Overview
The COTAK team recognizes that much of the value of COTAK is found during mutual aid situations. The system provides an efficient mechanism for public safety agencies to share the locations of their first responders with neighboring agencies when a mutual aid situation arises, and to turn off this sharing when it is not needed.
All COTAK users have access to statewide mutual aid channels which are filtered based on the type of first responder each user is registered as. Additional mutual aid can be accomplished using COTAK as well on a county or regional level.
County / Regional Mutual Aid Channels
Similar to how mutual aid channels are deployed on voice radios for public safety, COTAK can create special mutual aid channels which are accessible by multiple agencies. The system automates the process of providing these channels to individual first responders by making each responder a part of an agency, and each agency can be part of a larger group such as a county or region.
Channels can be created at the level of these larger groups, and are available to all agencies and responders that are members of the county or region. Contact the COTAK program team at cotak.gov/support for assistance creating these mutual aid channels.
Interagency Channels
An additional tool available to COTAK agency administrators, called interagency channels, allows them to invite other agencies to join on a common channel for interoperability. This option is in addition to traditional mutual aid channels that are permanently created by the COTAK program team for use by agencies within a county or region.
Interagency channels in COTAK works similarly to the patching of voice radio channels, but differs in that COTAK creates a new interagency channel for the patch using the membership of multiple ‘normal’ channels. To learn more about this feature watch our training video here. For assistance setting up interagency channels contact the COTAK program team at cotak.gov/support
Standards for Mutual Aid
To ensure interoperability between agencies using COTAK, the project team has developed a standard for each first responder to use in COTAK when setting their callsign, team, and user role.
- Team Color: The team color each responder selects in the TAK apps determines what color their dot appears as to other responders. To help identify the types of responders using COTAK during large public safety incidents the project team has established a standard for team colors, which is shown in the photo above.
- Callsign: TAK callsigns should be as concise as possible to avoid map clutter while conveying the most important identifying information. COTAK's callsign convention is:
[Agency Acronym] and [Last Name] and/or [Radio Callsign], for example: DFPC Smith CH-32 or APD Adam 12 - User Role: Roles in TAK were intended for military users, therefore not all first responder roles are adequately captured. When in doubt, users should default to using the standard Team Member role. Other user roles available in the TAK apps should be utilized as described below in COTAK:
- Team Member – the default role for all personnel who do not better fit in one of the roles below
- Team Lead – first-line supervisors and above
- Sniper - SWAT, special response teams, and snipers
- Medic – personnel with EMT training and equipment or greater
- Forward Observer – observation post personnel, UAS remote pilots, and tactical flight officers
- RTO (radio telephone operator) - Communications personnel: telecommunicators, dispatch, communications unit leaders (COML), and communications unit technicians (COMT)
- K9 - K9 personnel
- HQ – headquarters, incident command post, and emergency operations center personnel
