Reach More People, More Quickly
At Singlewire Software, we believe in the power of building a mass notification system that reaches all of your people. It’s a topic we’ve covered numerous times on this blog and is a regular discussion with prospects and current customers. A mass notification ecosystem leverages existing technology to make it much more likely that you reach 100 percent of your people during an emergency.
It’s why our team is always looking to partner with new and innovative companies that offer tools that can benefit from being tied into our InformaCast mass notification software. This past spring, we made a significant addition to our ecosystem partners with a new integration between InformaCast and Microsoft Teams, a teamwork hub for organizations using Office 365. In this blog post, we’ll go over why you should add this new integration if you’re already using InformaCast and Microsoft Teams and how your organization can benefit from having both solutions working to enhance safety and communication.
Why You Should Add Microsoft Teams
When an emergency occurs, you should leverage every available channel to help get the word out. The better speed and reach you have for your emergency messages, the more likely you can keep people out of harm’s way. Because Teams creates a shared workspace where users can collaborate, chat, meet, share files, and work with business apps, many organizations have it up and running throughout the day. Organizations need to give their people options for triggering and seeing mass notifications in the tools they’re using every day. With Microsoft Teams and InformaCast, we’re making it easier to send and notice alerts.
On top of that, Microsoft Teams will act as another communication channel for your InformaCast ecosystem. Time is of the essence during an emergency, so the more options you make available to trigger a message, the quicker it can get out. From day one, InformaCast has delivered a solution that allows users to take one device or system and, with something as simple as pressing a button, deliver mass notifications to various endpoints. Microsoft Teams users can do just that without worrying about opening a separate app or browser. From Teams, you can reach all the devices you need, in all the delivery formats you need, to keep all your people safe and informed.
How It Works
The Microsoft Teams integration is only available for organizations using InformaCast Fusion. This is because the integration depends on InformaCast Command Center, a feature only available in Fusion. Suppose someone in your organization recognizes a potentially dangerous situation that warrants sending a mass notification. In that case, an InformaCast alert can be activated directly within the Teams’ interface using the InformaCast bot. Teams users must download the bot from the Microsoft AppSource store to properly integrate the two tools.
When the bot is activated, it will respond with an adaptive card. The user can fill out the card with additional information about the situation. This can include the location of the incident, a description of a medical emergency, or the characteristics of an intruder. Once the card is completed, the bot will confirm the submission and send alerts through Microsoft Teams and the rest of your InformaCast ecosystem. This can include desk phones, mobile phones, IP speakers, digital signage, and other connected devices and systems.
Of course, alerting people is only half the battle. You also must manage and respond to the situation once you know it is happening. Following the alert distribution, key safety team members will receive a prompt to join a Microsoft Teams channel where they can collaborate and follow up on the situation. In the Teams channel, users can view summaries of responses directly from InformaCast to see the effectiveness of the alert sent out. Follow-up messages can also be sent directly from Teams.
If you’re using Microsoft Teams and InformaCast, but haven’t tied them together, or if you’re using one of these solutions and want to learn more about the other, contact our team to get more information.