Recording from October 17, 2024
What This InformaCast and Visitor Aware Session Covered
The inaugural Singlewire Sparks session brought the product team directly to customers for a knowledge exchange: what has shipped, what is coming, and how the two platforms customers know best work together. The session moved through three distinct areas — Singlewire InformaCast critical incident mapping, a full Singlewire Visitor Aware platform overview, and a live demonstration of the five integration points that connect the two products into a single end-to-end safety ecosystem.
InformaCast: Location-First Emergency Response
The InformaCast portion of the session was organized around a single principle: during an emergency, the most important piece of information is where the incident is happening. Recent investments in critical incident mapping allow the exact room to be highlighted on a floor plan and delivered immediately to the internal security team the moment any connected device activates — whether that is a wall-mounted panic button, an IP speaker with a call button, a water leak sensor, or a gunshot detection system. That same location and incident type can be transmitted directly to the local 911 dispatch center, removing the need for a manual call and supporting Alyssa’s Law compliance.
Two additional capabilities rounded out the InformaCast update. Targeted paging lets staff pull up a floor plan and select specific speakers or device groups when sending a routine notification — the same mapping interface used in emergencies becomes a daily operational tool. And camera integration was previewed as a near-term addition: security teams would be able to click a nearby camera feed directly from an incident floor plan, getting eyes on the situation within seconds of an alert activating. All of these capabilities — floor plans, camera feeds, and rich alert details — are accessible on both the desktop interface and the InformaCast mobile app.
Visitor Aware: A Full Safety Platform
Joanna Haugland walked through the full scope of Visitor Aware, which covers significantly more ground than visitor check-in. The base module includes visitor and volunteer management, student and resident secure sign-out, and background checks at three tiers — basic, national, and premium with county-level reporting. The platform runs on any device (PC, iPad, or Chromebook), supports 21 languages on the check-in kiosk, and can screen visitors automatically against the National Sex Offender Registry, FBI watch list, and Interpol. Visitor profiles are shared across every location within an organization, so a district-wide guardian record does not need to be re-created at each school.
Two add-on modules are also available: Safety Drill Manager for plotting and documenting drills across the year, and Bus Manager for accounting for student ridership. Looking ahead, Dismissal Manager and Hall Manager were previewed as upcoming releases — Dismissal Manager to replace paper car line processes with a digital dashboard and guardian portal, and Hall Manager to digitize hall pass issuance with timed windows and student conflict detection.
InformaCast + Visitor Aware: Five Integration Points
Ben Koca demonstrated all five integration points between the two platforms in a live walkthrough. Initiating a scenario in InformaCast automatically launches a Visitor Aware family reunification event, aligned with The “I Love U Guys” Foundation’s protocols. Checked-in visitors are added to an InformaCast distribution group and removed automatically when they leave, so they receive relevant notifications during their visit without requiring any manual list management. When a flagged visitor attempts to check-in, Visitor Aware pushes an immediate alert to the security team through InformaCast — without the front desk having to speak or act. Incidents and drills can also be initiated from within Visitor Aware, sending the corresponding InformaCast notification, so neither platform functions as a dependency on the other. The effect is a system that operates as one platform with a single workflow, regardless of which interface a staff member is using.
Presenters
Brad Parkel • Go-to-Market Enablement Director • Singlewire Software
Cameron Bjorklund • Product Manager, InformaCast • Singlewire Software
Joanna Haugland • Product Manager • Singlewire Visitor Aware
Ben Koca • Product Designer • Singlewire Software
Five InformaCast and Visitor Aware Updates Worth Acting On
- Location is the most critical piece of information in an emergency — and it now arrives automatically — When any connected device activates — a panic button, a speaker, a sensor — InformaCast immediately highlights the exact room on a floor plan and delivers that information to the security team and, if configured, to 911 dispatch. No manual call is needed. The same floor plan interface also supports Alyssa’s Law compliance for districts in applicable states. Adding devices to the map expands this location awareness without requiring new hardware.
- Visitor Aware is a full safety platform, not just a check-in station — The platform covers visitor and volunteer management, student and resident secure sign-out, and background checks at three tiers (basic, national, and premium with county-level reporting). It screens visitors automatically against the National Sex Offender Registry, FBI watch list, and Interpol, supports 21 languages at the check-in kiosk, and runs on any device — PC, iPad, or Chromebook. Visitor profiles are shared across every location in a district or organization, so a returning visitor or guardian does not need to be re-enrolled at each site.
- InformaCast and Visitor Aware operate as one platform across five integration points — Initiating a scenario in InformaCast automatically launches a Visitor Aware family reunification event. Checked-in visitors are added to InformaCast distribution groups and removed when they leave. A flagged visitor attempt in Visitor Aware pushes an immediate alert through InformaCast to the security team — without front desk staff having to say a word. Incidents and drills can be initiated from either interface, keeping both systems fully in sync throughout.
- Camera feeds and targeted pages turn the floor plan into a daily operations tool — Camera integration brings live feeds one click away from the incident floor plan, giving security teams a real-time view of what is happening before anyone moves. Targeted paging lets staff select specific speakers or zones directly from the same map for routine announcements. Both uses — emergency and operational — run through the same InformaCast interface on desktop or mobile, so the system that handles daily communications is the same one that responds when it matters most.
- Dismissal Manager and Hall Manager are coming — and customer input shapes both — Dismissal Manager will replace paper car line sheets with a digital dashboard visible to all staff simultaneously, paired with a guardian portal for managing dismissal preferences and adding temporary guardians directly. Hall Manager will digitize hall pass issuance with timed accountability windows and automatic conflict detection between students. Both products were in active development at the time of this session.
Resources Referenced in This Session
- Alyssa’s Law Requirements
- Visitor Aware Overview
- Safety Drill Manager
- Dismissal Manager
- Hall Manager
- Technology Integrations with InformaCast
- Panic Button Options
Get more from InformaCast and Visitor Aware
Ready to configure critical incident mapping, explore the Visitor Aware platform, or see how the two work together in your environment? Our team can walk you through any of the features from this session.
