More on Crisis Communications and Messaging
This is part two of our “Messaging Goes Full Throttle” feature that appeared in the July/August 2010 issue of CI. Our experts answer more of your tough questions here.
Emergency notification and crisis communications continue to be hot topics among business continuity professionals. But as the technologies and offerings evolve, options are increasing and so is confusion. To help put an end to that, Continuity Insights spoke with the following industry experts:
- Mike Adams, product line manager for notification solutions and services, PlantCML, an EADS North America company
- Maurice Burrell, Director, product management, MIR3
- Robert Edson, vice president of the Western U.S., MissionMode
- Kevin Hall, president, Global AlertLink
- Ted Milburn, vice president marketing, Cooper Notification
- Nicky Miller, product marketing manager, Twenty First Century Communications
- Tony Schmitz, CEO, Send Word Now
Here’s what they had to say ....
What are the top three key success factors in selecting, deploying, and the ongoing management of a notification platform?
Adams: When selecting a notification solution, think “big picture” and long term. Know with specificity the uses you want the platform to support today, as well as any and all foreseeable ones (emergency and non-emergency) that you may want to execute later. Consider enterprise-wide applications like surveying (polling), to help justify the technology’s purchase as well as all ongoing maintenance costs. This will not only lead to a faster, significantly greater ROI, but also promote familiarity among users and notification recipients alike.
Plan ahead for the gathering and maintaining of all contact data used by the solution. Depending upon your type of organization, this may include employees, suppliers, shareholders, government agencies, volunteers, or the community-at-large. The adoption of a self-registration portal is one way to proactively engage – and enlist – future notification recipients, ultimately expanding your communications reach beyond existing data sources, including 9-1-1 and human resources. In most instances, people can update their personal information (e.g., unpublished, cell or VoIP numbers, address, etc.) as often as necessary, helping keep notification data current and shifting some of the responsibility of its management from the organization to individuals.
Lastly, test the system on a regular basis to ensure its operational readiness and the knowledge of all users (both those activating the system and those who may be contacted by it). This will help ensure everyone reacts appropriately in an actual emergency.
Burrell: Number one, clearly outline your business requirements, considering both short-term and long-term goals and expectations. Number two, build a competent project management team with defined roles and a clear agenda and let them research and select the best solution. And number three, once you have your solution in place with a well-defined business continuity plan, perform regular testing, auditing, and evaluation to keep all on track.
Edson: First consider the ease of use for message recipients, invokers, and administrators. Overly complex products and poor user interface design really hamper applications during times of crisis. Find a product that is easy to use (which isn’t the same as functional), and implement it without spending forever doing it or creating complexity. Use a company that has experience meeting your future as well as current needs, so the minimum amount of change is necessary and retraining of users is kept to a minimum.
Next, implement in a progressive manner rather than big-bang. You’ll learn and improve most quickly by using an iterative process which focuses on the business benefit (and you’ll find better adoption rates and cross business unit support, as well as better executive support, if that’s your focus). You’ll attain maximum buy-in from the recipient population more easily as well. Nothing succeeds like success and implementing on a successful pilot is easier than trying to get everything right first time.
Lastly, look for a product that you can grow with. Currently, many organizations are focusing on emergency notification. However, companies such as Gartner Group believe that there is greater benefit to organizations once an incident management system is implemented. Don’t tie yourself into a product or vendor that you’ll need to switch away from because they can’t provide growing benefit into the future.
Hall: There are more notification providers today than ever before. And, more vendors are added almost daily. In some regard, notification-only services are becoming commoditized. With this in mind, here are my three key success factors:
Reliability is priority number one. No matter how you use notification services, the most important priority is reliability. You need to know that when you click the button, notifications are going to be delivered. Every vendor is going to tell you that their solution is reliable, but that may not be the case. Even those who have been around for a while and have received high ratings from research organizations may not be reliable in the critical phases of delivery. Look for a solution that is distributed with each delivery method routed through multiple providers. Look beyond solutions that do it all themselves and instead consider solutions that provide real-time failover across multiple delivery paths.
