Singlewire Resource Blog » Mass Notification

Implementing Mass Notification and Emergency Communication

Brad Parkel — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:30:00 +0000

“It’s definitely a pleasant surprise when you can take something that’s ten steps long and turn it into three.” - Peter Lord, Senior Solutions Architect, Singlewire Software

One of our senior solution architects, recently returned from an on-site visit to one of our university customers. He was on-hand to train the school’s public safety and public relation officials on how to use InformaCast and to work through any technical problems that might come up at the last minute.

While the full test of the system was a success, the major takeaway he had was not the technical achievement of the test, but rather how easy it was to now send mass notification. In the past, public safety officials would pull out a long list of systems to log into and people to contact in an effort to get an emergency message out to as many people as quickly as possible. Expecting hours of detailed instruction and a new list of complex procedures, they were amazed to learn that their emergency notification procedure now consisted of logging into the system, writing and recording a message, and clicking the “send” button.

We recently sat down with Peter Lord, our engineer on this project, to learn more about his experience, and talk about what it’s like behind-the-scenes at the test of an emergency notification system.

Listen to the podcast or read the transcript below.

Well, we had a large university contact us and they were looking to have a way to simplify how their users would send an emergency notification and be able to reach the entire campus both quickly and efficiently. The main goal for this was that there was a single portal so if there was an emergency situation.

In the past the customer had to log into System A. Log into System B. Call somebody to do XYZ. Call a different person to do the next item. And so this whole process of being able to alert the campus community quickly and efficiently was really scattered and just not possible. What they were looking for then was a central portal and InformaCast fit that need for them using the new plug-in architecture.

What the plug-in architecture brought to the table was a way for Informacast to reach out to various other services, both on network such as e-mail but also off network such that they could post a Twitter feed or a Facebook feed. The Informacast solution for years has also you know hit the Cisco IP phones.

We also have the IP speakers that were placed at various outdoor and large open areas around campus. There were three separate communication clusters and hundreds of IP speakers scattered across the various network. At a large university like this, it's very common to have disparate administrators servicing different phone systems as well as outdoor speakers and horns placed in large open campus areas.

It was, it worked. There was a documented process. But in an emergency situation, the last thing people are thinking about is make sure I follow step A, step B, when really in a panic people need to be able to do things quickly and efficiently. It was a big deal. They notified the whole campus community, notified the Press and we were on site with campus relations, the IT departments, as well as police.

For the large scale tests at the campus relations team, sat down at a computer. Logged in to Informacast. Typed in some text. Recorded some audio. The message was sent. Within two and a half minutes the first round had activated all the phones and pushed content to the various other social media, e-mail and other end points.

By five minutes it had updated in every location. and was rebroadcasting. Looking at it we hit just under 7,000 phones on one communications manager cluster. Another 4,000 phones on a second call manager cluster. And then about 300 phones on another communications manager cluster. Likewise there was a couple hundred IP speakers and various social media emails and other endpoints involved as well.

It's definitely a pleasant surprise when you can take something for them that's ten steps long and turn it into three. It's a significant time, especially from a non technical and user perspective.

And it sounds like they were trying to replicate what would happen if there be in an emergency, someone who is in a non-technical role needs to communicate, they sit down, log-in, put in the information, and then click a button to hit send.

That's Exactly what it is. It's non-technical people needing an easy way to alert the entire campus community. The initial reaction everybody looked and said, wow, that was incredibly easy. When we trained the end-users, there's always a little resistance because what you get the feeling is that as the vendor you're coming in and you're going to make their job more difficult.

Because you're going to add something to the list things they already have to do. So I like to refer to it as the ah-ha moment, and it's when the user sees what, how easy you can make things for them. So when we were training the end users, it's a room full of thirty people all looking at you, and you can tell they're not real happy because we're about to add something to that list of things they have to do, and by the time I was done, they had scheduled an hour, and it took me five minutes.

to say, you log in, you type this, you record this, and that's it. You're done, and the look that I got was one of surprise. And then a hand would get raised and say "that's it", and it was that aha moment, and you install InformaCast and it talks to all these things natively. We have plug-ins available on the website, for free, many of them, that can be downloaded and just plugged in to InformaCast.