Read the Full Session Transcript
This transcript was generated from the recording and lightly edited for readability. Speaker attributions are approximate.
Brad Parkel — Go-to-Market Enablement Director · Singlewire Software
Hello, and welcome to our Singlewire Sparks session. I’d like to start today by thanking all of you for being valued customers of us here at Singlewire Software. We appreciate your continued interest in our software, and our goal today is to help make, help you make the best use of InformaCast and Visitor Aware in your organization.
This is the first of an ongoing, series of live and on demand events, aimed at providing you information about the latest feature, technology integrations, and best practices associated with our products.
We also plan to feature stories and examples from you, our customers, in future Sparks sessions.
My name is Brad Parkel. I’m go to market enablement director here at Singlewire. And for today’s event, this will be a one to many presentation. And so, questions will not be fielded as far as audio from the audience, but we do have a q and a channel, just to the right that you, can make use of. As time allows, we will get to those questions here at the end of the session.
We’ll also be conducting a handful of, polling questions, and I’m gonna start us off here, right now with understanding, you know, who is in the audience today. And you may be asking, am I in the right place today?
And we work and often, in many organizations, there are a lot of different roles that are involved with our software products. And so we’re looking to have today’s session be very nontechnical and conversational in manner. We’re just looking to bring you information about features and ask some questions along the way that can get you up to speed on what we’re doing.
So if you know of other people within your organization that would benefit from today’s, presentation, we will be making this session available, on demand in our Singlewire community after today’s event. I’ll show you where to find that here at the end.
And as responses, finish up here, I wanna introduce members of our product development team.
Joanna, Ben, and Cameron are here to answer some questions and to talk about InformaCast, to talk about Visitor Aware, and also to talk about the integration that we have, here today.
So, with that, Cameron, I’m gonna turn things over to you and let you, take the floor.
Cameron Bjorklund — Product Manager, InformaCast · Singlewire Software
Awesome. Thanks, Brad, and thanks folks for joining us today.
My name is Cameron Bjorklund. I am a product manager here at Singlewire Software, and I work primarily on the InformaCast product. I’m gonna take you through, since most people here, are generally familiar with our InformaCast Fusion product, I’m just gonna take you, through some cool enhancements that we’ve made, over the last year or so and then give you a little sneak peek into some stuff that we’re working on, to help you guys out.
So here at Singlewire, we recognize that one of, you know, one of the key things we wanna do is save time for our customers during an emergency, and we recognize that, you know, one of the key things that is needed during an emergency is the location of that emergency.
You know, not just the building and the address, but an internal security team needs to get to the room where there is a medical emergency or a life threatening emergency or something like that. So we have been making a lot of investments on the InformaCast side to bring, more location information, to, our customers. So you guys can know, where exactly, there’s a problem, and you guys can coordinate, responses with your security teams and with, emergency services as, needed.
So we’ve been making a lot of investment into, critical incident mapping.
So as you can see on this slide, this is a notification, and this is something that your internal security team, could receive, if you configure this part of the product.
It allows you to get access to rich location information for where someone is pressing a panic button. Again, this could be a medical alert.
This could be, you know, a life threatening emergency.
But having that key information of exactly where in your building, which floor it’s on, and then the floor plan available is gonna be really important for, your response team, to coordinate a fast and effective response to, help people.
Taking this a little further, we have, you know, not only can you say, hey. This is the room I’m in, and that shows up on the floor plan. We are also, tying a lot of our devices and our physical panic buttons that you guys, use every single day into the same location mechanism.
We wanna make sure that if you’re, you know, you know, if you’re using a panic button that’s on your IP speaker, a wall mounted panic button, maybe you have a water leak sensor, maybe it’s a gunshot detection system. You know, there’s so many things that can interface into InformaCast. And then when a notification is sent, it is critical that the location of that is transmitted to your internal security team as quick as possible for a fast response. So as you can see in this example, we got the same floor plan, we got the same location, but then we can also see that we have, the actual location or the actual device that was pressed to initiate the panic button here.
We are continuing to invest in this. So as we, you know, throughout the next, couple months, we’re gonna see more and more devices end up on this, to make sure that, you know, to meet customers wherever they are, whatever, devices you have in your building to initiate emergencies, we wanna make sure that location information gets transmitted very quickly to your security teams and to, external emergency services.
Speaking of connecting to emergency services, another kinda key part of locations here is, bridging over to, 911.
We have a functionality in our product called emergency calling, which automatically alerts your local 911 dispatch center of an emergency, at your facility.
This saves the time of someone having to call 911. And when you call 911, what’s the first thing they ask you? It’s it’s where are you and what is the problem. InformaCast has the capability to transmit that information based on the panic button pressed directly to the 911 dispatch center so they can know where the where the emergency is, and they can, and they know what type of emergency it is, and they can start, getting the emergency services that are needed at that facility there quickly without the time needed for someone to pick up the phone, dial 911, and then and then relay that information, themselves and manually.
This also in K-12 can achieve, Alyssa’s law compliance, for so if there’s any folks here listening, in a state that has Alyssa’s Law, this is this is a great and easy way to get that with, technology and infrastructure you already have.
And then we’ve taken this critical incident mapping, and we’ve also kind of wanted to look at it and make sure that it’s useful on a day to day basis too. It doesn’t always have to be an emergency with our product. We really do want people to be using InformaCast for emergency and nonemergency situations.
Those nonemergency, uses of InformaCast are perfect ways to test the platform and to make sure that it will work during an actual emergency.
So we, you know, have listened to customers and, you know, we’ve gotten a lot of feedback that they would like ways to do targeted pages throughout their facility.
We are leveraging these maps. This is now something that you can, do in the product today.
You can, send a notification, pull up the floor plan, and then you can highlight the specific speakers or devices that you want to receive, the notification right when you’re sending it.