Notification alone is not enough. Most emergency notification solutions are rarely used. They become software on the shelf that is available “just in case.” This significantly lowers the acceptance level as well as the return on investment. Notification-only services are now being replaced by truly integrated solutions that provide all features needed for a full continuity program, from planning through incident management to risk management. When creating your requirements, demand that you get more for your money than just notification services. You will realize significant cost savings in addition to amazing efficiency gains. No longer will you need to manage multiple databases and systems. Integrated solutions utilize the notification for much more than a blast to thousands and provide a better return by integrating notification in the planning phase as well as the management of real incidents.
Find a solution that makes your life easier. Almost all notification vendors cover the most basic features. They allow you to manage contacts and send notifications. I encourage you to look beyond the basic features and demand more from your vendor. There are many features in the more advanced solutions that will make your life significantly easier. Some examples include one-click scenario activation, mobile and PDA integration, ease of managing and sharing contact data, unlimited contact records, unlimited and customizable devices, easy and automated data integration, easy-to-use self registration, and intelligent notifications such as quotas and decisions. If you find yourself frustrated with your current vendor, take another review of the latest technology in the market. You’ll be very pleased with those vendors that go beyond the basic notification technology and features.
Milburn: The top success factors for selecting, deploying and managing an effective and efficient emergency notification system include finding a solution that has proven reliability, a flexible system design that can meet your organization’s needs, and backing by experienced customer service.
When personnel safety is at risk, you need a reliable notification system that can deliver high-speed emergency messages before, during and after a crisis. Under routine, non-emergency conditions, low volume messaging will be transmitted through wireless carriers without delay and at a high success rate. However, in an actual emergency when volume is high, delayed messages or failure of delivering messages greatly increases. Selecting a dedicated notification system that offers direct connectivity with major wireless carriers, white listing with major ISPs, geo-dispersed, secure data center, and multiple redundant servers, greatly improves reliability, enhances delivery of messages, and prevents messages from being blocked as spam.
A flexible system design adapts to your organizational operating procedures, rather than have you changing your processes to match system capabilities. It allows you to utilize current resources and does not require a dedicated administrator or operator. A flexible and modular system design also enables you to manage members efficiently and effectively with user self-registration and account management options, administrative role-based access, security and management, and granular sending authorization and distributed user management.
Selecting a notification system that features a dedicated system and database is preferred to a system that hosts multiple customers in one single database. A shared notification system can lead to speed and reliability limitations during a crisis that might involve multiple customers and can create database security risks – such as access control and a message sent to the recipients of the wrong database.
You want to choose a notification solution that has been proven operational in disasters, as well as one that is used daily in responding to emergencies. Check the company’s customer track record, install-base, and how they handle customer support. For example, will you receive a dedicated customer support contact or just a general phone number? As part of your life safety system, you want the peace of mind that you have full support from your notification system vendor, understanding that any downtime is too long.
Miller: Before selecting a notification system, it is imperative that organizations go through the process of defining needs, obtaining approval to allocate human and financial resources, and setting a target activation date. Defining needs includes determining when and how the system will be used. Knowing the desired features and functionality will ensure that the system that best fits the organization is selected. Ease of use, availability, speed of delivery, proven performance and reliability, and an ongoing client care commitment are just as crucial as the features and functionality. When reviewing vendors, ask for customer references and take the time to contact them.
A successful deployment depends on a thorough project plan that includes a solid communication plan. Before launching the system, develop the standard operating procedure and share it with all stakeholders. Doing so will provide guidelines on system use and administration, and will provide everyone with an overview of policies and agency roles and responsibilities. An informed organization is critical. Establishing awareness and a protocol for the system's use will provide a comfort level among personnel. A deliberate, thoughtful awareness campaign will help ensure your organization is aware of the system, understands its purpose, and knows how to respond to a notification.
