Overview

The Overview is the Desk's Home: the handover desk you sit down at before a duty and come back to after one. It answers one question - what changed since you last looked? - and every panel on it names its source and carries the same short framing as the iOS app: "Reference only - verify officially." on weather, "May be incomplete - verify officially." on NOTAMs, "Personal planning only." on duty figures. The Overview is a reading of your own records and the reports it fetched, never a clearance.

Find your way around

The Overview is one scrolling page of bands, top to bottom:

The header above it all holds the Search airports, pages and actions field (Cmd+K), the Guided tours key, the notification bell with its unread count, the theme toggle, the Keyboard shortcuts key and the Zulu clock.

::guide-shot{src="/guide-images/desk/overview/home" alt="The Overview in a browser mid-duty: the sidebar expanded under OPERATIONS, PLANNING and LIBRARY headings, and a top bar holding the Search airports, pages and actions field with a Cmd+K keycap, the Guided tours key, a bell with 6 unread, the theme and shortcuts keys and a 17:55:23Z clock. The masthead reads WATCHING EGLL home + 3 chosen, FETCHED 17:35Z 19m ago, SYNCED 2m ago 0 pending and SINCE LAST LOOK 23 SEP 17:52Z with a 6 alerts unread chip and a Pop out button, over an engine ledger from FDP ELAPSED 4:25 since 13:30Z and FDP REMAINING 2:25 max 11:15 through DUTY 7 DAYS, DUTY 28 DAYS, BLOCK 28 DAYS and REST REQUIRED 12:00 to SECTORS 4. The STATION BOARD, 4 watched, has Station, Cat, Wind, Vis, Age and NOTAMs columns and EGLL HOME London Heathrow open to its bed: Briefing, History, Compare, NOTAMs and Pop out buttons, the raw METAR issued 17:20Z, decoded WIND 010 / 9 kt, VIS 10 km or more, WX None, CLOUD NCD, TEMP / DEW 21 / 12 C and QNH 1024 hPa tiles, and a FORECAST OUTLOOK track over a 30h window reading Worst in window: MVFR from 03:00Z, above VFR rows for EHAM, LFPG and EDDF with 56, 16 and 34 NOTAMs, footed Source: SADIS (UK Met Office) and Reference only - verify officially. Beside it the NOTAM ALERTS wall shows PRIORITY chips CRIT 17, HIGH 39, MED 72 and LOW 4, a WATCHING strip from All 132 to EDDF 34, an EGLL block reading 3 CRIT 5 HIGH, 26 active, 18 hidden by lens, 3 beyond the glance over headlines such as Runway 09L/27R - limited, a +3 more at EGLL overflow row, an EHAM block, the Not shown foot, and Source: NOTAM Management System with May be incomplete - verify officially" width="2880" height="1800" caption="The Overview mid-duty: the masthead and ledger over the station board, with EGLL's bed open, and the NOTAM wall beside it." variant="web"} ::

How to choose desk stations

The board watches your home base and, by default, seeds itself from your pinned, favourite and most-flown stations. Hand-picking replaces that seeding with your own list.

1. In the Station board header, click the Choose desk stations button (the pencil icon beside the refresh button). The same dialog opens from Choose stations in the masthead when nothing is watched, and from Settings > General > Desk stations.
2. In the Desk stations dialog, your home base sits at the top with a Home chip: it is always watched and cannot be removed.
3. Under Add a station, type into Search airport - e.g. EGLL, London and click Add on the airport you want. A station already listed reads On the list; at four the button reads List full.
4. The meter counts "N of 4 chosen". Seeded stations that your list replaced stay visible below with a Keep or Add button, so you can pull them back one at a time.
5. Click Use automatic to clear your picks and let the desk seed itself again, or close the dialog to keep them.