And then just to show something that’s coming soon here, I have just a screenshot of it here, but I will pull it up here because it’ll be a little cooler to look at, not just in a screenshot here. But we, are adding in the next month support for camera systems on the floor plan as well. So you can see the same floor plan that we have here, and then we can see that, now I have some new devices pinned on it. So not only can you put panic buttons on it, not only can you put, speakers on it, you can also put cameras on it. So imagine that I’m a security person. I had received, this notification.
Let’s say, that this room would be highlighted. I could click on a nearby camera, and I could pull up the live feed of that, camera without having to log in, without having to switch platforms, without having to open a new tab.
This is obviously just a test camera. It is just looking out at our parking lot, right now. But as you can imagine, this is, you know, this could be cameras that you have internal to your facility. So your security team not only can get, very fast and accurate information to the location of the incident, they can also get eyes on the ground and see what’s going on very quickly and then tailor their response accordingly.
Alright. Switch back to the deck here.
And that is kinda all I have, for InformaCast updates, that we’ve been working on.
Location, location, location. So, I would encourage folks to check it out.
Brad Parkel
And, Cameron, before you go, you made mention of the mapping, software. I know that this is a feature that’s been released previously.
But for those who haven’t gotten started, this is a map that organizations can upload. And does this need to be a specific type of file format or there are different file mat formats that are available?
Cameron Bjorklund
Yeah. We support, you know, we wanna meet customers where they are. We know that everyone has different kind of floor plans and maps of their building. So we accept all sorts of file types for that, JPEGs, PNGs, PDFs. So whatever you got, that can be uploaded in InformaCast, and then you can start, mapping your buildings and getting the devices, pinned on there. And so then when one of those devices sends a notification, your security team is getting that very accurate, rich facility location information for the, place of the emergency.
Brad Parkel
And then I know we also have some technology integration partners that offer more high resolution maps that are available too and can be used in this in this environment?
Cameron Bjorklund
Yes. CRG, Critical Response Group, is one of those partners.
We support the same file type of the maps that they have.
So especially if you’re K-12, you should, look around and see if you have CRG. They do service a ton of K-12 customers throughout the United States. There’s a very good chance that somewhere in your organization, CRG has mapped your buildings. You have very high quality maps, ready to upload into InformaCast and start using.
Brad Parkel
And in some cases, available via the local public service, local county or, community, police department. Sometimes they have those maps already as well if a district’s unaware.
Cameron Bjorklund
Yep. Correct. So do a do a little digging around internally. I’m sure you’re gonna find some floor plans. And, again, you know, we don’t we don’t, you know, only support a specific kind. So whatever you got, we’ll be able to take it in and we’ll be able to map on it.
Brad Parkel
Okay. And then just to underscore, just two more things here, Cameron, before you go.
The maps are really in the center of our of our future in terms of development goals. We’re gonna see a lot more coming to maps in the future months.
Cameron Bjorklund
Yes. Stay tuned. We are looking at adding a whole bunch of new devices to the map, and, again, really expanding the surface area. So whatever you guys got, whatever your workflows are for initiating emergency notifications with InformaCast, we want that rich location information to end up on the map and end up in the hands of your security teams for the response.
Brad Parkel
Okay. One last question.
What you were showing here today, is this available both in, a web app or logging in via a computer and via mobile?
Ben Koca — Product Designer · Singlewire Software
Or are there any metrics?
Cameron Bjorklund
Excellent question. I forgot to cover that. We understand, especially during an emergency, that your response team is not gonna be sitting at a computer like I am right now. They’re gonna very likely be on the move.
So the camera feeds, the maps, the rich location information, that also all comes through on the mobile app. So, whether your security team, is at a computer or on the go, they will be able to have access to this, location information.
Brad Parkel
Okay. Very good. Okay.
Next up, we’re gonna learn a bit about our Visitor Aware.
And, Joanna, I know
Visitor Aware, which may be new to some people in the audience here today.
It’s something that is stand alone, but it’s now something that’s integrated. You’re gonna talk about, really the core of what Visitor Aware is and how it works and some new features that are coming.
Joanna Haugland — Product Manager · Singlewire Visitor Aware
Absolutely. So I’m Joanna. I’m the product owner on the Visitor Aware side. So today, we’re gonna cover kind of lay a foundational base of what Visitor Aware is. And as was mentioned, Singlewire acquired Visitor Aware probably about two years ago, so a lot of exciting things have happened since then.
On this first slide, this kinda gives the overlay of what is actually included within Visitor Aware and what you have access to today if you were to purchase Visitor Aware.
First off, we have a visitor and volunteer piece. So within the base module of Visitor Aware, you would have access to manage your visitor management capabilities as well as volunteer management if that makes sense for you and your facility. If you’re currently managing volunteers in some way, we should be able to assist you with that. We also have the ability to run background checks. So I will touch on that a little bit further into the presentation.
So make sure to note that one for sure. And then student or resident management. So depending on what your facility does, if it’s an education based facility, we can assist you with that student management capability. If you’re more health care, we would be able to assist you with that resident management capability as well. And then two add on modules, depending on if they would be useful or beneficial to you, would be our drill manager capability, which would be to kind of plot out those drills as they’re coming down the line here to make sure that those get ran and that you stay in compliance as a facility.
Or there’s also the bus manager capability where the ridership is key here. So for bus manager, we are fully solely focused on accounting for those riders on that bus and making sure that they’re getting on the correct bus.
So let’s progress here. Alright. So here, diving more deeply into visitor manager as that module that base module within Visitor Aware, I do wanna kind of point out some key differentiators within the market or within that space for visitor management.
One of which, that seems to come up quite a bit in conversations is the interaction of facial recognition within our software. Facial recognition helps in a number of ways within our software in the capability of, streamlining that check-in process for visitors knowing just by their face, taking a photo of their face, who they are, and then having them select their destination for check-in that way. We also accommodate QR code as well. So I do know that there’s some states that have legislation in place around facial recognition, two of which would be the state of New York and the state of Florida. So the way that we’re able to accommodate a kind of streamlined check-in process for return visitors would be by using that QR code.
For the states that are able to utilize facial recognition, it is quite a great way of greeting your visitors once they have checked in, created their profile, and then being able to take their photo for that return visit check-in process.