Three key success factors for maintaining a notification system include ongoing refresher training, regular testing of the system and database accuracy. During an emergency situation, your notification system users likely will be under considerable stress. When users’ stress levels are increased by needing to use an unfamiliar notification system, mistakes are likely to happen. To help users remain familiar with the notification system, ongoing refresher training is essential. Regular testing of the notification system will help users remain familiar with the system and will remind notification recipients that the system is in place. Regular testing of the system will assist in maintaining accurate contact data. Maintaining accurate data ensures that critical time-sensitive messages reach the intended recipients.
Schmitz: The top three factors for selecting a notification platform are: reliability, ease of use, and customer support. Send Word Now has a reliable and easy to use platform, with 24×7×365 customer support available to help with any and all of our customers’ needs.
Reliability is important because when sending out a critical message, lives, property, and reputation are sometimes at stake. Organizations need to know that the message will be delivered quickly and without any issues.
Ease of use is important because even technical users can sometimes forget their training in the heat of a moment when they are dealing with a crisis. An easy to use platform that takes only minimal effort to send out messages is crucial so that managers can focus on dealing with the situation, and not have to worry about complicated software features.
Finally, excellent customer support is important because even the best-trained users sometimes need help, and it is often faster for an administrator to call customer support for a quick answer than to try and figure out a problem on their own.
Are there any emerging trends in emergency notification functionality that BC professionals should be aware of?
Adams: Broadcast alerting of employees through enterprise-wide notification systems is becoming more commonplace. Also, organizations are steadily relaxing the requirements for on-premise notification solutions, allowing BC professionals to outsource these types of services to vendors with secure and reliable hosting centers.
There is a clear broadening of uses outside emergencies, which is helping BC professionals justify the technology’s purchase and ongoing maintenance costs. One such common use is staffing (i.e., querying employees to gauge availability to work overtime, informing them of which location to report to, etc.).
Burrell: One of the trends we see is the ability for a notification solution to contribute to communication-enabled business processes by intelligently and automatically notifying specific people based on rules and events. The notification solution takes into account the type of event and matches that to the role of the individuals contacted, matching notifications to each person’s level, skills, schedule and availability.
Edson: Notification is part of incident management, crisis management, and emergency management. Incident management software will provide a bigger benefit than pure notification. This will make the sale of the BCM program easier to senior management because it impacts the things they're interested in.
Organizations and software vendors are reviewing the opportunity to use social media tools as part of the notification. The biggest issue with this is the lack of control and security that social media tools have. Simply put, the value of social media is in driving your corporate message to the world, rather than specific individuals. You should consider any link to social media the same as putting the information in the public domain.
As organizations experience change more rapidly, there is an increasing need to choose the recipient based upon attributes of the recipient rather than well-defined organizational teams that have been traditionally used to determine the lists of recipients. The ability to dynamically associate people with teams and generate teams based on information about the people is becoming more important. For some organizations, this includes GIS location information as well.
Hall: I feel the number one trend is that BC professionals are looking beyond just notification services. Today, technology has gone well beyond the notification services that were hot just a few years ago. Today, you can get a completely integrated solution for your entire BC program.
But, let me give you some examples of new notification functionality. We make notification technology do more. Our innovation focuses on making your life easier and providing greater protection for your organization. We have many advanced features for notification services. Some include: one-click activation of multiple notifications, custom operator activation, intelligent IVR integration, GIS activation, PDA/mobile integration and much more. Our innovation has created many new, truly intelligent notifications, such as: quotas, decisions, status updates, location requests, custom responses, voice recognition, and automated workflow and responses.
The idea of truly intelligent notifications means the system will do more for you. A simple click of the button in Global AlertLink will kick off an entire sequence of intelligent workflow that will process automatically and alert you when updates are provided or intervention is needed. Demand innovation from your vendor that will make your life easier.