So many of the emails and social media sites. It really is a lot of teams coming together and using teamwork to make something like this possible.

Whitepaper – How to Modernize You School’s Bells, Overhead Paging, and Mass Notification in Times of Austerity

Brad Parkel — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:30:00 +0000

Cut costs, improve safety, and realize efficiencies by combining passing bells, overhead paging, and emergency communication into one system.

At a time when many schools are facing budget constraints, larger teacher-to-student ratios in classrooms, smaller staff sizes, and aging school buildings, administrators are being asked to do more with less. To compound this problem, there is a growing expectation to provide quick and effective communication with staff, students, and parents in the event of a school emergency. Knowing where, how, and when to make improvements to address these needs can be challenging.

In the following whitepaper, we’ll look at the ways you can modernize and consolidate your school’s bells, overhead paging system, and emergency communication system to save money and time.

New Phone Wiper Tool Available From Singlewire

Allie McGuire — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 15:37:29 +0000

Singlewire has a new Phone Wiper tool available for download on our website.

The Phone Wiper tool provides a way to clear the text content of an InformaCast message off the displays of Cisco IP phones. When InformaCast sends a broadcast that contains text to IP, they typically display that text until someone manually clears the text from each screen. With the Phone Wiper tool an administrator can run the tool interactively or schedule it to run and clear the screen s of all the phones in the organization.

Examples:

For Common areas where people may walk past a phone frequently, but nobody typically touches it (lobbies, hallways, conference rooms, etc.). A phone in such an area could display stale data for days or even weeks.
If people go on vacation, when they return they could have content on their phones from while they were gone that has no significance upon their return.
For maintenance windows where installation or testing with InformaCast is performed, the phones do not have to display a test the next morning when the users arrive.

By using the Phone Wiper tool the Cisco IP phones have the InformaCast text removed from the display without interrupting any telephone functionality the phone may be doing. The Phone Wiper tool closes down the Services Pane of the phone, but nothing more. This means you can run the Phone Wiper
tool without worry about disconnecting calls.

To download the Phone Wiper tool visit us online. Please note that you will need to log into the site to gain access to this material. A Singlewire login can be created with a valid maintenance contract number. If your maintenance has expired please contact your sales rep for information on how to obtain a new extended maintenance quote.

Case Study – Joy Global / P&H Mining

Allie McGuire — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 15:34:26 +0000

P&H Mining Equipment, a division of Joy Global Holding Company, is a worldwide leader in the manufacture of underground and above-ground industrial mining equipment. Products include electric mining shovels, blast hole drills, mobile mining crushers, conveyor systems, and drag lines. Joy Global and P&H Mining employ thousands of workers in assembly plants
around the world.

The Singlewire InformaCast software application enabled Joy Global/P&H Mining to transform their Cisco investment into a network-based mass notifi cation, emergency communication, and overhead paging system. Singlewire CallAware, a free add-on to InformaCast, was used to monitor the phone system for specific numbers dialed, including 911.

Download the Case to Read More – PDF

Customize Mass Notifications with InformaCast

Allie McGuire — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:00:25 +0000

“Some patients respond better to a voice that is familiar to them. InformaCast has the ability to individualize the message, not just with the language, but even if a specific person would respond better with the voice of their mom, we can use that and record that voice.”

- Donna Valencia, Nursing Manager at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center

Joy Global Uses Singlewire Software to Send Emergency Notification

Brad Parkel — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Joy Global / P&H Mining use Singlewire InformaCast with CallAware to help keep workers safe.

InformaCast is used as part of their emergency notification system to quickly alert plant workers of an event and provide information. When used with Singlewire CallAware, managers are also able to monitor when the company emergency number or 911 is dialed within the organization so that on-site first responders can be directed to scene.