There’s also, on the slides that you’re seeing as I’m going through them, I’ve asterisked the capabilities that are integration points within InformaCast today. Those will be covered a little bit later with a magic demo that Ben will be giving us. And then within the check-in process, you’re able to accommodate those visitors and grab their mobile phone numbers to include them on a temporary contact list. So if an incident were to arise, you have now looped in your checked in visitors. And then once they check out, they’re off of that list, so you don’t have to worry about accidentally contacting them.
That is also a key, point that the type of kiosk that you’re trying to implement at your facility could be anything really. One another great key differentiator of our software is that as a platform, we don’t mind what device you’re running our software on. It can be a PC, laptop, Chromebook, or an iPad device. We do have that dedicated iOS application that can be downloaded and installed like you’re seeing in front of you on this slide.
With that, whether you’re running it on a PC or iPad, the same flows are offered. So if you’re wanting visitor check-in, if you’re wanting student or resident, secure sign out, if you’re wanting delivery notifications, or even an employee check-in specific button, all of that could be accommodated in via both routes.
The PC or laptop version would be a web based environment, so you could allow staff members within that lobby area or within the front office area to assist a visitor with that check-in process, or you can actually lock down that web browser as the self service kiosk as well. Both are options within that environment.
There’s also the ability to remotely register your visitors before they ever step foot on your campus or your facility grounds. That is by sharing out a link ahead of time, having them themselves, the visitor or volunteer, go through that process of completing their profile, taking their photo. You would collect all that information beforehand if there were to be security screening procedures that you have in place to be processed before they arrive, all of that can be done before that person ever arrives so that you know you would have no problem accepting that visitor on your campus or on your facility grounds.
There’s also the ability to account for expected visitors. So here would be the same thing. You would share out that registration link potentially if that visitor hasn’t yet created their profile, and then you can actually note them as an expected visitor within our platform. They wouldn’t necessarily need to have a profile created to note them as expected. However, it does, improve the rate of matching that visitor upon check-in if they already have a visitor profile created. And then those notifications would go out to the person that is expecting that visitor, letting them know that they have arrived.
Each profile that gets created within your client or your district account would be available among all locations under your client account. So with that being said, I, as a visitor checking in, once I have that profile created, that profile can be searched from any location within that client account. Where that comes in handy is that once I, as a visitor, have presented my ID or followed the protocol that you have in place for completing that check-in process, I no longer have to do that. I can use facial recognition for that return visit. I can use a QR code.
It heavily streamlines that return visitor process and makes it more friendly to that visitor to return visit check-in as well.
Another key piece with that is that for districts specifically, if they have a visitor profile that’s also a guardian, any student relationship within their district. So if you, as a guardian, have multiple student relationships across multiple locations or across multiple schools within the district, all of those student relationships are assigned to the one visitor profile, which would then prevent the need to have individual guardian profiles for each specific location that student relationship exists.
And then any security protocols that you have in place for that specific person is available district wide as well. So if you issue an explicit ban, if that person happened to be flagged on any of the databases that you can enable from your side, those of which being the National Sex Offender Registry, FBI watch list, and Interpol, You can enable those to be ran with the visitor check-in process and already have that screening automation built in upon check-in. And then there’s also the ability to have active court orders in the system too. So even on a on a commercial level, if you have an employee that has a no contact order against somebody, you can put that in your system so that if that person ever arrives on-site and attempts to check-in, your security team knows about it. And then those security notifications can go out through Fusion via those designated contact or distribution groups as well.
Another great thing about our check-in application is that there is the capability to allow that visitor to switch it to a language that they’re more familiar with. There’s actually twenty one supported languages on that check-in kiosk app application that could benefit that visitor to know, specifically what’s happening on that screen so that they can follow that check-in process a little bit easier.
There’s the ability to initiate a terms of entry option as well. So if you expect your visitors to agree to certain terms, that can be prepopulated into that check-in flow as well. If they don’t agree to the terms, then they are not allowed to check-in, and that would, help kind of enforce those terms that you are trying to enforce at your facility.
There’s also the ability to allow visitors to check-in using their own personal device. The way that we can accommodate that is there’s a flyer you can print off. There’s a QR code on that flyer. They can scan the QR code from their personal device and then complete the check-in process from their device itself.
And then diving in just a little bit more into the visitor management capability, depending on if you are a school or you are in the health care industry where you do require that resident management capability, there are additional capabilities built into the visitor manager module. So some of those are listed here. So the things that I wanna highlight would be that secure student release capability. So if a guardian comes on-site, requests to sign out a student, we’re making sure that relationship exists, and there’s no red flags.
There’s also the ability to allow older students to self sign out and sign back in as well as creating and managing the volunteer process. So from start to finish, the volunteer can apply, can be denied, approved, go through a background check to kind of weigh in on if that person is safe to be a volunteer for your facility, and then managing those volunteer opportunities after the fact. There’s, quite a few options built in under that criminal history check or that background check option that we offer, and then that is three specific tiers. So we have our basic package, national, and premium package offerings for that background check or for that criminal history check capability.
This is more so depending on what procedures or process you have at your facility. This can actually be used more for, more than just volunteer management.
So we do have some customers that are interested in it to just make sure that everything’s good with their employees moving forward. So after that initial employment background check, they kinda wanna just have that peace of mind or that sanity check to make sure nothing’s popped up after that point. So this would be a great use case for that. There’s also that specific volunteer approval or denial process where you can peg this in.
And then those packages, depending on what you’re looking for, to be returned based on that, facility process or procedure that you have in place, you can do the basic package just to see on a national level if anything gets returned for that person for criminal history. There’s also that middle package, the national package or the national tier here, which would include an address history check as well as Social Security number. So if you wanna make sure and verify that person is that person that they say they are, that’s that additional layer of check there. And then the premium check would include the ability to run reports at a county level.
So you would receive that national check, what gets returned there. If anything, if you wanted to dive in deeper and look specifically at a county, you have access to do that. That tier includes one county level check and then you can kind of a la carte any other additional county level checks of interest for that person. So then you can kind of weigh in that what gets returned on that report and then use that information accordingly.