Millburn: Business continuity professionals are now recognizing the need for a system-of-systems approach to emergency communications and mass notification systems. Instead of relying on just one technology to do the job, multiple communication systems ensure that information will successfully reach your audience. The system of systems approach to mass notification systems includes sending text messages and emails, distributing automated voice calls, broadcasting alerts over indoor or outdoor mass notification systems, utilizing display signs, desktop alerts, and social media. However, businesses are realizing that launching alerts from multiple communication systems can greatly increase the time it takes to send and receive messages. A Florida university recently stated that it takes an advanced-level user 15 to 20 minutes to activate up to 28 separate, distinct, independent technologies.
This challenge leads us to a further trend, integrated emergency notification systems.
With limited staff and multiple communication systems to launch, businesses need an integrated emergency notification system with a simplified, single interface to launch different applications. It allows facility managers and emergency response personnel to focus on the emergency at hand without being slowed down, trying to activate multiple systems.
Another trend in emergency communications systems is improving situational awareness and alerting time with interoperable life safety and security systems. By integrating emergency communications systems with security systems such as video monitoring, access control, or third-party alerts – such as those from the National Weather Service or Center for Disease Control and Prevention – alerts can be sent automatically when a threat is detected, allowing businesses to get the essential information out quickly then follow up with additional information as needed.
Knowledge is critical in efficiently responding to emergencies. The more knowledge you have about a situation, the better you can respond. In addition to integrating multiple communication systems and other security systems, an interoperable emergency notification system can provide a secure real-time information - sharing framework, allowing facilities to communicate to other facilities as well as to local fire, police, and health departments and surrounding organizations for improved situational awareness, enabling facility managers to make more informed decisions when time is of the essence.
Today’s fire codes apply to more than fire situations and now affect business continuity professionals. The National Fire Protection Association 2010 National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code includes a dedicated chapter on emergency communication systems, with requirements for in-building, wide-area and distributed recipient mass notification systems, which consists of mass dialing systems such as automated voice calls, text messages, and email alerts.
Miller: An emerging trend is the use of the emergency notification system for non-emergency uses or operational uses. More organizations are looking for their notification system to integrate with other systems such as human resources or GIS systems. Location-based messaging is another emerging trend. It allows organizations to deliver geo-targeted messages, only contact persons relevant to the event, and establish two-way communication with persons within an event boundary.
Schmitz: The major trend in emergency notification functionality going forward will be the integration of incident management and business continuity planning tools into the standard alerting service component of emergency notification platforms. Earlier this year, Send Word Now released its integrated incident management service, and later this year we will be releasing integrated business continuity planning, so that business continuity managers can purchase one platform from a single vendor and have all their necessary tools, billing, training, and customer support under one roof. Send Word Now currently offers seamlessly integrated, in-house incident management.
What are the leading practices regarding change management considerations to have complete and accurate team member assignments, names, and emergency contact information?
Adams: First, identify and draw from any and all data sources where contact information (ideally including team assignments, certifications, and other grouping data) is already maintained. HR systems are generally a good place to start. This will keep you from having to recreate information in the notification system, or at least minimize the time and effort to do so. An application programming interface (API) could prove beneficial, allowing you easily exchange data between systems easily.
Second, provide an easy method for people to maintain their own contact data. Offer an incentive for them to do so, or a consequence if they don’t (i.e., they may miss out on messages that are personally important, but not necessarily critical to the organization). Intranet portals are a great way to provide access to data sources for this type of activity.
Third, include team managers in your implementation plan so that they understand the importance – and value – of the system. Having them as advocates of the technology will help the entire organization to be better prepared to communicate in a contingency and, ultimately, recover faster from its effects.
Burrell: It’s best to make this an automated process. Provide an easy-to-access web portal for users to update their own information with regular reminders for them to do so. Look for an application that tracks all events, defines automatic workflows (including defined team member assignments, names and emergency contacts) has a closed-loop change control processes to eliminate manual intervention, and has a clear and informative dashboard with operational reporting.