InformaCast and InformaCast CallAware allow Joy Global / P&H Mining to leverage their investment in Cisco unified communications infrastructure and Algo Communications Soluitons for alerting manufacturing plant workers in the event of an emergency.

We invite you to watch the short 3 minute video case study below to see how InformaCast is used at Joy Global/P&H Mining.

Joy Global is a holding company that's headquartered in Milwaukee. Largest manufacturing facility for our P and H division is also located in Milwaukee. We manufacture large electric mining shovels, blasthole drills, and draglines. Basically, they are effectively the largest moving machines on Earth.

They are the size of houses yet are still mobile. About two years ago our Safety Department approached us on a way to get people alerted to you either evacuate areas or even just a case of tornadoes or other storms to take shelter. They actually went out on their own and it installed a, an alerting system on their own.

So we were coming in with a phone system about two years behind them. You know, well we're working hard toward is actually integrating the two systems and at some point potentially phasing out the Legacy system. A single button push on our security guards phone is going to activate the system.Our very first test with Informa Cast and with the Legacy Learning System that they had installed, very huge success, the people were amazed that the phones could do that, it was the talk of the plant for about a week, of what we could do with the phones.

So, because we could break down by zones and even down to individual phones, the Safety Department was all over that.

So we knew about the paging capabilities with the InformaCast but it was kind of a secondary product. We originally wanted the Call Aware product to alert the guard shack of someone dialing 911. You know, going around the private, or the internal number that they were supposed to dial. If the Fire Department were to roll up, saying, "Where is your emergency?" Again, 45 acres, we have no idea where this person is.

We did have a gentleman a week and a half ago have a heart attack and they dialed the internal number. The internal first responders showed up but there was a young woman that was right there, right by him when he fell down, had the AD hooked up to him and pretty much every one is certain that she saved his life, 'cause he was the AD picked up no pulse, no heartbeat.

And that, it zapped him and but that you know, that case the call was made, the security guards knew who was calling.

They had someone they could speak to and find out more information but they see them by the one dialing thirty three thirty three, at least that the CallAware system would have made them aware where that call was placed. The nine, nine out of ten comments were to the effect of "I thought this was just a phone system." You know, they didn't have any concept that they're not just phones, but this is a communication system.

You know, their, their so used to you know, the phones is your phone, and your email is your email, and you know, never shall the two meet or at least that was the mind set and the fact that we could use both audio, use audio alerting or visual alerting, that was great.

Want to learn more about Singlewire’s integration with Algo Communications systems as featured in this case study? We invite you to click the link below to request our integration whitepaper.

To learn more, visit: Joy Global | P&H Mining | Algo Communication Solutions | Cisco | Singlewire Solutions for Manufacturing

Fulfill Your IP Paging Requirements with InformaCast

Allie McGuire — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:00:24 +0000

“When we gave AeroScout the list of all our mandatory requirements, only InformaCast was able to fulfill those prerequisites for us. It did everything we wanted.”

- Mike Llewellyn, Chief Operating Officer at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center

Improve Patient Safety with InformaCast

Allie McGuire — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:00:32 +0000

“InformaCast has a great deal to do with patient safety. It allows us to take better care of our dementia and Alzheimer’s patients.”

- Mike Llewellyn, Chief Operating Officer at Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center

Tech Tip – Convert the Paging Gateway OVA File for Unsupported VMware

Allie McGuire — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 15:00:39 +0000

For customers using the Singlewire Paging Gateway in a virtual environment, Singlewire distributes the solution as a VMware OVA file, which includes the host operating system along with a pre-configured copy of the Singlewire Paging Gateway, so you can easily boot up the system. The OVA files are specifically for the VMware ESX/ESXi 4.0 and later server in a production environment, but customers wanting demo/lab environments can use the VMware vCenter Converter to convert that OVA to another format for VMware versions such as Workstation, Server, and Player.