There is some exciting kind of, new product groupings working down the line. At the beginning of next year, we are excited to, release dismissal management. So that would be more for education customers, the ability to manage that dismissal process at the end of the day, allowing guardians through their own guardian portal to specify what dismissal type is assigned to their student for that day and even schedule that out and also the ability to assign temporary guardian relationships. So if I, as a parent, get tied up at work, I’m not able to make it that day, and I know that, even the day of. I can get into the guardian portal, and I can give temporary guardianship guardian access, say, to a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle, and then they can go pick up my student for me. And then that is actually managed by me, the guardian, rather than putting that on the front office staff to manage. So helping to offload that from them.
There’s also within, safety manager, that module or that new grouping. So with dismissal management coming up at the beginning of the year, we’re going to be grouping things in a more logical way. So these products are actually here now, so you’re actually able to buy and utilize those today. We’re just grouping it in a way that makes sense with that safety or security process in mind. And then this module, safety manager module, is applicable to all verticals. So the family reunification piece, if you are health care and have residents education and have students, that’s applicable to you so that you can take attendance of those residents and students during that active incident and then rolling into that reunification and making sure that they get to, authorized individuals after that process or after that incident has concluded.
Safety drill manager, we talked about that a little bit before, which would be plotting out those drills and making sure those are being ran and you’re staying in compliance and allowing you one space to account for all notes, all anything associated with that drill. So you can even account for the time that it takes from start to finish. And then that would be another integration point with InformaCast that my colleague Ben will talk about here in a little bit. And then the tip line capability. So if you want to open up, the ability for your community, employees, staff to submit tips, if they heard something, saw something, need something followed up on that’s related to safety, security, etcetera, this would be opening up that capability or that communication channel for them.
And then as mentioned with the release of dismissal management that we’re so excited for, that kind of regroup that safety manager module that will be coming out and that, again, that all of that functionality is live today. We’re just regrouping it in a way that makes sense with these new products coming out. But dismissal manager would be accounting for those students, making sure that they’re going, getting in the correct line, going to the car line pickup, going to parent pickup, going on the bus, etcetera, after school activities, and then allowing the guardians to kinda take that and run with that and offload the front office staff with that capability.
The hall manager product is also going to be coming out next year where we’re going to allow education comp customers the ability to kinda digitize their hall monitor or their hall management process of issuing those passes for students to gain access to the hallways.
So there might be, different things that you have to mandate saying only x number of students can be in the hallway at one time, and then our software will take that into account. There might be a student that can’t be in the hallway with another student for whatever reason, and we’ll take that into account as well. So there’s a lot of customization that we can actually automate or digitize on behalf of those education customers to help manage that hallway traffic and make sure everything’s good to go there.
Along with if I a student issue or am issued a pass to go to the guidance counselor’s office. I, the guidance counselor, can also say that, yes, student has arrived and then also mention when student is headed back to the classroom. So even accounting for that process as well.
Ben Koca
And then
Brad Parkel
Before we start, Joanna, just a real quick question here.
I opened up just a question. We’re not gonna put it on the stage, but if people are interested in hall pass dismissal management, this is something new.
We’re asking them to indicate that, and someone will follow-up and go into a deeper demo of what those are.
Joanna Haugland
Yes. Yes. Please do respond to that poll so that we can follow-up with you and then have those conversations and free, demos. So take advantage of that for sure.
Brad Parkel
Okay. And, Joanna, just one more question. I know that just by nature, Visitor Aware aligns very closely with K-12, and we have a lot of customers in K-12. But it’s also used in health care and manufacturing.
Can you talk about those other, industries?
People on the call who may not be familiar with kind of those different industry specific examples that might give them a clue on how and ways that it’s being used.
Joanna Haugland
Absolutely. So we do have some customers that use the visitor management capability, in that commercial vertical that would then branch out to even using the drill management capability. So I do know of some commercial customers that are interested in making sure that everything is good to know. Everybody knows what procedures or protocol goes into place for that incidence. Unfortunately, in today’s environment, it seems like even the weather is kind of a factor that you need to take into consideration for making sure that everybody knows what to do if, say, there’s a flood event or if there’s a tornado, etcetera. It just it just is so pertinent to know what procedures to follow, and the safety drill manager process does accommodate that to make sure everybody’s in the know.
Brad Parkel
Very
good.
Okay. So you’re sticking around. We’ll have some questions at the end with our q and a. I wanna play a short video here to set up our next session with Ben that really talks about the integration between both of these, software platforms and how it’s used.
Product Video — InformaCast + Visitor Aware integration video
To school safety, having tools that work together gives you the best chance to protect your students and teachers from harm. Because when your tools don’t communicate with one another, information gets missed, seconds are wasted, and people are put at risk. That’s why Singlewire Software offers a seamless integration between InformaCast and Visitor Aware.
Your school can take advantage of advanced visitor management capabilities that work in tandem with our industry leading mass notification and in notification will be automatically sent to relevant parties who can intervene before the issue escalates. And should an incident occur that requires your school to conduct a reunification, InformaCast and Visitor Aware work together to help you ensure every student gets reunited with their family.
Talk to our team today about how InformaCast and Visitor Aware work together to help schools protect everyone inside their buildings.
Brad Parkel
Okay.
We’re gonna move on to next to Ben to talk a little bit about the integration between these two, platforms. And just to mention here too with the video, you saw a K-12 example there. We also have a, multiple industry non K-12 version that, many people can see as well. The K-12 one just came up in the rotation this time. So alright.
Ben, we’re gonna hand things over to you.
Ben Koca
Awesome.
Thanks again for coming, folks. I saw a ton of really great questions in the q and a section.
All of my colleagues will help answer some of those while, I walk you through a variety of different integration points between InformaCast and Visitor Aware.
So as Cameron and Joanna outlined, you know, most of us on this call right now are pretty familiar with the InformaCast platform. Some of you may also be pretty familiar with Visitor Aware now.
