Getting started

1Introduction

What the Supporter app is, the four jobs it does on a competition day, how it fits between the pilot app and the organizer website, and how to read this manual.

Mixed, see chapter

What the Supporter app is#

SkyTrackPro Supporter is the app for the people who run a competition, not for the people flying it. Pilots carry SkyTrackPro, organizers work on the competition website, and everyone in between, at registration, at the take off, at goal, in the ops room and behind the wheel of a retrieve car, uses this app.

It does four things. It scans pilot QR codes and records them against a competition category. It shows the live map with today's task and every pilot on it. It shows the Live Ops feed, where pilot status messages and SOS alerts arrive. And it turns a retrieve driver's phone into a live position source with a pickup list.

The scanning half is built to survive a mountain take off with no signal. The live half needs a connection, because there is nothing live about a cached position.

The four jobs, and the four tabs#

The bar along the bottom of the screen is the whole app. Three tabs are always there. The fourth appears only if the organizer has marked you as a retrieve driver for the competition you have selected.

QR Scan
Pick the competition and the category, then scan pilots. Confirm each one against their photo and name before it is recorded. See Scanning a pilot.
Live Tracking
Today's task drawn on a map, with every pilot's live position on top of it, their altitude, their task progress and their trail. See The live map.
Live Ops
The status feed. Landed safe, need help, SOS and retrieve requests, the acknowledgement that tells the rest of the staff you have seen one, and the driver you put on a pilot who needs collecting. See The Live Ops feed.
Driver
Share your position with the organizers and work through the pilots they assign you to pick up. See Retrieve driver.

Note

One person often does more than one of these in a day. The app does not have separate modes: whatever your account is allowed to do, the tabs for it are there.

How it fits with the pilot app and the website#

Three pieces share one competition.

The competition website
Where the organizer creates the competition, registers pilots, defines the scan categories, publishes the task for the day and assigns staff. Everything the Supporter app offers you was set up there.
The pilot app
Where a pilot carries their personal QR code, publishes their live track during the task, and sends the status messages that land in your Live Ops feed.
This app
Reads what the organizer published, writes back scans, acknowledgements, retrieve assignments, pickup confirmations and, for drivers, live positions.

That is also the answer to most "why can I not see it" questions. If a competition, a category, a task or a pilot is missing here, it is missing because of how it is set up on the website. See Roles and access.

A competition day, in order#

A typical day runs through the app roughly like this.

  1. Before you leave the hotel, while you still have wifi, open the app, select the competition and pull down to refresh. That loads the categories and the pilot list with photos onto the phone.
  2. At registration or at the take off, pick the category and scan pilots. Each scan goes straight to the server if you have a connection, and into a local queue if you do not.
  3. Back in coverage, the queue empties by itself. Check that Pending and Failed are both at zero before you call the category done.
  4. Once the task is published, the Live Tracking tab shows it, and pilots appear on it as they take off.
  5. During the task, watch Live Ops. Acknowledge anything that needs a human, give every retrieve request a driver, and call the emergency contact on an SOS.
  6. Retrieve drivers turn on position sharing, and work through the pickups they are assigned.

How to read this manual#

Anything written like this is a label exactly as it reads in the app, so you can search for it on screen. Anything written like 12 km is a value the app shows you. Chapter headers carry a connectivity badge:

Works offline
The whole chapter works with the phone in airplane mode, as long as you synced once beforehand.
Needs internet
Nothing in the chapter works without a connection.
Sync once, work offline
Prepare it while you have coverage, then use it in the field with none.
Mixed, see chapter
Parts of it work offline and parts do not. The chapter says which.

Caution

A scan that is queued on your phone is not a scan the organizer can see. Offline scanning is a safety net for bad coverage, not a way to work all day without ever syncing. See Offline scanning and the queue.