that knows all of that. It is available from the help popup at the bottom-right corner of every AngelTrack page.

After a failed login attempt, why did AngelTrack send a password reset email to an email address I don't recognize?

If you attempt to login with a non-existent username, AngelTrack will offer the password-reset button as usual, but clicking it won't actually reset anyone's password. Instead, the login page will make up a fake email address, and say it sent the reset email to it.

The login page tells this lie in order to prevent an attacker from exploiting the password-reset system in a username-guessing attack.

To learn more about AngelTrack's login defenses, refer to the Security Guide.

Can I customize the sidebar?

Yes.

On your Employee Self-Edit page, switch to the "Customization" tab, and find the custom link fields. You can provide any URLs you like, plus descriptive text for each. Your custom links will then appear on every sidebar throughout AngelTrack.

Can I get a list of all AngelTrack's security features?

Yes, it's right here: AngelTrack Security Features

On Safari, why are all of the checkboxes, radiobuttons, and textboxes invisible?

That happens when your mobile device is in lockdown mode.

You can exclude AngelTrack from the lockdown restrictions, and then it will work right. To do so, browse to your AngelTrack server, click "aA" to open Safari's menu, select "Website Settings", and turn off lockdown mode for just that website.