But what really is cool about these two products, while powerful on their own, we have the ability to, integrate the two and really give you a full end to end experience from the second somebody walks through the door through the second that they leave or if they’re off-site completely.
Right? Safety needs to be at the forefront of, everybody’s life, right, regardless of where they might locate. And Visitor Aware and InformaCast together make this much more possible than just one of the platforms alone. So with API based integrations, we’re able to do, a few different integrated solutions that we’re gonna demonstrate here today. So the first one being a family reunification event.
If you’re within InformaCast and you initiate a scenario, what we have the ability to do is automatically kick off a, Visitor Aware family reunification event. Now that functionality is completely in parallel with the I love you guys, foundation, which a lot of folks I’m sure are aware of. But to anyone that is not, they provide a variety of standard protocols to make sure that the incident is managed properly and correctly, to make sure folks stay safe. Another, integration point we have is visitor notification.
Right? Again, this has K-12 applicability. It has health care applicability, manufacturing, financial, etcetera. Really, anywhere that has facilities where, people will be checking in and out, you can automatically place them into InformaCast distribution list so they can receive notifications while they’re visiting.
And this can be super valuable for more operational announcements, like, you know, a lot lunch has arrived or, you know, god forbid, some sort of an emergency event. They can be in the know, with that information as well. And then finally, there are three separate ways that Visitor Aware can initiate InformaCast notifications, and those are when a flagged visitor tries to check-in. Right?
So you can immediately be notified that there is a situation that needs to be addressed with that. When a drill begins, again, to make sure that you have that full end to end as close to the real thing as possible sort of experience with drills. And then finally, if you just are in the Visitor Aware interface and you wanna kick off an InformaCast notification incident, you’re more than welcome to. So it doesn’t matter which interface you have access to or which one you’re in.
It really, again, feels like one platform as opposed to two disparate products. So without further ado, I’m going to share my screen. We’re gonna walk through what we’re looking at and go through the five different integration points.
Alright.
So on the right hand side here, I have one of our famous demo rooms located in Madison, Wisconsin. Again, this just simulates what you folks, have within your environments. Right? A lot of people might use InformaCast more for its mobile capabilities. A lot of folks might also use it for, the on premises, you know, hitting speakers, desk phones, etcetera, like we saw in the comments here. So, again, really trying to simulate as close to your real life environments as possible without obviously making sure, that it’s, you know, completely customizable to you and this doesn’t do a perfect representation.
On the left hand side here, I have, both our InformaCast and Visitor Aware interface.
Now when I am launching these scenarios, as Brad was saying before, some of these might have more kind of, K-12, potentially health care, source of language. But, again, these really do apply to any sort of vertical. Right? Having an emergency plan, being able to lock down the building, being able to send one off notifications, all are going to be super helpful tools regardless of your organization type. So as we walk through these various integrations, I’ll make sure to, reaffirm that as well as the variety of different ways to initiate and receive notifications.
I’ll be using the admin interface, but, again, these are the same workflow that are going to be able to be used with things like panic button or automatic threat detections through things like VideoAI.
So the first thing we’re gonna demonstrate is the automatic family reunification capability with InformaCast and Visitor Aware.
So using this lockdown scenario that I have, I’m going to target my Singlewire location that is going to immediately target Visitor Aware.
Now for this specific situation, again, you can see that I’ve got quite a few drop downs here, and I can select all the way down to the floor level. And you might be asking yourself, hey. You know, this is an emergency. I don’t have time to select all these boxes.
Well, luckily, we don’t envision that you’re going to be necessarily in this interface selecting where that event is actually originating. Right? One of the most critical portions of Informcast is integrating all those different devices that you have into one system. So whether it’s a panic button or a desk phone, perhaps a speaker with a call button on it, all of these can be leveraged using the mapping technology that Cameron outlined, and you can have all those locations preassigned.
So it’s a matter of hitting a button, and all this that I’m walking you through manually will be done ahead of time to really minimize the time to trigger the notification.
So if I review this real quick, we’ll make sure everything checks out. Again, if I wanted to add any of those on demand device groups, I’d be more than welcome to. But we’re going ahead and send this, and note that we are beginning the family reunification event within Visitor Aware. So the room’s going to light up, and then we’re going to see a few other downstream events happen.
InformaCast Announcement (demo) — Simulated InformaCast notification
An emergency lockdown has been initiated at the main building for room 121. Response teams have been notified and will respond immediately.
Ben Koca
Alright. So that should look probably pretty familiar to most people who are in the audience. Now what I wanna also show you all is what’s pretty cool.
Visitor Aware automatically when we initiate that alert, not only begins the family reunification event, which we can see in the VA interface.
So on the left hand side, I am the administrator. I can see my entire list of folks that are being rostered. But in my, mobile device on the right hand side, I am playing the role of a teacher or perhaps a, manager at a, commercial organization, and I will only see the folks that I am supposed to be in charge of so that I’m really streamlining the focus to just what I need to see. Right?
So immediately, if I start marking off, you know, Theron is present and, maybe Macy is in transit, you can see that this is automatically getting propagated into the, into the Visitor Aware interface. So as the administrator, I can see all of those events happening live as well as getting those automatic locations where their status changed at the time. So, again, right hand side is for the one person who’s actually performing the rostering, and then on left hand side, this is the full view interface for more of an administrator. You can also check folks off as well, you know, in the event that, you know, maybe an employee or a student or somebody is not necessarily in my list on the right hand side, other folks with access to this interface can perform the same sorts of operations they need to complete this incident through resolution.
So, again, there’s a lot of other different workflows that go into the full, reunification process. That’s a bit out of scope for the rest of this organ, webinar. But for the sake of this demonstration, really showing how InformaCast ties to Visitor Aware in the InformaCast to Visitor, Aware direction is key. And now we’re going to move on to the couple other integration points that we have.
So I’m going to move my phone back off the screen. And what we are going to do now is go into the Visitor Aware mobile interface. I take that back. I’m actually going to pull my phone back up here.
