Community Guide

1. Open the Community screen

Go to Settings → Community. If you are not in a community yet, you’ll see a short introduction, a Create community button, and Community invitations with a badge if someone has invited you.

2. Create a community (organiser)

1. Tap Create community.
2. Enter a name, for example Tai Mo Shan hike. You can leave it empty; the community is then shown under your own name.
3. Choose which of your devices to share — one or two.
4. Decide whether to set an end date. If you know when the activity finishes, set it: everyone gets a reminder the day before, and the community closes itself at that time. You can skip this and add it later.
5. Tap Create. You’ll receive a confirmation email.

3. Describe the community and set rules (optional)

In the About this community card, tap Edit to add:

• a description — what the community is for, dates, meeting point;
• rules, one per line — for example Keep location sharing on during the hike or Call the group leader if you fall behind.

Members see both on the Community screen, and invitees see the description before they accept.

4. Invite people (organiser)

1. Tap Invite next to Members.
2. Enter the person’s email address and tap Send.

What the invitee receives depends on whether they already use TRAKSIFY:

• Existing users get a push notification in the app and an email.
• People without an account get an email explaining how to install the app, register with that same email address, add a device and accept the invitation.

Invitations expire after 7 days. Pending invitations appear under the member list; tap ✕ to withdraw one. A community holds up to 20 members.

5. Accept an invitation (member)

1. Open the notification, or go to Settings → Community → Community invitations.
2. Read the description and tap Accept (or Decline).
3. Choose the devices you want to share with this group (up to two) and tap Join.

You are now a member. If you had other pending invitations, they are declined automatically, because you can only be in one community at a time.

6. Use the community map

Tap Open community map. You’ll see:

• Every shared device with its photo (or a type icon) and a colour per member.
• A member list at the bottom. Drag it up to see all devices with battery, speed and last update, or search for a device or person. Tap a row to centre the map on it.
• The map controls on the right: refresh, zoom, north-up, my location, and the map style selector.
• A red line and a banner when two devices are within your alert distance.
• A pulsing red SOS or orange fall badge on any device that raised an alarm in the last 30 minutes. Alarming devices are listed first.

The map refreshes every 10 seconds while it is open.

7. Set up alerts

On the Community screen, under SOS and fall alerts · Proximity alerts · Separation alerts:

• SOS and fall alerts (on by default) notify you immediately, with the alarm sound, when any member’s device sends an SOS or detects a fall — even if that member has paused sharing. The alert opens the map centred on the device.
• Proximity alerts notify you when any two devices in the community come closer than the Alert distance (25 m to 2 km, default 100 m). Useful for meeting points, or to know when a child or pet has reached a friend.
• Separation alerts notify you when a device is farther than the Separation distance (100 m to 5 km, default 500 m) from every other member — in other words, when someone has fallen behind or wandered off.

The settings are personal: each member chooses their own distances and receives their own notifications. Alerts arrive as push notifications even when the app is closed. To avoid a flood of messages, the same pair (or device) is reported at most once every 5 minutes (proximity) or 10 minutes (separation), and only again after it has moved apart (or rejoined) in between.

Distances and speeds are shown in metric or imperial units according to your preference in the app settings.

8. Respond to an SOS or fall

When you receive an SOS or fall alert, open it: the map centres on the device and the person’s name is shown. Contact them, or go to them.

Once the person is confirmed safe, the alarm can be reset so the badge disappears for everyone: tap Reset alarm on the device’s row in the member list (or on the alert banner). Only the owner of the device and the community owner can do this; the other members are informed who reset it. If nobody resets it, the badge fades out after 30 minutes.

9. Send messages

• To the whole group: tap the megaphone button next to Open community map, or Message group on the Messages card.
• To one member: tap the ⋮ menu on that member’s row and choose Send message.

Messages are delivered as push notifications (up to 300 characters). They are not a chat: a reply comes back the same way. The Messages card on the Community screen keeps the latest ones — group messages and private messages sent to or by you — so you can re-read them after dismissing the notification.

10. Change which devices you share

Tap My shared devices to add or remove your own devices at any time. At least one must stay shared, and at most two per member.

11. Pause sharing

Switch on Pause sharing if you want to disappear from the map for a while — a private detour, a break — without leaving. Your devices are hidden and excluded from proximity and separation alerts; you still see everyone else. Other members see a small Paused label next to your name. Switch it off to reappear.

Exception: an SOS or fall from a paused member’s device is still relayed to the group, together with its position. Pausing means “don’t track me”, not “don’t help me”.

12. Manage members (organiser)

Tap the ⋮ menu on a member’s row:

• Send message (available to every member).
• Make owner hands the community over to that person. You stay as a regular member. Use this if you have to leave early or someone else is taking the lead.
• Remove takes the member out of the community. They are notified.

13. End of a community

• Leave (member): tap Leave community at the bottom. Your devices stop being shared immediately; the organiser is notified.
• Close (organiser): tap Close community. All members are released and notified by push and email.
• Scheduled end: if an end date is set, everyone is reminded 24 hours before, and the community closes itself at that time.
• Automatic close: a community with no position updates from any shared device for 30 days is closed automatically, so nobody keeps sharing their location by accident.

After a community has ended, anyone can create a new one straight away.