How to read the station board

1. Read the header first: "4 watched · EGLL home + 3 chosen" says what is on the board and why. The refresh button re-fetches every row; Open Weather jumps to the Weather workbench.
2. Read across a row: Cat is the flight category chip (VFR, MVFR, IFR, LIFR), Wind and Vis come straight from the METAR, Ceil is the ceiling, TAF 6h is the worst category in the next six hours ("VFR steady", "IFR now" or "IFR from 18Z"). When that worst comes from a TEMPO or PROB group, the group leads the cell - "PROB30 IFR now", "TEMPO IFR from 18Z" - so a temporary change never reads as the prevailing forecast; hover the cell for the full reading. Age is how old the observation is, and NOTAMs is the active count with the number new to this browser.
3. A row with no report prints "No data available for EGTB · 22:43Z" in place of figures, with the time it was checked. Absence is stated, never shown as a blank, and it is not a clear report.
4. Click a row to open its bed under the table. The bed carries Briefing, History, Compare and NOTAMs buttons for that station, the Raw METAR with its issue time, decoded WIND, VIS, WX, CLOUD, TEMP / DEW and QNH tiles ("Decoded fields supplement the raw report, never replace it."), and a Forecast outlook track over the TAF's validity window with a Raw TAF button and a "Worst in window" line.
5. Click Pop out on the bed to send that station to its own window for a second monitor. Click the same row again to close the bed.

Every board footer names the source and fetch time and ends with "Reference only - verify officially."

How to work the NOTAM wall

The panel is a glance, not the whole watch: it opens on the critical and high tiers, shows five standing rows per station, and says in its foot what it is holding back.

1. Read the PRIORITY lens in the NOTAM alerts header: one chip per tier with its count - CRIT, HIGH, MED, LOW. CRIT and HIGH start on; MED and LOW start off, one click away, and the choice is remembered in this browser. Click a chip to hide or show that tier's rows; switching MED or LOW on also lifts the five-row cap, so those rows land on the wall rather than only in the foot. When the lens hides everything, the wall says so and offers Show every priority.
2. Use the WATCHING strip to focus: All shows every watched station, and each station chip shows only that station. A chip carries its own read - the active count, or "could not be loaded". Narrowing to one station lifts the five-row cap for it.
3. Scroll the wall. Rows are grouped per watched station in watch order, home first, under a sticky header that names the ICAO, its role (HOME or route), the airport name, the worst tiers in words, the active count and "N beyond the glance" when the cap is holding rows back. Click the chevron to fold a block; a folded block keeps its counts.
4. Read a row: the worded tier chip, the decoded headline in plain language ("Runway - RWY 09L/27R ... CLSD"), then the NOTAM's own id and validity. Rows that took effect since your last look on this browser lead their block, wear a NEW chip and print "took effect 17 Sep 14:00Z"; they are never capped. Click the row to open that NOTAM in the NOTAMs workbench, raw text and all.
5. Read the overflow row that closes a capped block - "+6 more at EGLL · 6 high - Open NOTAMs" - and click it to open the workbench on that station. Click the refresh button to re-fetch, or Open NOTAMs in the header to read the whole watch there.

The foot under the rows counts what the glance left out, in one sentence: "Not shown: 209 medium and 114 low (8 new since your last look), plus 156 critical and high beyond each station's top 5." A station that returned nothing prints "None reported for EGTB - does not confirm none exist. Verify with official NOTAM sources." A station that failed prints "could not be loaded", and the footer states that the list is incomplete. The wall's source line reads "Source: NOTAM Management System" and its own footer is "May be incomplete - verify officially." The absence of a NOTAM here is never an all-clear.

How to end a duty

While a duty runs, the Today & next band swaps to the Active duty panel: the remaining-FDP ring, REPORT, MAX FDP, ELAPSED, NEXT SECTOR, PLANNED END and FDP LATEST, a progress bar, and the line "2:47 elapsed - 6:15 remaining - as of 22:47Z". Past the FDP ceiling the ring reads the overrun as a plain figure over an over caption ("1:30 over"), never a minus sign. The ledger above becomes the engine strip.

1. In the Active duty panel, click End duty now.
2. Read the confirmation, End duty now? - it sets the duty's end to the current minute and counts rest from there.
3. Confirm. The panel moves into the rest window and shows how much of the minimum rest is served; the Today timeline draws the rest lane.
4. Click Open duty on the panel to go to Duty & FTL for the full console.

When no duty is running, the panel's place is taken by the compact ruler: a 00-24Z track with the amber current-time cursor, a TODAY row read from the duty log and a NEXT row for the next recorded event. On a quiet day the two fuse into one stamped row - "No duty logged today · nothing recorded ahead · as recorded in the app" - with Add a duty, Import roster and Plan a flight links. Open Today view opens the full timeline, which says plainly that a day with nothing logged is not a statement that you were off.

