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Getting Started with PulseCAD

This guide takes you from a fresh account to a working CAD: create or join a community, set up departments, invite your team, go on duty, and run your first call.

Sign in

Go to cad.mypulsetech.com. You are taken straight to PulseTech sign-in, where you choose how to identify yourself:

Method Description
Continue with Discord Fastest, and it also links your account for in-game features (Recommended)
Email and password Your PulseTech password, set once and shared across every PulseTech product

Do not have an account yet?

Choose New user? Register on the sign-in page and create one with your email address, or use Continue with Discord, which makes the account for you. Anyone can create an account; you do not need an invitation to do that. What you can do afterwards depends on what your community has given you:

  • Sent a join link or an invite key? Signing up through that link puts you in the community as soon as you finish. A bare key can be entered from the Portal at any time.
  • No key? Browse the public directory for communities that allow open joining.
  • Running your own community? Create one. See below.

One account across PulseTech

PulseCAD no longer has its own separate password. Sign-in is handled by your PulseTech account, so the same credentials work for the other PulseTech products your community uses, and Continue with Discord goes through the same place.

Signing out signs you out of PulseTech, not just PulseCAD. That is deliberate: on a shared dispatch computer the next person to sit down must not land in your account.

Never had a PulseTech password?

If you used PulseCAD before the move to PulseTech sign-in, your old PulseCAD password was not carried over; passwords are deliberately never copied between systems.

On the sign-in page choose New to PulseTech sign-in? Migrate your account, enter your email, and you will be sent a link to set your PulseTech password. Forgot Password? on the same page does the same thing for anyone who already has one.

Changing your password later

PulseCAD no longer has a password to change, so My Account does not offer one. Open My Account and use Manage sign-in under the Sign-in row; that takes you to your PulseTech account, where your password, two-factor and connected logins all live.

The Email shown on My Account is the address PulseCAD sends notices to and matches you to a roster by. It is not changed by editing your PulseTech email, so contact support if it needs updating.

Verify your email

A verified email matters beyond security: it is what lets PulseRoster auto-link you to a roster member by email. Discord sign-ins are verified automatically, since Discord already confirmed the address.

The in-game tablet needs a password

Discord sign-in does not work on the in-game tablet: it has to open a window the game cannot show, so the button is hidden there and the tablet asks for an email and password instead.

Once you have run /cadlink, the tablet signs you in automatically and never asks. Until then, use your PulseTech email and password. If you have only ever signed in with Discord, set a password first using Migrate your account above.

If the tablet says your account needs setting up, open PulseCAD in a normal browser and sign in there once; a pending step such as choosing a password has to be completed outside the tablet, and after that the tablet works.

Create or join a community

After signing in you land on the Portal, where you can join a community you were invited to or browse the public directory. Most people only ever join one.

Create a community

Anyone with an account can create a community from the Portal with Add a community.

Field Description Example
Game platform FiveM or ER:LC. Chosen here and cannot be changed later. FiveM
Community name Your community's display name. Its URL identifier is made from it automatically. San Andreas Roleplay
Start the 72-hour free trial now Ticked by default. Unlocks everything for 72 hours, no card needed. Ticked

You become the owner of the community you create.

Not ready to use the trial yet?

Each owner gets one free trial (one per person, not per community), and it starts counting the moment it begins. If you want to set things up first, untick Start the 72-hour free trial now when you create the community. Nobody can go on duty until the community has a plan or a running trial, so when you are ready, open Billing and press Start 72-hour free trial. Only the owner can start it.

Join a community

Enter an invite code or permission key from a community owner, or browse the public directory for open-join communities. A community's join policy can be public, code-required, or invite-only.

Multiple communities

You can belong to several communities at once. Switch between them from the Portal or the profile menu; your role and characters are separate in each.

The community Hub

Once you're in a community you land on its Hub, the launchpad for every terminal. From here you pick the surface you want (Dispatch, Law Enforcement, Fire & EMS, Tow, Civilian, Court, Records, or Admin) based on what your role allows. Court appears on Pulse Pro and up. The Hub also holds your account menu, community switcher, and a light/dark theme toggle.

12-hour or 24-hour clock

PulseCAD shows times on a 24-hour clock by default, matching radio and dispatch convention. If you would rather read a 12-hour clock, open My Account and pick 12-hour under Time format.

