Get up to speed on Tango Tango. In minutes, not hours.

The app contains 4 main tabs on on the default main screen:

• Channels - this is where you will find your radio channels and be able to make and manage voice calls
• Chat - this is your messages for text, media, and more
• Contacts - message your teammates directly
• Map - see your team's locations (if they have shared them) and your own location on the map

Channels Tab

• Select any channel and hold the wide green button at the bottom of the screen to transmit on that radio channel
• Long press any channel for more options:
  
  • Access Recordings from this channel. Recordings are available in-app for 24 hours after transmit.
  • See members of the channel
  • Adjust settings for the channel
  • 4 Buttons on each channel control further settings:
    
    • Default - you can only have 1 default channel. This will be the top your channels list. If you transmit while your app is closed using Bluetooth accessories or the iOS UI, this is the channel you will transmit on if there is no already active call. Most users will want to set their primary dispatch channel as Default.
    • Priority - a channel marked as Priority will interrupt other channels when it transmits. Most users want their primary dispatch channel to be a priority channel. If, for example, you share channels with neighboring agencies, you probably want to leave neighboring channels as non-Priority and set your own dispatch channel as Priority. In this case, if there is traffic on your own channel, it will interrupt traffic from neighboring channels, letting you monitor their traffic but never miss your own.
    • Favorite - favorite channels are the top of your channels list
    • Mute - this mutes a channel on your phone, you will need to un-mute the channel to hear any traffic on this channel

Critical Settings

• Do Not Disturb
  
  • Do Not Disturb mode turns off all voice traffic from the app. Think of it as the "off" switch for your virtual radio.
  • To turn on DND:
    
    • Click the small green speaker icon in the bottom right of the Channel screen to turn on DND (and tap again to turn off DND) or
    • Go to More, then toggle the Do Not Disturb slider at the top of the screen.
• If you want to receive tone outs or alerts while in DND:
  
  • Go to Alerts > the Settings gear in the top right of the screen > and enable "Receive Incident Calls In DND"
  • This will allow you to still receive your two tone pages and CAD Alerts if other radio traffic is blocked by DND mode
• iPhone Users, make sure that Background Services is enabled to receive traffic when your app is closed.
  
  • Go to More > ensure that the Background Services toggle is enabled.
  • You will see a small blue icon in your status or Dynamic Island while Background Services is enabled. This is an Apple-level design choice - Apple wants to make sure that iPhone users know if their phone is in a "call" and it views two-way radio traffic as being "call".
  • Note that, despite the fact that the background icon shows at all times, the app only "wakes up" when it receives traffic and is "asleep" at other times. Users typically only see 30 minutes of usage per day. You can see your usage under iPhone Settings > Battery where you can see app by app usage.
• To tweak your call notifications go to More > Notifications
  
  • Select Vibrate on Incoming Call if you'd like your phone to briefly vibrate when a radio call starts or stops
  • Select on or off Notify on Call Progress if you'd like to receive a notification when radio calls start or end

For more detail on in-app features, see our full Guides page at tangotango.net/guides.

How to get start with Alerts

Access Alerts screen

Open the Tango Tango app, tap More, and tap Alerts

Alerts Settings

Settings for Alerts for found in the top right corner of the Alerts screen.

• Feeds button (looks like a list) - controls which Alerts you receive
  
  • Toggle on or off the Alert feeds you want to receive. These should already be setup by your Admin. Need help setting up tones? Contact our Support team.
  • Tap a feed name to see more settings specific to a feed. Notably, you can customize the Alert tone that plays before your Alert.
• Settings button (looks like a gear) - controls how you are notified
  
  • Receive Incident Calls in Do Not Disturb - Enables tone outs and CAD Alerts to alert you even while you have app set in DND mode to silence incoming radio traffic.
  • Pager Alert - Plays a tone or beep before the Alert plays
• To view specific Alerts:
  
  • You will see Alerts arrive in the main Alerts screen.
  • Or you can go to Feeds and tap a specific Feed to see only the Alerts for that particular feed.
• While in a specific Alerts, you'll see several key things:
  
  • The event and address will display
  • Tap the icon that looks like a green road sign to get driving direction to the incident.
  • Tap "Tap for more info" to see info such as:
    
    • GPS coordinates
    • what3words
    • Plus code
  • Scroll down to see the Narrative of the Alert
  • Or tap "view full event data" to see the raw CAD system payload

How to use the Channels page of the Tango Tango mobile app

To Transmit

• Tap a channel and hold down the large green PTT button at the bottom of the screen to transmit. Release the button when you're done talking.

