CrewAlert Tutorial

IntroductionWelcome to CrewAlert! This guide will introduce you to the basic CrewAlert functionality. You can access this tutorial from your application at any time by selecting ‘Tutorial’ on the ‘More’ tab.

CrewAlert is provided as an easily accessible interface to the Boeing Alertness Model (BAM). BAM is a bio-mathematical model of alertness, which has been developed from decades of science. BAM considers work and sleep schedule, and predicts alertness based on physiology and performance data. BAM is a prediction of average alertness for the average person.

Getting Started

The first screen you will see is the CrewAlert’s Graph screen. Familiarize yourself with the main elements of the Crew-Alert application, paying special attention to the Navigation Bar at the bottom of the screen, which will be used to move through the main functions of the application.

The Navigation Bar contains four tabs, each of which lead to a different functional area of the application.

The “Graph” ViewThe Graph View is the main interface within CrewAlert. The Graph View (to the right) provides a visual representation of predicted alertness, predicted sleep and wake, actual sleep and wake, duties, and other information.

1. The time scroll bar

Jumps 15 days forward/backward in time. A period of 20 days are shown at a time.

2. The time/date ruler

Shows date of predictions and, by zooming, subdivision of days into blocks of hours.

3. The upper ruler area

Shows duties and sleep opportunities derived from the schedule and personal settings. Predicted sleep and wake are indicated by gray (for sleep) and white (for time awake). Du-ties are indicated by green, orange, or red blocks. Gaps in the sleep/wake/duty ruler indicate transit time, between home and airport or between hotel and airport. Double tap here to

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CrewAlert TutorialFor version 1.3

add a duty period. Double tap on a duty to edit. Single-tap a duty to reveal more details.

Layovers will be indicated by a thin green connector at the top of the duty blocks keeping them together when not on home base. In addition, a red indicator line might appear should the duties not be consistent in time zone transition (more below).

4. The lower ruler area

This area shows actual sleep. Double tap here to create a sleep journal (log) that may contain sleep periods. If a sleep journal does not contain sleep periods, you are telling the system you stayed awake the full time. Double tap a sleep journal to edit.

5. The ‘now’ line

This line marks the current date/time according to your operating system.

6. The Common Alertness Scale (CAS)

CAS is an alertness scale upon which CrewAlert predictions are made. It ranges from a low of 0 to a high of 10 000.

7. The alertness prediction

This is the prediction made by CrewAlert as a result of the entered sleep and wake schedule. Please note that the predicted value represents average predicted alertness of a population. Individuals should expect some variance from the prediction. During periods of predicted or actual sleep, the alertness prediction becomes a prediction of the recovery of alertness due to time asleep.

8. The 90% confidence interval

This is the level which BAM predicts 90 percent of the population is above.

9. Shortcut to the data collection screen

Double tap to score your sleepiness according to choices under settings and to confirm your last actual, non-confirmed sleep.

10. Alertness markers

When alertness has been scored using one or more of the built-in methods (more below), markers will appear for these values. PVT and Samn-Perelli scores are placed at the bottom awaiting a conversion factor over to CAS while KSS is translated into CAS and placed ‘vertically’ correct to the alertness prediction.

Note that the graph view supports ‘swiping’ to scroll through time (left and right) and ‘pinching’ to zoom in and out on the time/date scale.

11. Save/load scenario

The scenario function allows you to either save a copy of the current state of any selected scenario, create a new empty scenario, or load an already stored scenario (see below). When starting the application for the first time, a default scenario is created and referred to as the ‘Main’ scenario. The ‘Main’ scenario is the scenario that is loaded at every startup. To identify if the ‘Main’ scenario is currently used or if an alternative scenario is loaded the scenario icon will switch between green and red, where green indicates the ‘Main’ scenario is used and red that an alternative scenario is loaded.

12. Scenario

This screen lists all stored scenarios. Load any of the listed scenarios by single tap on the cell. The active scenario is indicated by a check mark.