This PDF will walk you through how to convert the OVA to another format.

Detect. Notify. Activate. M2M – Machine-to-Machine Notification from Singlewire

Brad Parkel — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:00:20 +0000

Watch the video below to learn more about Singlewire’s approach to M2M or Machine-to-Machine for sending mass notification and emergency communication.

So we came up with Detect, Notify, Activate. Today, it's called M2M (Machine-to-Machine). That 's really where we fit. We worked with a train company, a German train company who had an interest in us. If they have a security threat down on a platform they want to notify every one of that but they also want to do other things.

So, their idea was when we send that certain message out to a particular platform, we want to not only notify the people on the platform, we want to notify the headquarters and some other individuals that this is going on and then when that notification sent reverse the direction of the escalator so anyone going down the escalator is now automatically returned.

I don't know how to say "whoa" in German, but that's what you'd expect if you were going down the escalator, and it comes back. That's really not - the notification is part of it, but it's only a small piece of it. You're really interacting with physical systems on both ends of that.

And really, notification should be attached to all kinds of things, not just a human saying there are doughnuts in the break room. Notifications can be attached to server events, the building events, the physical security events or video surveillance - all kinds of things.

And then, on the other end, you ought to be able to activate other systems as a result. It's vary rare that - if you're only sending a notification, and that's it, that's really paging. But if you're embedding it and integrating with all of these other things, you've got a complete system. And we spent a lot of time on our interfaces to make sure they're open and evolving with the interfaces that other people are building so that our system can drop in amidst these things, and you add that audio text component to it.

Create Paging Zones with InformaCast and IP Speakers

Allie McGuire — Fri, 20 May 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Choose the IP speakers you want to send a message to when you deploy Singlewire’s InformaCast throughout your organization.

One of the biggest advantages of choosing IP speakers over traditional analog speakers is the zoning capabilities that come with each device you install. Every IP speaker is a PoE (power over ethernet) device that has its own IP address giving you the power to send an InformaCast broadcast to a single speaker, a small group of speakers, or all your speakers at once. You could page potentially to one individual IP Speaker, or to all devices, or any mix and match in between there. Using InformaCast you can create predefined paging groups for the groups of speakers you send messages to regularly.

“The advantage to IP Speakers is really the zoning capabilities with each individual device,” explains Brad Jungemann, Technical Architect at Singlewire Software. “Now since each device is individually run and it’s a power over ethernet device, it has its own IP address. You could page potentially to one individual IP Speaker, or to all devices, or any mix and match in between there.”

For example, in a school setting you could set up paging groups for each grade, department, and individual school building. Or, you could page to a specific classroom or every speaker in your district at once.

For more information on IP speakers compatible with Singlewire’s InformaCast please visit http://info.singlewire.com/ip-speakers

For more information on InformaCast solutions for K-12 schools please visit http://info.singlewire.com/singlewire-solutions-for-k12/

Key Takeaways:

With InformaCast and IP speakers you can send a message to a single speaker or every speaker within your organization.
Use InformaCast to create paging groups for quick and easy access when sending overhead IP notifications.

Chemical Spill – Sending Emergency Mass Notification

Brad Parkel — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 16:00:00 +0000

There’s a chemical spill on the edge of town and you need to quickly notify everyone in your organization. What do you do?

With Singlewire InformaCast you can quickly send a text and/or audio notification to overhead paging systems, ip phones, computer desktops, digital media displays, email, SMS text, and automatically post to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Watch the video below to see how this solution can be implemented to protect people in your organization.

There's been a chemical spill on the edge of town that is threatening your organization's campus.

HazMat crews are responding to the situation, but it is important to notify staff and visitors about the situation, and advise them to stay indoors.

Your organization has planned for this type of emergency by pre-writing and pre-recording emergency notifications . Distribution of notifications has been planned for.

"At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, please press "pound". Press "star" to cancel at anytime."

