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Module 1: IQCS Introduction

  • Established by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG), the IQCS application is a management tool to record, track and report on responder incident response qualifications for NWCG Standards for Wildland Fire Position Qualifications, PMS 310-1, and agency-specific standards. The original wildfire agencies collaborated to develop Incident Qualifications and Certification System (IQCS) to support NWCG and their qualification standards. Responder data was migrated from the individual legacy systems during the early months of 2004. 

    The IQCS application itself is managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) with active business oversight provided by the IQCS Change Management Board (IQCSCMB). The IQCSCMB has the following distinct purposes:

    • Ensures the application accurately reflects the business requirements and meets the needs of the user community.
    • Provides interpretation and implementation direction on changes to the NWCG guidance or standards and provide appropriate agency specific guidance.
    • Primary source of business direction to the system managers.
    • Approve change requests where level of effort is greater than 16 staff hours, impacts the business process of agencies or IQCS membership requests by an agency/entity.
    • Approve requests for new agency membership into the application.
    • Ensure all approved change requests are based on a demonstrated business needs.
    • Agency specific qualification request are shared with each member prior to implementation.
    • Identify agency qualification documents that reflect agency policies. Approve all system modifications that may affect implementation of business requirements, user security roles, or have a major effect on the responder’s data.

    IQCS Agency Leads and their contact information can be found at https://iqcsweb.nwcg.gov/contact-us/cmb-reps. 

    For an incident qualification standard question or issue, please contact your IQCS Agency Lead or Agency Representative as they are incident qualification standard (business) subject matter experts who can answer those questions or obtain the answer from the best possible source in the least amount of time.

  • The IQCS application has been customized per the Incident and Position Standards Committee (IPSC) and direct the business oversite of the IQCSCMB to contain requirements (competencies) maintained in the following documents:

    Per IQCSCMB oversite and direction, the application is designed to provide managers at the local, state/regional, and national levels with detailed qualification, experience, and training information needed to certify responders in wildland fire incident qualification positions. The IQCS is a tool to assist managers in certification decisions. However, it does not replace the manager’s responsibility to validate that responders meet all requirements for position performance based on their agency standards.

    To determine qualification status for a responder’s position qualification(s), The IQCS compares the responder’s competencies to the qualification standard.

  • Agencies are built with their own specific and unique organizational structure in the application. These structures are used to organize agency responders, enforce agency qualification standards and provide user security to (or from) responder records.

    Each agency organizational structure start with the agency identifier. From there it utilizes individual organizations to build a hierarchy of to reflect an organizational structure of the agency states/regions/etc. IQCS agency leads are the stewards for their organizations and the organizational structure in the application. Agency organizations can be found at https://iqcsweb.nwcg.gov/agency-organizations.

    A responder can only be assigned to one organization. An IQCS user can have access to multiple agency organizations based on the agency approval process.

    ADDING OR MODIFYING AN AGENCY ORGANIZATION

    Agency organization requests (new and/or modification) can be requested by following the below process. To review current agency organizations, visit the Agency Organizations page.

    1. Complete the Request for IQCS Organization Codes form and submit it to your IQCS agency representative. 
    2. The IQCS agency representative will evaluate and ensure completeness. If approved, they will forward the completed form to the IQCS agency lead.
    3. The IQCS agency lead will evaluate and ensure completeness and adherence for their agency organizational structure. If approved, they will forward the form to the IQCS application security contact.

    DO NOT submit the request directly to IQCS staff and/or help desk as it must be authorized by the IQCS agency lead. Any request not submitted by an IQCS agency lead will not be processed by security.  

  • A standard user account are for those persons that will accessing and managing other responder's qualification records via the roles of account manager, training officer, certifying official, etc. 

    SECURITY

    An IQCS user account security is build based on user role(s) and agency organizational access. This limits every user account to only those roles necessary to complete the tasks on responder records where agency organization access has been authorized.

    Each IQCS user account connects a permission list (agency organizational access) to the User ID. With the interagency aspect, agency organizational access may contain a blend of one or many agency organizations. This combination of agency access must be authorized by each respective agency representative and represent a clear business need.

    Please refer to the IQCS Standard User - Account Instructions for more information.

    ROLES

    A role defines:

    • What menu items a user can access.
    • What pages a user can access.
    • What tabs appear when a user accesses a menu component.
    • What reports a user can run.
    • What actions a user can perform on the pages.

    Possible user actions include:

    • Display only (no data changing or manipulating).
    • Add rows (to add new data or history).
    • Update/display rows/pages.
    • Correction (to change or correct existing data).

    For a list of user roles and the pages and actions that can be completed by each per definition by the IQCSCMB, please see the Standard User - Role Matrix at https://iqcsweb.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Roles_Matrix_9.pdf

    Inactivation

    If a users account has been inactivity (not logging in to) for 12 months it will be automatically closed. 

  • A responder user account if for those that will be access their own qualification record only and will not be managing other responder qualification records. Instructions for self access registration can be found here at the Responder User Account Process. 

    For a responder to access their qualification record only, they must complete the one time account setup found here. At a minimum, complete the Empl ID, First and Last Name, Email Address, Birth Month, and Birth Day. Data elements entered must match what is on the responder's IQCS responder record to create a user account. Unsure of your Empl ID or how your name is entered on your record, check your most recent issued Incident Qualification Card or Responder Master Records, or ask your current IQCS Account Manager. 

    The security and role (pages and actions) for the responder user accounts have been defined by the IQCSCMB. 

    Inactivation

    If a users account has been inactivity (not logging in to) for 12 months it will be automatically closed. 

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User Guide