13. New/Save copy as

By clicking on the ‘+’ button you can choose to either creating a new empty scenario or save a copy of the currently active scenario.

14. Delete scenario

This button will delete the scenario which is currently ac-tive. When a scenario has been deleted it can not be undone. Note that the ‘Main’ scenario can not be deleted.

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The “Schedule” ViewThe Schedule View is a table view of entered duty and sleep periods, which can be accessed by selecting ‘Schedule’ from the Navigation Bar. The major features of the Schedule view are indicated below. Note that if more than a few duties or sleep periods are entered, they may not all fit in the default view. ‘Swipe’ down to see more duties or sleep periods.

1. Duty/Sleep Journal Toggle

Toggles between editing/adding duties or sleep journals. Note the ‘+’ sign, which is used to create new duties.

Depending on the position of the toggle, different functions are available. With the toggle switched to ‘Duty’, the follow-ing features are available:

2. Month selection bar

Toggle backward and forward between months and displays duties/sleep journals which have their departure/start time inside the selected month.

An alternative way of selecting the month to display duties/sleep journals from is by a single tap on the date label and then select year and month from the date spinner.

3. Go-to-duty shortcut

Pressing this button will switch to the graph view and zoom in on the duty below. Note that this feature is only available for duties and is not shown for sleep entries.

4. Edit Duty

Once duties have been entered, they can be edited by clicking on the edit icon (>).

The Duty Add/Edit screen to the left is where specifics of a particular duty are entered. This screen can be accessed by clicking the edit icon (>) in the Schedule View, by double click-ing on the upper ruler area of the Graph View, or by double clicking on a previously entered duty in the Graph View.

The features of the Duty Add/Edit screen are shown on the next page. Note, some options are only visible by scroll-ing the screen down. Swipe your finger up or down to see all selection options.

5. Go-to-today

Pressing this button will navigate and scroll down to the duty or diary occurring today or the duty/diary closest to today.

6. Departure and Arrival time and date

Departure and arrival time and date information can be entered here. Click on the edit icon (>) to change. Note that if entering a trip or group of mul-tiple flights, the departure and arrival time should be the first departure and the last arrival in the trip.

7. Number of legs

If entering multiple legs at once, change the value of this setting. As noted above, the departure and arrival times should reflect the beginning and the end of the group of legs if this value is greater than 1. (BAM takes number of legs into account for the alertness prediction.)

8. Time zone shift

Click the edit icon (>) to modify the time zone where the flight or group of flights began and ended. The shift is calcu-lated automatically based on the beginning and end values.

9. Type

Select the type of duty from the options.

10. Ends at home base

If the duty will end at home base change this selector to ‘on’. This will tell CrewAlert which transit-time assumptions to use.

11. Notes

This is a free-form note space. Enter any relevant details about the trip here. Note that only the first two lines will be visible in the graph view.

12. Briefing/Debriefing time

Enter the time spent briefing/debriefing before the first and after the last flight in the duty.

13. In-flight sleep

Useful mainly for long-range crew indicating the length of

the in-flight sleep likely to occur. The sleep will be applied in the middle of the flight. A sleep journal (see below) will still override this sleep if provided.

14. Delete Duty button

This button will delete the current duty from the database. Note that once deleted, this cannot be undone.

With the Duty/Sleep Journal toggle set to Sleep Journal, select the edit icon (>) on any of the journal entries to access the ‘Add sleep journal’ screen. This is where specifics of actual sleep are entered. This screen can also be accessed by double clicking on the upper ruler area of the Graph View, or by double clicking on a previously entered sleep journal in the Graph View. The features of the Add Sleep Journal/Edit Sleep Journal screen are shown in the right column.

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15. Sleep Journal Period

The sleep journal start and end time define the beginning and end of a period of sleep and wake during which you wish to keep a record. By default, the entire sleep journal period is assumed to be time awake. Whatever portions of the sleep journal are not ‘blocked out’ as sleep are considered time awake.

