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deems most helpful to protect lives.
Examples of contact groups include
school administrators, security staff,
teachers/managers, students/staff,
elected officials, parents and the
media.
List segmentation determines who
receives complete access to operate
the incident command portal and
other groups who receive immediate
text/E-mail/voice notice of the
incident and access to emergency
procedure documents, but no portal
control. Other contact groups — especially
younger students — would
receive less information about the
incident, if any at all. How much information
is shared with each group
depends on the wishes of the subscriber
and police.
Recipients Can Help Supply
Situational Intelligence
When an alarm is activated by a
system or generated by the incident
command portal, security personnel
and building occupants with the
highest administrative levels (management,
principals, security, maintenance,
etc.) are immediately notified
of the incident via the various
messaging methods.
The notification will identify the
type of emergency that happened
and provide a link to a floor plan
showing where the incident occurred
in the facility. That message
also contains links to get driving
directions to the facility (for police
response) and access to the secure
Internet portal from which two-way
mass communication is facilitated.
From the secure, online incident
command portal, instructions for
building occupants can be sent and
recipients can reply to the messages
by E-mail or text to provide onsite
intelligence. Security personnel can
also be given access to onsite video
feeds to track perpetrators and visually
assess the situation in real-time.
Because building occupants are
able to reply to the messages they
receive, they can have a “digital conversation”
with the incident commanders.
Those responses could
indicate where there are injuries or
even contain photographs to help
identify the perpetrators or let police
know how many perpetrators
they are dealing with when they arrive.
Ongoing two-way communication
between the contact groups can
be maintained throughout the incident
until the “all clear” message is
delivered.
Alarm contractors can market this
service to existing subscribers or to
facilities in which you don’t have the
account because it can be a standalone
system that is not tied to any
specific hardware. That means alarm
contractors can use the equipment
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they are most comfortable with and
all that’s needed to initiate this system
is receipt of a signal at the central
station to start the initial notification
process.
By integrating a building’s alarm
system with advanced notification
technologies, alarm contractors
have a new and significant revenuegenerating
service to offer schools,
offices and hospitals.
About Emergency24
Emergency 24, Inc. is an Underwriters
Laboratories listed central station
that operates a network of five
monitoring facilities strategically
placed throughout the U.S. to ensure
ongoing operations even during
a time of regional disaster. Our
robust facilities and infrastructure
provide us with the industry’s widest
range of alarm monitoring and
communications capabilities to protect
dealers and subscribers against
failure. Fundamental to our success
and longevity is the fact that our inhouse
team of software engineers
develops services that are consistently
ahead of the industry’s technology
curve to help dealers fulfill
the needs of their subscribers.
For more information, contact
Kevin Lehan, Director of Communications,
1.800.800.3624, ext. 6917
k.lehan@emergency24.com.