To Mute the Tango Tango app

• Put the app into Do Not Disturb (DND) mode by tapping the grey speaker button near the bottom right corner. Tap the button again to unmute and go back to hearing transmissions.

Filter Channels

• If you have a long Channels list, click the grey button in the bottom right corner to bring up filtering options. You can show/exclude by Open Channels, Private Channels, and Archived Channels.

Customize your Channel settings

• Long press on any channel to pull up Channel Settings.
• From Channel Settings, you can view Channel Members or go to detailed Channel settings.

In Channel Settings, you'll see 4 toggle buttons:

• Default - You can only have 1 Default Channel at a time. Your Default channel is the channel on which you will transmit if you use a Bluetooth accessory to transmit with your phone's screen off or from the phone's lock screen.
• Priority - If you make a Channel a Priority channel, it will override traffic from non-Priority channels. Use this if you never want to miss traffic on a specific channel. Common use case - if you're sharing a channel from another department, you might want to make your own "home" channel a Priority channel. This will enable you to hear the other department's traffic when your channel is not transmitting. But, your channel will take over if it has traffic.

• Favorite - Channels which are Favorited will appear at the top of the Channels list. Use this to customize the order of your Channels list.
• Mute - This will Mute this specific channel. You won't hear traffic from this Channel until you un-mute the Channel. You will continue to receive traffic from other Channels - if you want to block traffic from all Channels use the "Mute" or "DND" button detailed in the second bullet above.

Playback Recordings & Access Messages

To Access Recordings:

• Go to the Channels tab (the leftmost tab) and either:
  
  • Select a channel and swipe from right-to-left on the screen or
  • Long press a channel, select Recordings or
• Another option: while viewing Chat for a channel, tap the small green button in the bottom righthand corner to see Recordings. Press the grey button again to return to messages.

To Access Messages:

• Select the Chat tab on the bottom of the screen
• Click a channel
• While viewing Chat you can:
  
  • Press the + symbol to add images, video, your location, or send a file such as a PDF
  • Long press a message to have options to react, reply, or (for your own messages) edit or delete a message

By default, recordings are available in-app for 24 hours and on the Admin Portal for 30 days. You can upgrade for longer availability if desired. Once recordings are erased, they are not recoverable.

‍

Contact Page Guide

Tapping a contact brings up several options:

• Tap 'PTT Call' to open up a 1-to-1 push-to-talk call with the selected user
• Tap 'Message' to start a 1-to-1 message thread with the selected user
• Tap 'Phone' to call the user on their phone
• Tap 'Email' to send the user an email
• Both Email & Phone options are only available if the user has their phone or email in Tango Tango and their organization hasn't blocked the sharing of phone or email. If the field by phone or email is blank, then either their info isn't in our system or their admin has blocked it from being shared.
• Tap 'Favorite' to pin the user to the top of the Contacts list

Tango Tango App - Map

View all your organization's Tango Tango users on the map

• If a user is not visible on the map, make sure that:
  
  • Their phone has enabled Location Services for the Tango Tango app in their iOS or Android System Settings
  • In Tango Tango settings, they have enabled Location Services in Settings.
• Tap a user for options to:
  
  • Navigate To - will take you to your smartphone's Maps app with the address of the user pre-populated to provide turn-by-turn directions to the user's location
  • Message - start a 1-to-1 PTT or Messages thread with the user

Tango Tango Settings Page

Key functions found on Tango Tango's settings page:

• Do Not Disturb - This toggle turns mutes all traffic from the Tango Tango app. Note this is also available by tapping the speaker button in the bottom right corner of the Channels screen. To hear traffic from the app again, you will have to turn off Do Not Disturb (DND) mode from either Settings or the home screen.

Profile‍

• Here you can edit your name, Designator, and (if allowed by your organization) phone or email address.

Call Settings

• Volume & Microphone Boost - These settings can increase the audio coming out of your speaker and increase your own speaking volume coming through to others. These are already set at recommended settings, we do not advise changing them unless you are having issues. Volume Boost, in particular, can cause distortion and poor audio quality if turned up too high.
• Call Audio Routing - By default, audio routes to 'Speakerphone' to make your phone emulate a two-way radio in function. You can turn 'Use Bluetooth' to cause your push-to-talk call audio to route to Bluetooth headphones if you'd like more discrete communication.
• Call Progress Tones - Here you can select when you'd like a tone to be played. You can add a tone at call start or call end if you'd like or tweak other times that tones are played.
• Call Notifications
  