The choice is yours alone, not a community setting, and it follows your account: the dispatch board and call log, the MDT, records, court and the civilian portal all switch over, on any browser, the desktop app and the in-game tablet.

Set up your departments

A new community starts blank

Creating a community does not pre-create departments, capabilities, or a penal code. You build those yourself: Departments here, and the Penal Code under Admin (which supports CSV import). What is seeded for you so live dispatch works out of the box: a starter set of status codes and call types, plus one default server.

Open Admin → Departments and create your agencies. Each department has a type that unlocks the matching surface:

Type Surface it unlocks Examples
LEO Law Enforcement MDT LSPD, BCSO, SAHP
FIRE_EMS Fire & EMS SAFR, EMS
TOW_DOT Tow & DOT DOT / Tow
DISPATCH Dispatch console Dispatch
COURT Court / DOJ DOJ

For each department set an abbreviation, color, and ranks. See Community Administration for penal codes, call types, status codes, and more.

Invite your team

In Admin → Members, click + Invite Member to generate a no-role shareable join link (/join/{code}). Anyone who opens it joins your community as a read-only civilian; the link grants no department access on its own.

Roles and capabilities come from Permission Keys (Admin → Community → Permissions). A member redeems a key to receive the department roles it carries. Keys grant department roles only, never admin or owner access. Admin and owner are assigned by hand on the Members table.

Which terminals a member can actually open is controlled by their per-member Terminal Access grants plus their Department Roles, not purely by their community role. See Permission Keys for the full model.

Choose a terminal and go on duty

From the Hub, pick your surface (e.g. Law Enforcement) and Go On Duty:

  1. Pick your server (if your community runs more than one)
  2. Choose your department
  3. Enter your callsign (e.g. 5323) and optional phone
  4. The first time in a department, set your officer rank, name and badge (e.g. Trooper, N. Strong, 5031). It goes on your paperwork and is remembered next time
  5. Select your capabilities (K9, SWAT, FTO, …)
  6. Go On Duty: you now appear on the dispatch board and map

Unit designations

Many communities number units by department series: e.g. 5400 LSPD, 1200 BCSO, 2500 PBPD, 3200 SSPD, 400 SAHP. Configure callsign presets per department in Admin.

Your first call

A quick end-to-end flow so everyone knows the loop:

  1. Dispatch creates a call (or a 911 comes in from a civilian / in-game): set the call type, priority, and location.
  2. Dispatch attaches units to the call. Attached units get a tone and the call appears in their queue.
  3. An officer marks Enroute (10-76), then On Scene (10-97). Statuses update live for everyone.
  4. The officer works the call: running plates and people, filing a citation or arrest from Records, adding comments.
  5. When finished, the call is cleared with a disposition (Arrest, Citation, Warning, Gone on Arrival) and units go back to Available.

Keyboard shortcuts

On the MDT: F1 map, F5 plate lookup, F8 display current call, F10 traffic stop, F12 clear with disposition, ESC close modal. Panic can be raised in game, from the PANIC button on the MDT, or with Ctrl+Shift+P.

Where admins configure things

Everything below lives in the Admin Console:

  • Departments & ranks, status codes, call types, dispositions (your own status codes and call types are Pulse Pro and up)
  • Penal code (import from CSV) and DL / license classes
  • Members & roles, permission keys, and per-member terminal access, under Community → Permissions
  • Join policy (public / code-required / invite-only), under Community → Settings
  • Community branding: logo, state seal, ID-card designer (Pulse Pro and up), website link
  • Design & Theme: each terminal can be themed independently (Admin → Design & Theme, Pulse Pro and up)
  • Integrations: FiveM, Discord (notifications on every plan; slash commands and role sync Pulse Pro), roster sync and data sharing (both Pulse Pro and up)
  • Court / DOJ settings and modules (on Pulse Pro plans and up)

In Admin → FiveM, click Download to get a resource that's already configured for your community (no API key to paste). It brings live unit tracking, the in-game tablet, in-game ID cards, and more on every plan; plate readers (ALPR) and the other advanced plugins are Pulse Pro and up. Full walkthrough: FiveM Integration.

Next steps