Tensor FRC

The challenge

When a fire alarm sounds, every second counts. Businesses with Tensor’s time and attendance systems already know who has clocked in to the building — but that information was locked behind desktop screens inside the very building being evacuated.

Fire marshals and safety officers needed a way to access real-time staff accountability data from outside, in the car park or at the assembly point, using their mobile devices. The existing process relied on paper-based roll calls and manual headcounts — slow, error-prone, and dangerously unreliable for large or multi-zone buildings.

Paper roll calls were too slow. In a building with hundreds of employees, manually checking names against printed lists took far too long. By the time the headcount was complete, the information was already outdated as people moved between zones.

Visitor accountability was a blind spot. Most paper-based systems only tracked employees. Visitors, contractors, and temporary staff were often unaccounted for during evacuations — a serious safety and compliance risk.

There was no real-time status visibility. Fire marshals had no way to see the overall evacuation picture across multiple assembly points simultaneously. Coordination between zones relied on shouting or radio communication.

The approach

I built the Tensor FRC app using Angular and Ionic with Capacitor, connecting directly to Tensor’s time and attendance backend to pull real-time clock-in data. The app was designed for a very specific, high-pressure use case — it needed to be fast, reliable, and usable under stress.

Key design principles:

Speed over features — The interface is stripped back to essentials. Large buttons, high-contrast text, and no unnecessary navigation. Fire marshals need answers in seconds, not minutes
Real-time data — The app pulls the latest clock-in status directly from the Tensor system, showing exactly who is in the building at the moment the alarm sounds
Offline capability — The last known occupancy data is cached locally, so even if network connectivity is disrupted during an emergency, the app still provides useful information

The solution

Real-time headcount

When the app is opened during an evacuation, it immediately displays the current building occupancy based on Tensor’s clock-in data:

Total headcount — How many people are currently clocked into the building
Accounted vs unaccounted — As fire marshals mark people as safe at assembly points, the numbers update in real time
Zone breakdown — For multi-zone buildings, occupancy split by area helps prioritise search efforts

Staff accountability

Fire marshals can work through the list of building occupants and mark each person as accounted for:

Alphabetical and zone-based views — Find specific people quickly using sorted lists or zone filters
One-tap marking — Mark individuals as safe, missing, or confirmed evacuated with a single tap
Search function — Quick name search for locating specific individuals in the list
Visual indicators — Clear colour coding distinguishes between accounted, unaccounted, and flagged individuals

Zone management

For larger buildings with multiple assembly points and fire zones:

Assembly point assignment — Each fire marshal is assigned to a zone, seeing only the relevant occupants for their area
Cross-zone visibility — Supervisors can view the status across all zones simultaneously
Zone completion tracking — Clear progress indicators showing which zones have completed their headcount

Emergency coordination

The app provides an overall evacuation dashboard for safety officers and incident commanders:

Building-wide status — Aggregate view of how many people are accounted for across all zones
Outstanding alerts — Highlighted list of anyone not yet accounted for, prioritised by last known location
Timestamp tracking — When each person was last seen clocking in or out, helping search teams focus their efforts

The results

The Tensor FRC app was published on both the App Store and Google Play, providing a critical safety tool for Tensor’s customers:

Real-time evacuation data — Fire marshals access live building occupancy from their mobile devices at the assembly point, replacing slow paper-based roll calls
Faster headcounts — Digital accountability with one-tap marking dramatically reduces the time needed to account for all building occupants
Visitor and contractor coverage — Anyone registered in the Tensor system is included in the headcount, closing the accountability gap for non-permanent staff
Multi-zone coordination — Zone-based views and cross-zone visibility give incident commanders a complete picture of the evacuation
Compliance support — Documented, timestamped evacuation records support fire safety compliance and post-incident reporting