Are You Ready to Move to InformaCast Fusion?
If you’re like most organizations, the way you communicate with your people has changed in the past five years, that’s why many of our customers are moving from InformaCast Advanced to InformaCast Fusion. While many organizations selected InformaCast Advanced for its industry-leading paging and on-premises notification capabilities, several factors such as the need to take advantage of the cloud, reach people on mobile devices, and leverage critical event management features have made InformaCast Fusion an appealing option for organizations looking for a single solution that can make their emergency communication plans actionable.
If you’ve been looking to do more with InformaCast Advanced or are looking to consolidate additional systems to make up for gaps in your communication needs, there’s never been a better time to move to InformaCast Fusion. In this blog post, we’ll highlight the top ten reasons InformaCast Advanced customers have been moving to InformaCast Fusion.
1. It’s InformaCast Advanced and So Much More
InformaCast Fusion keeps all of the on-premises features customers love from InformaCast Advanced and adds mobile alerting, critical event management, and automated updates from the cloud to the InformaCast toolset. Advanced customers will still be able to do paging, bell schedules, and connect to their desk phones, speakers, digital signage, and desktop computers. With Fusion though, they can send SMS text messages, utilize the InformaCast mobile app to trigger and receive messages wherever they are, and compile all the resources they need to handle a crisis situation.
2. Mobile Matters
The simple fact is that organizations want to send information where most people are likely to see it. For many, that means receiving notifications on their cell phones. InformaCast Fusion can send simultaneous text and audio messages to all of your on-premises devices, as well as SMS text, email, and push notifications to mobile phones to reach people wherever they are. New features like our mobile panic button are also available exclusively for InformaCast Fusion customers to provide direct assistance to those in need the moment they need help. With the power of on-site and mobile notifications organizations are boosting the effectiveness of their alerts by leveraging every available channel so no one gets left behind.
3. InformaCast Command Center
One important piece of functionality that separates InformaCast Advanced and InformaCast Fusion is InformaCast Command Center. Customers who use Fusion are able to set up Command Center using tiles that appear on the home screen of the InformaCast interface. These tiles are also reflected in the InformaCast mobile app. Each tile can be used for a different scenario and guides the user through a series of questions so they can launch a detailed notification. This simplifies the alerting process and makes it easy to send follow-up messages. Command Center is a key component of the critical event management features available within Fusion as users can also load materials like safety checklists, floor plans, and other resources to help manage an incident from start to finish.
4. Collaboration Tool Integration
To respond to the changing ways organizations communicate, InformaCast Fusion includes integrations with popular meeting platforms that are not available in InformaCast Advanced. Integrations are available with Microsoft Teams, Webex, and Zoom with more on the horizon in the near future. This helps extend the reach of emergency notifications from InformaCast, offers another channel to trigger messages easily, and provides a simple way to gather key stakeholders quickly so they can assess a situation and determine a course of action.
5. Expanded Phone Compatibility
More and more we are hearing from customers looking to change their phone system without losing the benefits of InformaCast. Many are moving to Fusion because it works with a large number of UCaaS providers offering greater flexibility for organizations that have evolving technology needs. And because InformaCast Fusion has a richer feature set and uses a hybrid-cloud architecture, the type of phone system is no longer the driving factor for how much use an organization can get out of InformaCast.
6. Desktop Alerts are Included
Many organizations leverage InformaCast Desktop Notifier to expand the reach of their notifications. This tool is included in the per-user licensing for InformaCast Fusion, and Fusion customers have additional options for desktop alerts as well. Installing the InformaCast app on Windows or Mac devices means users do not need to be on your network to receive alerts. As hybrid work environments continue to grow in popularity, this is a vital function for ensuring that people are aware of potential operational disruptions. Fusion customers will also soon have access to the desktop panic button which allows them to trigger notifications from their computer without needing to log into the InformaCast interface.
7. Enterprise Architecture
The hybrid-cloud architecture also provides a more elegant solution for large organizations looking to scale the deployment and improve resiliency. InformaCast Fusion offers High Availability, Distributed Activation, Survivable Remote Site Notification, and Failover to ensure that no matter what happens, messages get delivered.
8. System Health Monitoring
InformaCast Fusion tracks several of its internal metrics and presents them to you in the system health dashboard for easy scanning. Each metric is paired with a measurement of its health that provides insight into whether your system is functioning as it should. Using the system health dashboard, system administrators will be able to proactively troubleshoot and resolve system issues before they impact your ability to send notifications. In addition to the dashboard, InformaCast Fusion also has system health alarms that send notifications to certain recipients when one of InformaCast Fusion’s tracked metrics negatively changes states. This allows you to stay on top of any potential issues and avoid issues should an emergency arise.
9. Sleeker Web Interface
The InformaCast Fusion web interface features a sleek, modern design that is easy to navigate. Users can spend less time managing their system with a straightforward dashboard and see real-time reports regarding notification history, which displays how long it takes notifications to reach everyone on each channel. It also displays response results from recipients as they come in to provide actionable insight for incident response. The interface is also mirrored for those with the right permissions within the InformaCast Mobile app. What someone sees in one interface is available in the other, making it simple to move between the two.
10. Robust Feature Updates
Our team pushes updates to InformaCast Fusion every six weeks. These updates are split between the quality of life and usability enhancements and brand new features taken directly from customer input so we are always providing the solutions you need most. As we mentioned, future updates will include the desktop panic button, but we will also be adding rostering, wearable panic button integration, and we will continue to expand our partnerships with technology leaders so you can continue to get the most out of InformaCast.
If you’re ready to make the move to InformaCast Fusion or simply want to learn more about how your organization can benefit from InformaCast Fusion, contact our team to set up a time to chat.