Working Together in Kora

Animal management rarely happens in isolation. Farms employ multiple staff members. Veterinary practices coordinate teams of professionals. Conservation organisations deploy field workers across territories. Regulatory authorities coordinate inspectors. Kora supports this collaborative reality through features enabling teams to coordinate work, assign responsibilities, and stay aware of each other's activities.

This chapter focuses on collaboration and team coordination. How multiple people work together within Kora. Task management itself is covered comprehensively in Chapter 13 (Task Management & Workflows). Here, we emphasise the team aspects: who's on your team, how you assign work to specific people, and how teams stay coordinated through real-time updates and notifications.

What Collaboration Features Cover

Staff Directory (26.1) - Maintaining a directory of your team members with their roles, responsibilities, specialisations, and contact information. This differs from User Management (Chapter 27.2, SuperUser-only). The staff directory is operational teams working with animals daily.

Assigning Tasks to Team Members (26.2) - How to assign tasks to specific staff members, track who's responsible for what, and coordinate work distribution across your team. References task management fundamentals from Chapter 13.

Real-Time Collaboration (26.3) - Brief overview of how Kora updates information live when multiple team members work simultaneously. Everyone sees current data.

Notifications & Alerts (26.4) - Concise explanation of how team members receive alerts about important events, task assignments, and system updates requiring attention.

Collaboration vs Task Management

Chapter 13: Task Management & Workflows covers creating tasks, task priorities, due dates, status tracking, recurring tasks and templates, and task organisation and workflows.

Chapter 26: Collaboration & Team Management covers who's on your team (staff directory), assigning tasks to specific people, team coordination and awareness, and notifications keeping teams informed.

If you're learning about tasks themselves (creating, organising, tracking), see Chapter 13. If you're coordinating work among team members, this chapter provides the collaborative aspects.

Multi-User Coordination

Kora is designed for multi-user operations:

Single-User Operations: Individual farmers managing their own animals. Solo practitioners handling small-scale operations. Hobbyists with backyard animals.

Multi-User Operations: Farm teams with staff responsible for different areas. Veterinary practices with multiple veterinarians and support staff. Conservation organisations with field teams and coordinators. Regulatory authorities with inspectors across jurisdictions.

Multi-user features become essential when multiple people need coordinated access to the same animals, locations, and operational data. Ensures everyone knows who's responsible for what and can see each other's work.

How Teams Collaborate in Kora

Shared Access to Data: Multiple users can view and update the same animals, locations, and observations. When one team member records a health observation, others assigned to that animal see the update.

Task Assignment: Work is distributed by assigning tasks to specific staff members. "Check water troughs at North Paddock" assigned to John ensures he knows his responsibilities. Others know who's handling it.

Real-Time Updates: When team members work simultaneously, Kora updates information in real-time. If Sarah records a treatment while David views the same animal's health record, David sees Sarah's update immediately.

Notifications: Team members receive alerts about important events: tasks assigned to them, urgent health issues flagged, biosecurity events requiring response, or system updates needing attention.

Staff Directory: Teams maintain a directory showing who works on which animals, their roles, specialisations, and contact information. Makes it easy to know who to contact about specific animals or areas.

Desktop vs Mobile for Team Collaboration

Desktop excels at: Managing staff directory (adding team members, updating roles), assigning multiple tasks to team members, reviewing team-wide task distribution, coordination and planning activities, and accessing full notification history.

Mobile works well for: Viewing assigned tasks in the field, quick staff contact lookup (call a colleague), receiving real-time notifications, completing assigned tasks on-site, and checking who's assigned to specific animals.

Most team coordination planning happens on desktop. Mobile supports field staff executing assigned tasks and staying connected with the team.

Collaboration Across User Types

Different user types collaborate differently:

Farm Staff: Coordinate daily work assignments (feeding, health checks, maintenance). Use staff directory to contact colleagues. Receive task assignments on mobile devices in the field.

Veterinary Practices: Assign clinical cases to specific veterinarians. Coordinate multi-veterinarian practices. Track which veterinarian is responsible for which client properties.

Conservation Teams: Distribute field monitoring tasks across territories. Coordinate research teams. Assign wildlife observations to specific researchers or rangers.

Regulatory Inspectors: Coordinate inspection schedules across team members. Assign compliance reviews to specific inspectors. Track who's responsible for which facilities.

Collaboration features adapt to these diverse team structures without prescribing a single "right way" to coordinate.

Integration with Operational Features

Team collaboration integrates throughout Kora:

Animal Management (Chapter 8): When viewing an animal, see which staff member is assigned to care for it. Assign tasks related to that animal to appropriate team members.

Health Management (Chapter 10): Assign follow-up health checks to specific staff. Notify team members when observations require attention. Coordinate veterinary visits.

Biosecurity (Chapter 11): Alert team members about quarantine requirements. Assign biosecurity monitoring tasks. Coordinate outbreak response across teams.

Tasks (Chapter 13): Create tasks for animals or locations and assign them to responsible team members. Track completion across distributed teams.

Locations (Chapter 2): Assign staff to specific locations (John manages North Paddock, Sarah handles South Paddock). Coordinate work across facilities.

Collaboration isn't isolated. It's woven into how teams work with animals, locations, health, and biosecurity throughout Kora.

What This Chapter Covers

26.1 Staff Directory & Team Coordination - Managing your team directory, staff profiles with roles and responsibilities, access levels, and contact information.

26.2 Assigning Tasks to Team Members - How to assign tasks to specific people (references Chapter 13 for task management fundamentals), view assigned tasks, track team workload.

26.3 Real-Time Collaboration - Brief overview of real-time updates, multi-user awareness, and live synchronisation when teams work simultaneously.

26.4 Notifications & Alerts - Concise explanation of notification types, managing notifications, and how teams stay informed about important events.

Current Approach to Team Collaboration

Team collaboration works through:

Staff Directory: Add team members with roles, responsibilities, and contact information. View staff directory to understand who handles what.

Task Assignment (Chapter 13): Create tasks and assign them to specific staff members from your team directory. Assigned staff see tasks in their personal task lists.

Real-Time Updates: When multiple team members work in Kora simultaneously, updates appear live. No need to refresh pages or reload data.

Notifications: Team members receive notifications about task assignments, important events, and system alerts requiring their attention.

These features work together creating cohesive team coordination without complex collaboration setup or configuration.