How to act on action items

1. Read the Action items header: "N ranked" and the stamp of when the queue was built. Click a tier chip to show one band only; Show every band clears the lens.
2. Read each row: a worded tier, a title such as "EGLL TAF: worst IFR from 22Z", a meta line naming the source (a duty row names the limit in your regime's own words, "evaluated 21:11Z · 7-day duty time", never an engine key), and one action button - Brief, Open, Review, Retry, Sync. Click the button, or select the row and press Enter. A roster feed refresh that found changes you have not reviewed adds "N roster changes to review", marked "on this browser" because that review is kept in this browser only.
3. Click Hide to hide a row on this browser, for a day or until its band changes; the header then offers Undo, and "N hidden · Show" lists what you hid with a Restore on each and Show all. A row that is an error cannot be hidden until it clears.
4. Expand Housekeeping to reach the logbook-health nudge - "N logbook findings to look at" with Review - along with "N sectors from duties not yet logged" (its Review lists them for the logbook), possible duplicates, pending or failed sync, and unread alerts.
5. Use the keys: J and K move, Enter runs the action, H hides, U restores the last hidden row, and B switches between the queue and the station board. The Shortcuts button opens the desk's sheet ("?" works too).

When nothing ranks, the queue prints one stamped row: "No ranked items from the records on this browser at 12:30Z - watching 4 stations. Not a statement that nothing needs attention."

The records band

Preflight lists the next flight folder's checks as rows - Brief ("3 of 6 inputs"), Weather, NOTAMs, Review, Snapshots, Notes, Runways, Alternates - with Open folder in its header. With no folder the header offers All flights instead: a rostered duty gets a NEXT RECORDED card with Brief, your most-flown routes sit below as one-click briefs, and Import roster and Plan a flight close the panel. Currency & documents counts "N current", "N expiring" and "N expired" over your rules and credentials, with Open currency in its header and an Add credential row while no medical or licence is recorded; its footer reads "Personal record only - not a certified legality check." Quick tools holds the calculators you pin (Customize), keyed 1 to 9. Finish setup appears while items like "Choose your duty rules" or "Add your medical & licence" remain; Don't show again dismisses it.

How to rearrange the desk

1. Click Edit desk in the masthead. A toolbar appears under it.
2. Pick a preset - Standard, Flight prep or Records first - or move the three bands (Station board and NOTAM watch, Today and next, Action items, plan and records) with Up and Down.
3. Use Hide and Show on the bands and records that allow it (Today and next, Currency and documents, Quick tools).
4. Click Done. Reset to standard puts everything back.

The layout is kept for your account, so it follows you to another browser. The masthead, Action items, Next & plan and Finish setup never move or hide, and every panel keeps its source line and framing whatever the order. When the first-run setup gave you a job, the desk opens in the preset that suits it until you save a layout of your own.

Coming back

Click the brand mark at the top of the sidebar ("Pilot EFB Desk, go to Overview") from any page to return here. The Overview rail row does the same. When you jump from an Overview panel into another page - a station, a NOTAM, a quick tool - a back chevron appears at the left of the top bar ("Back to Overview" on hover) and returns you to the panel you left.

On iPhone and iPad

The phone's Home is a single scrolling dashboard with the same cards - the Flight hours card, the active duty ring, the weather and NOTAM cards - and its own logbook health nudge. Desk stations are a web-only preference: the phone keeps its pins in Weather and does not read the desk's chosen list.

Troubleshooting

The masthead says "Watching nothing". No home base, pins or chosen stations are set, so nothing is fetched. Set a home base in Settings or click Choose stations.

A station shows "No data available". The source returned no report for that field at the stated time. Click the row's retry button, and check the field publishes a METAR at all.

"N stations not watched (fetch cap)". The board fetches a capped number of stations; home, route and your chosen stations come first. Trim the chosen list to bring a dropped station back.

The NOTAM wall reads "could not be loaded" for one station. That station's fetch failed and the list is incomplete. Refresh, then open NOTAMs to retry there.

The ledger says "not synced on this device". This browser has not completed a Cloud Sync. Open Settings & sync and run a sync; pending changes are counted beside it.

Since last look shows "first open on this browser". The desk stamps each visit per browser, so a new browser has nothing to compare against until your next look.

Where next

• Duty & FTL - the full Duty console behind the Active duty panel and the ledger.
• Weather - the workbench the station board's Briefing, History and Compare buttons open.
• NOTAMs - the workbench behind the NOTAM wall.
• Keyboard & command deck - Cmd+K and the desk's shortcut sheet.