API Innovators: York Rescue Boat

York Rescue Boat

At York Rescue Boat, the team is more than just a lifeboat service, they are a team of locals looking out for their community and dedicated to keeping York’s rivers a safer place for everyone. Their work combines both proactive and reactive approaches, which means not only responding to emergency call-outs when someone’s in trouble but also patrolling the rivers during high-risk times throughout the year. At York Rescue Boat their goal is to be a reassuring, preventative presence on the waterways and to lend a hand whenever and wherever it's needed most.

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D4H and York Rescue Boat

The team at York Rescue Boat uses a range of tools from D4H, to support the team to stay organized and efficient. D4H's Team Manager tracks everything from team members’ qualifications and attendance to incident reports and upcoming training. With D4H the team can easily see who is ready to respond and what skills each person brings. Additionally, the team uses D4H Operation Center to coordinate in real time, keeping everyone in the loop during live incidents.

"D4H is good for our organization as it's the single source of truth for everything."

— Tom Atkinson, Operational Crew and IT Team Lead at York Rescue Boat

How D4H's API Supports Operations

At York Rescue Boat, keeping things running smoothly isn’t just about showing up on the river; it’s also about managing the behind-the-scenes work that helps the team respond quickly and efficiently. D4H streamlines a lot of the admin work and has been used by York Rescue Boat for almost ten years. The use of emergency management software helps to simplify essential processes so they can stay focused on what matters most: keeping people safe on York’s waterways.

Using the D4H API, the team has managed to cut down on a lot of manual tasks, like setting up new user accounts, syncing volunteer qualifications with their e-learning platform, and tracking compliance on key policies. York Rescue Boat's team is made up of volunteers, who also have day jobs, so finding time for these administrative tasks often means late evenings or weekends. By automating these processes, it has given the team more of that time back.

"With the D4H API we're able to save time by automating our processes."

— Tom Atkinson, Operational Crew and IT Team Lead at York Rescue Boat

User Synchronization

York Rescue Boat's IT Team Lead Tom, was brought on with a mission to streamline user management. He tackled this challenge by harnessing the D4H API, which has since become a core tool for managing the team’s digital access efficiently and securely. The D4H API is now the team's source for user data, using an orchestrator system that regularly pulls data from D4H, including team member details and group memberships, and then uses that information to determine access across all their systems. Through this setup, every team member automatically gets a Google Workspace account, complete with an email address and access to shared files. They have also set it up so that all D4H groups are mirrored as security and email groups in Google Workspace. This allows members to easily communicate with the team according to their roles in D4H and control shared file access based on their group membership.

On top of this, the system grants specific access to different platforms depending on a volunteer’s role. For example, operational crew members get access to a radio platform and body-worn video solution automatically, all based on the group they’re assigned to in D4H. The whole process is dynamic and automated—if someone’s role changes, their access updates accordingly without any manual steps.

Qualifications

For York Rescue Boat, ensuring the team’s qualifications are up to date is critical, since the team is made up of volunteers who have to juggle training with other commitments, they rely on a seamless digital system to keep track of everyone’s progress and compliance. With the D4H API Tom developed a custom plugin, any training completed in their training software Moodle is instantly reflected in D4H. For example, if a volunteer completes mental health awareness training, the system automatically awards the qualification in D4H and sets an expiry date if needed. But it doesn’t stop at qualifications. The volunteers also have to regularly review and agree to policies and procedures—some annually, others every two years. To streamline that, they moved these policy agreements into Moodle as well. Volunteers can read through policies, tick a box to confirm the agreement, and the plugin updates D4H, setting reminders for when re-agreements are due.

Assessment Process

At York Rescue Boat, regular assessments maintain the team’s readiness and ensure every volunteer has the right skills to respond in any situation. Previously, their assessment process involved paper checklists—clipboards, tick boxes, and a lot of scanning and uploading later. It was time-consuming and made it tricky to access assessment records on the go. To address this, Tom and the team decided to digitize their assessments using Google Sheets and the D4H API, creating a streamlined system that they can use directly from rugged, waterproof tablets during training or operations.

By creating a digital assessment record in Google Sheets, where assessors can go through each competency check in real time with a volunteer. Once completed, they simply tap a button at the bottom of the sheet that initiates a script to save the record as a PDF and upload it to D4H. The D4H API then automatically updates the volunteer’s competency status, attaching the PDF as a timestamped record that’s locked in and unchangeable. This gives the team an accurate, easily accessible history of each team member’s skills, showing who’s assessed them and when. Not only does this setup save time and reduce paperwork, but it also makes the assessment data immediately available in D4H, helping them track skill development over time and keep everyone ready for action.

Analytics and Reporting

Tom at York Rescue Boat is currently in the early staged of working on a new project to use the D4H API as a tool to streamline analytics and reporting. This integration will enhance the ability to manage essential resources efficiently, ensuring that key data like equipment inspections, expiry dates, and incident reports are both accessible and easy to analyze. Through D4H’s reporting capabilities, York Rescue Boat will be able to access member information, track equipment, and manage maintenance schedules.

"The reporting in D4H is excellent"

— Tom Atkinson, Operational Crew and IT Team Lead at York Rescue Boat

A major advantage they’re aiming for is combining multiple data sets into management-level reports through Google Looker Studio. The vision is to create a real-time data flow, moving beyond static CSV files to a dynamic data connector with D4H. This would allow them to generate customized reports on member certifications, equipment checks, and incident statistics such as time, location, and type. In the future, they also hope to incorporate demographic insights to deepen their understanding of community impact. The ability to automate member onboarding and enable webhooks for real-time notifications when data changes will further streamline their operations, enhancing efficiency and reducing the risk of human error.

D4H API V3

The launch of the D4H API V3 introduces a host of new features, designed to enhance flexibility, enable deeper integrations, and offer more powerful customization options for users. This latest version focuses on supporting the most requested features, including refined control over member and equipment management, bulk actions, and expanded endpoints that cater to both routine needs and advanced workflows. For example, users can now tag activities, which enhances filtering and categorization, and the ability to track personnel and equipment costing is on the horizon—a much-anticipated feature for more detailed financial oversight in emergency response contexts.

One particularly exciting update on the roadmap is the enhanced capability to manage members more comprehensively. Soon, users will be able to create members, send invitations, and even perform batch updates across various records, such as retiring members or updating equipment in bulk. Ultimately, D4H’s goal with API V3 is to make every resource accessible, allowing team management to be fully powered by API V3 across web and mobile apps. This transition toward complete API integration will allow users to automate and streamline virtually all aspects of team operations, including connecting to third-party systems like Moodle for learning and qualification tracking, where training statuses are automatically synced with D4H records. This deepened interoperability is poised to deliver a seamless, efficient experience for organizations, eliminating many of the manual steps and ensuring data consistency across platforms.

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