If you wish to record a period awake when BAM would pre-dict you to be sleeping, you can simply enter a journal period with no sleep indicated. In such a case, you would simply choose ‘save’ on the screen above, and CrewAlert would record a period awake from 09:25 to 17:25. To indicate sleep during a sleep journal period, you must add it.

16. Add Sleep

Click the Add Sleep button to bring up the ‘sleep period’ screen. Use this screen to enter the beginning and end of actual sleep periods.

17. Delete Sleep Period

In order to delete a sleep period that has been added, click on the red “-“ (minus) sign. A ‘Delete’ button will appear over the sleep period. Click it to delete the sleep period entry.

18. Delete Sleep Journal

Click this button to delete a sleep journal and all of the sleep periods. Once deleted, this cannot be undone.

Note that the Delete button is not available when the sleep journal is first being added, only when the journal is opened for editing.

The “Settings” ViewThe Settings view is where you can find many of the general settings used in CrewAlert. You can edit your personal set-tings to fit your individual situation. Note that some of the items do not affect the BAM predictions (gender, birth year, height, weight and position are all just included for future growth and support of other models than BAM). Most of the settings are self-explanatory, however, note the following:

Diurnal Type

This setting is intended to account for individual preference towards ‘morningness’ and ‘eveningness’. If you tend to wake up early and fall asleep early or wake up late and stay up late, choose the appropriate setting. If uncertain about your diurnal type, you can make a self-assessment using the Morningness-Eveningness Questionnaire from Horne and Ostberg, which has been adapted for the Internet on numer-ous web sites.

Habitual Sleep Length

This is the length of time you would naturally sleep if not awoken by an alarm clock or other disruption.

Alertness Limits (Amber & Red)

These settings allow for the user to set alarm levels in CrewAlert. The number of duties in the next coming 48 hours that falls below the Red threshold are indicated on the ap-plication icon on your device’s main screen.

Survey Mode will remove the alertness prediction line and the 90% confidence interval. This is useful when/if using CrewAlert for collecting data to avoid crew being biased by the prediction itself. Prompting for KSS/SP/PVT (see below) controls if CrewAlert should regularly (as determined by the slider at the bottom of this section) prompt the user for input of these alertness scores when being started.

Alertness Model

Presently, only the Boeing Alertness Model (BAM) can be used for the predictions.

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The “More” ViewAlertness scoring

This is an entry to allow for doing alertness coring on either the KSS (Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS), the Samn-Perelli Scale (SP) or via a Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT)

Note! All alertness scoring, weather it is KSS, PVT or SP, should be done in a quiet, relaxed environment and after settling down for 5-10 minutes for the values to become most relevant.

Account

Used for setting up and maintaining a user account allowing for communication with a Jeppesen server.

Communicate

For selecting and sharing parts of the collected data to help improving the mathematical models to reflect real operation in the best possible way. This function is also used for doing a direct import of schedule data, if the airline has enabled the functionality.

About

When submitting questions to our support e-mail address, please include your CrewAlert Version, BAM Version, OS ver-sion, and which device you are using.

The Psychomotor Vigilance Task

The test lasts for five minutes and measures the mean reac-tion time and the number of responses taking longer than half a second.

The Data Collection Screen

The Data Collection screen will appear automatically when starting the application if either a) the selected means of alertness scoring has not been made in the time interval given, or b) the last predicted sleep, looking back 24 hours, has not yet been adjusted/confirmed.

Alertness scores entered/measured are plotted on the Graph View as colored dots and are accessible also from the ‘More’ tab.

Note that in version 1.3 of CrewAlert, PVT is just plotted at the bottom of the CAS scale (close to zero) as the transforma-tion scale has not been finalized.

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Further reading and support We do not provide phone support for this product. Please submit your questions, ideas and feedback by e-mail to us at crewalert_support@jeppesen.com.

For further reading about CrewAlert and FAQ, please visit www.jeppesen.com/crewalert.

For further reading about the Boeing Alertness Model, please visit www.boeing.com/commercial/flightops/bfrm.html.

For questions on BAM, or if you are interested in including BAM in your crew management process, please email us at frms@boeing.com.