A chemical spill was reported in the area. Please press "Details" for more information.

To send notification by computer simply log into the Informacast system, select the message and click "Send".

To send notification by your phone, simply log into your phone, if you're not at your desk, and select the Informacast menu. Select the message and then click "Send".

One of the soft keys on the phone can also also be easily configured to send notification. The message will be immediately sent to all phones, all overhead paging systems and will pop up on all desktops.

Simultaniously the notification will be sent to external systems, including email, voicemail and SMS text systems. Distributed to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and will automatically be posted to your internal internet site.

Building Lockdown – Sending Emergency Notification

Brad Parkel — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:00:00 +0000

How do you lockdown your campus in the event of an emergency?

With Singlewire InformaCast, send immediate notification to overhead paging systems, ip phones, computer workstations, email, SMS text, Twitter, Facebook, and more with the touch of a button.

Watch the video to see how Singlewire InformaCast can be used to send emergency notification and lock down your organization in the event of an emergency.

Public safety officials have just contacted your organization , about an armed gunman that is approaching your campus. You need to lock down and secure all your buildings immediately.

Your organization has planned for this type of emergency, by pre-writing and pre-recording emergency notifications. The distribution of a notification has also been planned for.

"At the tone, please record your message. When you have finished recording, please press "pound". Press "star" to cancel at anytime."

"Building lock down reported, please remain inside ."

To send notification by computer, simply log into the Informacast system, select the message, and click "Send".

After receiving additional information from police, you're able to easily send followup information and instructions to all locations, keeping them apprised of the evolving situation.

To send notifications via your desk phone, simply log into your phone, if you're not at your desk, select the Informacast menu, select the message and then click "Send".

One of the soft keys on the phone can also be easily configured to send notification. In case of this emergency, notification will be sent to all phones.

"Building lockdown reported, please remain inside."

Simultaneously, the notification will be sent to external systems, including email, voicemail, and SMS text systems. Distributed to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and will automatically be posted to your internal internet site.

InformaCast Used for Emergency Communication at Brandeis University

Allie McGuire — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

“InformaCast played a key role in notifying our campus about the water main break and the need to use bottled water. I was able to quickly record a message and send it to the campus from my office at home. Our students commented how effective this was in letting them know what was going on.”

- John Turner, Director of Networks and Systems at Brandeis University

Provide More Information in an Emergency with InformaCast

Allie McGuire — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Most fire alarms often just provide a tone that alerts people to the presence of smoke or fire. With InformaCast IP paging you can supplement the tone with an InformaCast audio and / or text message that provides more information or specific instructions. For example: “Avoid the west stair well; evacuate using the east stair well.” Text and audio notifications on IP phones, scrolling IP speakers, and desktops are quickly noticed everywhere.

Integrating Singlewire’s DORA (Direct Observation and Real-time Alerting) with InformaCast and your existing fire alarm infrastructure extends your emergency notification system. With DORA your when your fire alarm system goes off it can trigger an InformaCast message to be sent automatically to your recipient devices.

Singlewire Demos IP Paging Software at Cisco’s Midwest Partner Summit

Allie McGuire — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Singlewire is attending Cisco’s Midwest Partner Summit today in Kansas City. There we will be talking about our IP paging software solutions and how they can help with emergency notification, overhead paging and bell scheduling in a K-12 environment. Hope … Continue reading →

Easy to Implement Overhead Paging Software from Singlewire

Allie McGuire — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

“The surprise in the implementation of the system was the ease of doing it. We were up and running in less than four hours.”

- John Turner, Director of Networks and Systems at Brandeis University

Brandeis University uses InformaCast for Campus Wide Emergency Communication

Allie McGuire — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

The Client
Brandeis University is a leading university outside of Boston with a total student enrollment of approximately 5,600 and about 1,500 faculty and staff members.
The Business Challenge
In the wake of the tragedy at Virginia Tech in April 2007, universities across the country were confronted with the need for improved all-campus communication. Brandeis University didn’t waste any time. Its Crisis Communications Team immediately began to seek out the best solution for the campus.

