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Naming Search Teams and Areas

A good naming convention is one of the most important practices in Karttahimmeli. Search team name is shown in all entries, location history, and filters at command. Without a consistent convention, command post has difficulty understanding situation.

Team ID

Team ID field

Team ID is set when joining operation. Command should define naming convention before search teams start marking or sharing location.

Team ID field structure

The team ID consists of two parts, entered in separate fields:

Field Length Example
Team 2–12 characters Dog-03
Member 1–6 characters (optional) tk

The fields are automatically joined with a slash: Dog-03/tk.

Team ID setting

The member field is optional. If there is only one Karttahimmeli user in a search team, the member field can be left empty.

Principles of good team name structure

1. Use descriptive prefix, not single letters

Recommended Avoid
Dog-01 D1
Foot-03 F3
Car-02 C2

Single letter is ambiguous and may match many unrelated names in search.

2. Use zero-padded numbers

Why zero padding?

With filter search, Foot1 matches Foot1, Foot10, Foot11, etc. Foot01 matches only values containing 01, not 10 or 11.

Use Foot-01, Foot-02 ... Foot-10 instead of Foot1, Foot2 ... Foot10.

3. Separate search team members using the Member field

If multiple people in same search team use Karttahimmeli, routes get mixed if they have exactly the same ID.

Enter the team name in the Team field and own initials in the Member field:

Team: Dog-03   Member: tk  →  Dog-03/tk
Team: Dog-03   Member: ah  →  Dog-03/ah

Then searching Dog-03 shows all members of that search team — and the team shortcut buttons (see below) automatically group them under a single button.

Start only after ID is known

Do not start markings or location sharing before you know command-approved ID. Wrongly named entries are almost impossible to fix afterwards.

Area naming

Same principles apply to area naming:

  • Use zero-padded numbering: A01, A02 not A1, A2
  • In phase naming use two letters rather than one: phaseAA, phaseAB
  • Area name does not need method (e.g. sweep), put that in extra info

Extra info for areas

Area extra info can include for example:

  • Special terrain notes
  • Search Team instructions: "Start from north, pay special attention to ditches"
  • Search Team after-action comments: "Area covered, snow to mid-calf"

Remind search team about extra info

It is good to mention separately to team lead if area has instructions in extra info. Otherwise they may be missed.