And you can see that if I go quickly over to my visitor’s location and check-in, I’m going to check-in to Visitor Aware, and we are going to set my destination, oops, my apologies on that, to the cafeteria. And then I’m just going to enter in my cell phone number. And what this allows me to do is sign up to receive those temporary notifications while I’m visiting.
Now because I have checked into Visitor Aware before, it’s not going to prompt me for my, driver’s license. If I was a new visitor, it would, and then it we would finally receive this screen where I am checked in. Now if I navigate over to InformaCast and look at my distribution lists, I have a Singlewire visitor distribution list, and you can see that I have automatically been added right there. So as long as I have this distribution list targeted in my notifications, which it would probably make sense for me to have, them targeted for everybody, Right? I anyone in this list will receive those, tech notifications while they are visiting.
If I go ahead and check out, I’m checked out in Visitor Aware. I can refresh the page here in InformaCast, and I am automatically taken out. Again, this is useful because once I exit the facility, I don’t wanna keep receiving notifications.
Alright.
The next integration point that we’re going to look at since I already have my phone up here is we’re going to look at how you can automatically trigger InformaCast if a flagged visitor tries to enter. So I’m going to actually move my phone over here just to the left a little bit so we have a clear visual into the demo room. And, again, keep in mind that even though these notifications are hitting every single device, things like a flagged visitor, you’re probably not going to have just blaring throughout your entire paging system. Right?
These are probably going to be a little bit more localized to your security team, for example. You can completely configure that to, only hit a specific office or maybe just the mobile app. It’s completely up to you. You don’t need to have all of these blaring the same way that we are doing it right here for this demonstration.
So I’m going to select the cafeteria as my destination. We don’t need to worry about, getting those temporary notifications right now, and I am going to check-in my flagged visitor.
You can see right away, Visitor Aware detects.
InformaCast Announcement (demo)
Flag sexual predator entry attempt by Aaron Thibault at Singlewire Elementary.
Ben Koca
So very quickly, InformaCast was able to ingest that warning from Visitor Aware. If I go into Visitor Aware and I’m currently administering that system, I can immediately see exactly what’s going on. But in the notification, if I happen to not be in the Visitor Aware interface, I get a link that takes me directly to this profile so that I can make sure that I’m evaluating the situation and handling it as necessary. So, again, flag visitor tries to come in, immediately, you have knowledge of that situation.
The two final ways that we are going to, demonstrate the integration also have Visitor Aware initiating InformaCast.
So one of the ways you can do that is through this incident button. It’s exactly as it sounds. It’s pretty much as simple as sending a scenario within InformaCast. It’s just if you’re in Visitor Aware and you begin an incident, you can send a scenario, set up your subject and body of the notification, and that will be sent out immediately. It looks very similar to the other alerts that we’ve sent out right now. So for the sake of this demonstration, we’ll move on to the last integration point. And what this is leveraging the new, drill management system within Visitor Aware.
You can have that also initiate InformaCast, incidents, notifications, everything else that you would want to make sure that you are, facilitating a drill as close to the real thing as possible. So I’ve preconfigured a fire drill for my Singlewire Elementary. Again, that’s just the name that we decided on. It could be any location that you have within Visitor Aware.
And then once you begin this, drill, it is, let’s see, two forty seven PM. I’m in central time. And we have one actionable note. Verify that the drill initiates within InformaCast.
We’re ready to rock and roll. We’re gonna go ahead and start the drill, see the room light up one last time, and then finish things up here for the demonstration.
InformaCast Announcement (demo)
Fire drill activated at Singlewire Elementary. Fire drill for Singlewire Elementary has been activated.
Ben Koca
Alright. Again, same sort of workflow that you would expect from the demo rooms. Really, again, just showing you the variety of ways that these two systems can collaborate and really add value if you have both as opposed to just one or the other.
In my role, you know, I’ve probably reached out to several of you that are on this call right now. I’m always looking for or we are always looking for ways that we can improve these things. So whether these aren’t, going far enough, if we want more integrations, we want them to look differently, just send an email to product at Singlewire dot com or, anyone else who’s on this panel right now. And we would love to meet with you and understand ways that we can provide a better product. Thanks a lot.
Brad Parkel
And, Ben, just real quick. The real the goal here with, having essentially hooks right inside Visitor Aware is for someone who may be at a front desk, could be trigger things that they may not have the interface for InformaCast up, but can still set things into motion and call for help.
Ben Koca
Absolutely. Brad, you point out a great example. Right? If I am one person who’s at the front desk and a flag visitor tries to get into my facility, the last thing I wanna do is have to engage with that person when I don’t necessarily have to, and I have security personnel that are meant to do that job. If automatically, without me having to even initiate the alert by hand, I can have this information be passed to my security team, I can get help without having to even have a word come out of my mouth. So it’s a really powerful use case. Absolutely.
Brad Parkel
Very good. Okay. We’re gonna get back and have some, q and a here in just a minute. I do wanna just share a couple of things, just resources that are available to all of you that, many of you may not be aware of. And so on our website, here, we have some new resources. We are talking a bit about the, different technology integration partners that we that we have.
And so under our solution sections here, we have a whole list of integration, partners that we are working with. There’s a short video here if you want to get an overview.
But if you’re starting the process of researching, let’s say, video cameras or video surveillance in your organization and want to at least be aligned with technologies that work with InformaCast and Visitor Aware, this is a place to start.
Underneath each of these sections, we have additional pages built for the vet specific vendor talking about the solution.
In some cases, we have a video, typically a short one to two minute video that just gives a very brief overview of what the integration is, the benefits, but then also how you can get in touch with the organization to learn about specific part numbers or how to order, information that you would need.
We back a lot of this information up with links into our support community, our single word community. So KB articles are written, on these items often, to get you started on how do you tie the two systems together.
So, again, that’s in our technology integration section on our website.
Another thing to mention here is the customer hub. Many of you may be may have logged in the past to, access or download software, but there are some great resources here as well that you can that you can access.
Direct links here to log in to InformaCast or Visitor Aware from the website.