John Turner, Brandeis’ Director of Networks and Systems, remembers that parents were asking a lot of questions: “What are you doing for communication? How are you going to let our son or daughter know of a crisis? What other mechanisms do you have?”

As additional analysis of the Virginia Tech occurrence became available, reports and assessments pointed to the critical nature of a public address, or PA, system. Brandeis had recently deployed Cisco IP phones across the campus for PA messaging. This was the reason Turner and his team looked at InformaCast from day one: with its ability to broadcast emergency messages to IP phones, InformaCast was perfect for the Brandeis environment. The Crisis Communications Team realized that they could effectively implement InformaCast with minimal cost and no system disruption because they had nearly all the major components already in place.

“The surprise in the implementation of the system,” notes Turner “was the ease of doing it. We were up and running in less than four hours.”
Leveraging Singlewire’s Expertise
For the Brandeis Crisis Communications Team, two of InformaCast’s most attractive aspects were its simplicity and its immediate readiness. If Brandeis needed to send a building specific alert, they could do that with InformaCast. “We don’t have to think about any initial programming,” says Turner. “It doesn’t require us to even look inside the CallManager system. It’s something that [InformaCast] can do right out of the box.”

However, the solution could also be tailored to meet the specific needs and requirements of the Brandeis campus. “We actually had some development ideas, a few things that weren’t built into the product that we were looking to potentially leverage,” explains Turner. “For example, we were looking to create a crisis communications dashboard utilizing our LDAP directory structure on campus.” From that dashboard, Brandeis could send a single message to seven different modalities. Singlewire was not only open to working with Brandeis to accomplish this fine-tuning, they jumped at the chance to enhance the functionality of InformaCast. “It was really an enjoyable experience,” says Turner of the partnership with Singlewire. “It wasn’t, ‘Well, you bought the product. You figure it out.’ It was very much a partnership between the university and the folks at Singlewire.”
Results: A Reliable, Powerful, and Versatile Crisis Communications System
“When there’s an emergency, the Crisis Communications Teams need to be able to issue the alerts on their own,” Turner says. “Looking at the simplicity of what [InformaCast] had to offer, we knew that this was a solution that could be implemented by a wide variety of [people] – from the officer on duty all the way up to senior executives at the university.”

Turner additionally notes how reassuring it has been to be able to say to students’ parents, “Look, we have seven modalities of communication…. And I think that the students are reassured too, thinking: ‘They’re going to find me somehow. There’s one of seven ways they can reach me, and I’m going to get the message.’ It definitely gives me peace of mind—that we have something in place that we can deploy when we need it.”

While Turner had experienced no doubts that InformaCast could do what Brandeis required, he observes that the speed and ease of the deployment still surprised the Crisis Communications Team. “They were like, ‘This is the right solution. There’s no muss, no fuss. We have what we need: all-campus communications – done.”
A Real Test of Brandeis’ Emergency Notification System
In May 2010, Brandeis put their emergency notification system to the test after a Boston water main break created the need to notify the entire campus with information and safety instructions quickly as possible.

“InformaCast played a key role in notifying our campus about the water main break and the need to use bottled water. I was able to quickly record a message and send it to the campus from my office at home,” says Turner. “Our students commented how effective this was in letting them know what was going on.”

Singlewire Talks About IP Paging Solutions at Cisco Architectural Trends

Allie McGuire — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Singlewire is attending Cisco Architectural Trends tomorrow in Bloomington, MN. There we will be talking about our IP paging software solutions and how they can help with emergency notification in your organization. Hope to see you there.

Communicate across your school with an overhead paging solution from Singlewire

Allie McGuire — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

“InformaCast provided us with a unified system with ease of management that allows us to even communicate with the baseball field and the weightlifting room wirelessly.”

- Elena Alvarez, Technology Director at Christopher Columbus High School