  • Vibrate on Incoming Call - Your phone will now vibrate when you receive a call in addition to playing the call
  • Notify on Call Progress - Your phone will display a notification on your lock screen when a call starts or ends

Location Services

• Location Services must be 'on' to send any location updates about your location to your team
  Note: if Location Services are off entirely, the map on the PTT Call Screen will not work properly

• Share Location - Will display your location to the rest of your team on their Map
• Only Share During PTT Call - Your location will only be shared when you PTT through Tango Tango
• Frequency - Our location services dynamically adjust related to the speed you are traveling. If you are stationary, updates will be sent infrequently to conserve battery and bandwidth. If you are traveling quickly, in car for example, updates will be sent more frequently so that other users have the most up-to-date information on your location. The default setting here covers most use cases. However, if you'd like to make the updates show up a little more often or a little less, tweak this slider.

PTT Button

• Here you can pair Bluetooth devices, like buttons or speaker microphones, to use with Tango Tango.
• On iOS, you will see an option to enable iOS PTT Support. This is required by Apple to use Bluetooth devices with Tango Tango. Turning this on will also put a push-to-talk widget on your lock screen allowing you to see the Channel currently speaking and PTT right from your lock screen.
  
  • If iOS PTT Support is enabled, you will see a blue dot or "pill" in the top left of your iOS device. This is a requirement and design decision by Apple to show that you have an audio or location-related app enabled.

Preferences

• Switch between Light, Dark, or System-controlled (switches between light or dark based on your smartphone OS setting) app themes.

You can customize the tabs at the bottom of your screen in the Tango Tango app to provide fast access to the features that you use the most. To customize your tabs:

• Tap "More" in the bottom right corner.
• Tap "Customize Tabs"
• To move a tab to your bottom menu, hold and drag the tabs that you want above the "More" line item.
  
  • Items above the "More" line item will show at the bottom of your app screen.
  • Items below "More" will be available by tapping the "More" tab.
• Your current tabs will display as a preview at the top of the screen.
• When you are happy with your tabs, tap "Save" in the top righthand corner of the screen.

Joining an existing Channel in the App

This guide covers how to join an Open Channel in your organization that already exists. Open Channels are channels that allow anyone in an organization to join.

• Click the + button in the top right corner of the ‘Channels’ screen
• Search the channel in your organization that you would like to join
• When the channel appears, click the green + button beside that channel
• You will be joined to this existing channel, and it will appear on your ‘Channels’ screen

Creating a Channel through the app

• Go to the ‘Channels’ page in the user app
• Click on the + button in the top right corner
• Click ‘Create Channel” in the top right corner
• Select whether you would like to create an ‘Open’ or a ‘Private’ channel type
  • An ‘Open’ channel type allows you to add & remove users who are a part of your organization whenever you would like after the channel is created. Users who are not a part of this channel are also free to join it later.
  • A ‘Private’ channel type does NOT allow you to add or remove users from this channel after it is created
• Search for a user that you would like to add to your created channel
  • This user must be a part of your organization already
• Once the user is selected, then you will click ‘Next’ in the top right corner
• Fill in your desired ‘Channel Name’ in the box
• Click ‘Create’ in the top right corner
• Your channel is now created and will appear in your ‘Channels’ page

First Response Tones

• First Response Tones (FRT) settings are largely configured by your Admin and the Tango Tango team so app settings are relatively simple
• Receive Incident Calls in DND (Do Not Disturb) - You will receive tone outs even if you have your app in DND mode and aren't receiving normal PTT audio. This essentially makes your smartphone work like a fire pager.
• Pager Alert - Plays the alert tone before the call audio is played.
• Tones - here you can toggle on or off specific tones if you have access to multiple types of tone out events.

Layers let you see live weather, fire hydrant locations, and more, right in the Tango Tango app, alongside your location and the locations of your teammates.

Viewing layers

1. Open the Tango Tango app and tap Map in the bottom menu.

Customizing your map

Tap the square icon in the bottom right corner of the map to open the Map Layers menu.

Base map. Choose the map style that fits your situation:

• Default: the standard map view, shows less detail of specific street names
• Streets: shows all street names once you zoom in far enough
• Outdoors: adds terrain detail such as elevation and walking trails
• Satellite: aerial imagery

Layers. Below the base map options, you'll see the layers available to your organization, such as weather and fire hydrants. For each layer you can:

• Turn it on or off with the toggle next to its name
• Adjust opacity with the slider below its name, so you can make a layer more or less transparent

Don't see hydrants or other points of interest?

If your organization hasn't uploaded them yet, an Admin can add those locations at no cost. Contact support@tangotango.net to get started.