There are links into the community. We have a series of academy videos that show different types of, training videos and exercises, and we have our documentation, here as well. A link to the support team if you need to start, a support call.
I’m just gonna do one click, into this. And if you are new to the community, you simply need to use, your e your work email address that is tied to, the domain that you’re working in.
We can do a lookup on that automatically and get you into the community, and you would have access to things here like what’s new. And we have this built out for both products. You can learn about the recent features that have been, deployed.
There is typically a short video.
And in some cases, when there are major release items or information, we also have, a link where you can click through into a deep dive into a KB article that, again, has, some additional videos and supporting documentation to get you pointed in the right direction.
I’m gonna just back up here. Again, this is our starting point here.
You can also access that by just clicking on the community and then clicking into InformaCast Fusion and Visitor Aware.
One last thing to mention here as well, we have a system status page for both InformaCast and Visitor Aware.
So if you would like to receive alerts, if there is an issue with the system, really, the best place is to come here and either check-in on this page, or you can click and subscribe to the alerts. You’ll get an email when there’s an issue and be alerted to, potential problems that, may be occurring.
Alright.
One last thing to mention here also is our blog.
Now we use the blog for really talking about our new, features and oftentimes talking with, or talking to, people who are prospects. But there are often great resources here for existing customers to realize as well. We invest a lot of time and energy into this to keep it updated and to provide, really, the latest and greatest in terms of technology integrations or topics or issues that we are hearing about or we see are, things that are relevant.
So you can, scan through here very quickly. And if you’re in a specific industry and wanna just learn about something related to, let’s say, manufacturing or health care, you can jump right into those specific areas to learn more.
Last thing I’m gonna mention here as well is we are in the process of developing a, customer advisory board. And so we are looking to, find if there are, any of you that are interested in participating in this, as well as participating in future, Sparks sessions like this. We are, looking to feature different peer to peer type stories where, someone who may have had a recent event or something that they found useful to come on here to present and share it with everyone in the group virtually.
And so we’re looking to understand that a bit better. I’m gonna kick off a poll here that will run-in the background.
So if you do have interest in understanding that some people are not able to participate in, let’s say, a case study due to, facility or organizational restrictions, talking in this space where it’s more of a peer to peer environment may be something that is more acceptable. And then, of course, if you are interested in the customer advisory board, we’re interested to find out if you’re you’re interested in that as well.
Okay. I’m going to just, pause here and bring, the rest of our cohosts here back to the stage. We’re gonna just answer a few q and a such, questions that have come in and, and, kinda take us to the top of the hour. And I know that a lot of answers have already been placed here, and I know that often, you know, big question is, Cameron, you know, the number of or the different types of cameras that, can be used with InformaCast. Are there any restrictions on that?
Cameron Bjorklund
Yes. For this first release, we’re gonna be limited to Verkada cameras, but we are currently, working on a way to support any camera feed that can, provide us an RTSP stream, which is pretty much all of them.
Brad Parkel
Alright.
And, a question for you, Joanna. Can you make, the facial recognition on by default? Most do not turn it on, to begin with. Any options there?
Joanna Haugland
Yes. So if facial recognition has been enabled for the customer account, we will always default to taking that visitor’s photo, gauging whether or not that’s a known visitor. And then if that person is known, it’ll pop to the next screen saying, welcome back, Joanna. If that person is not known, it will pop them to the next screen asking them for additional information. So, ideally, it prompts them for their ID. We scan their ID, compile that information, and create a profile. There’s also the ability to manually enter that visitor’s information as well if needed.
Brad Parkel
Alright. Another question here. What brand or models are supported for panic buttons? Ben, Cameron, maybe either of you.
Cameron Bjorklund
We have a ton of them.
We can, I think we have them listed on the site, Brad, that you’ve you showed, but, I mean, any generic contact closure, is something that’s supported? There’s a lot of SIP based panic buttons where you press them and, they can generate a panic event.
A lot of, speaker manufacturers support having contact closures, attached to the speakers, which work as panic buttons.
And, of course, you know, configuring dial cast and stuff on your desktop I’m sorry, on your desk phones, are also there. Speaking of desktop, that can also be panic button, the InformaCast app, wearable panic buttons. There’s so many.
Brad Parkel
And, Ben, I know wireless panic buttons are also, devices that often are people are looking for. Any comments on physical panic buttons versus wireless?
Ben Koca
Oh, yeah. Absolutely, Brad. And, I mean, beyond those individual categories, like, there are certain vendors that create, you know, what we, you know, refer to as kind of like a preferred integration just based on the feature set, the quality of the product, and how well it works with InformaCast.
You know, if you’re if you’re somebody that is constantly on the move, you know, using the mobile app or a wearable are both great ideas for you because they do always have a panic button on hand. But if you work in an environment where, you’re frequently at a desk or maybe a shared workspace, having one of those desk mounted panic buttons, I know that a lot of our customers have had great success with those SIP based a and d panic buttons. Those are ones that we frequently recommend to folks. But, again, really, as Cameron mentioned, if you’re looking to leverage some existing technology you have or if budget is something that’s really driving this, any button that’s capable of interfacing with the Internet through, you know, basically an Internet of things IoT device, we can we can have that initiate a call to InformaCast to begin a notification.
SIP panic buttons, MTM contact closure based panic buttons.
Yeah. Really, we can work with all of them, but when it comes down to the specific vendors, we paint a picture of kind of the recommended ones on our website as well.
Brad Parkel
Very good. Alright. We’re quickly coming up to the end of the hour here. Again, this is our first, crack at the Sparks session today, and we were really unsure how much time we would have available. We had some great questions, come through the q and a. We’re gonna look at those and download those. If we see questions that we didn’t get answered, we will work to follow-up with you here in the near future so that you get the answers that you need.
Look for future Sparks sessions coming up. We’re gonna try to do these, at least quarterly and more so if, if the situation arises, and if we have, things to talk about. So we’ll leave it there for today. Thank you again for your time and spending, your afternoon with us. We’ll talk with you again soon.