Edson: This varies depending on the size and culture of the organization. There are various methods of encouraging staff to keep information correct: from mandating as part of employment conditions through appealing to corporate or self-interest of the individual. The rate of staff turnover and contact device changes will also have an impact on the frequency of updates. Mobile phone numbers are increasingly viewed as being temporary, so we see the rate of information change increasing. We see that organizations are increasingly concerned with sending notifications to ex-staff members that could cause a security issue.
As a result, organizations are looking to increase the number of updates undertaken by staff. Prompting staff to update their details can be done proactively through notification or as part of regular requests. The most productive way of getting staff to keep information current is by sending the results of notifications to the line of business managers rather than requiring the BCM team to manage this process. Giving the line of business managers this information allows them to assess the impact of staff not responding. They are, after all, responsible for the operation of that part of the business and are in better place to ensure staff keep their details current.
We're also seeing an increase in the integration of other sources of information into notification, such as travel tracking software being used to update people's location status, project accounting software being used to update team assignments, or situational awareness and supply chain management systems. Whereas traditionally people belonged to fixed teams, we're seeing more and more dynamic team assignments. Team creation can sometimes only be done at time of disaster and so having attributes associated with individuals becomes more important for team selection than pre-defined teams.
Finally, keeping the process simple, but ensuring the process is complete is important. Much of the data may be managed by HR, but will be used by BC or the line of business managers. Creating a simple process for the employee to update details and then automating the upload into the notification tool is very useful. Do this once you’ve run the initial implementation and know what data you need and where it should come from before creating a big implementation project which is guaranteed to fail. As HR systems become more and more self-service, the capture of employee details for the notification is becoming easier.
Hall: The best system in the world is worthless without accurate information. At Global AlertLink, we strive everyday to make sure our client’s data is accurate and to make the process of keeping it updated easy. This includes a variety of methods.
First, an easy and flexible data integration package should make it seamless to synchronize data with your internal system, whether that is an HRIS, active directory, LDAP, or some other application. Many providers provide you with the template for data synchronization. With Global AlertLink, we use your template and can migrate your data to our systems.
We offer a customizable self-registration portal. Our portal has been tested and received great feedback for its ease of use. Our clients may customize the portal to collect the data that is required. The portal features make it easy for team members to update their data, assignments, work schedules, and much more.
We also utilize the notification technology to ensure data is accurate and updated. Global AlertLink can regularly poll your contacts to request and track an update of their data. In fact, contacts may simply reply to the message with their new contact data to automatically update their data.
Finally, while this should be a given, we have found that many vendors struggle with data duplication. Make sure your notification system does not duplicate data or require you to duplicate data to have individuals in multiple groups or organizations within your enterprise. It was quite shocking to see how some vendors manage data. With Global AlertLink, your data is never duplicated, and it is easy to share data across multiple departments within your organization. The process must be easy and you must use automation to help keep your data updated, so it is ready with the click of a button.
Millburn: Storing user information in one reliable database is critical to having accurate employee and customer information. That database could be from your emergency notification system or from your personnel database or other sources. Your emergency notification system company should offer a variety of integration options to import and export preferred data. Various options include self registration, data import, API, active directory, and LDAP.
Miller: Having accurate team member assignments, names, and emergency contact information is vital to business continuity. Selecting a notification system that syncs with your organizations human resources database is one way to ensure that accurate contact data is loaded into your notification system. Another option is to have an inbound phone number or an online portal so employees can call in or log in to update their contact information. Send out quarterly messages asking team members to update their contact information.
Schmitz: The best way to guarantee complete and up-to-date contact information is to link your organization’s human resources database to Send Word Now using our web services API, as many of our current customers do. This way, any changes made to the human resources database are automatically updated within the Send Word Now service. The Recipient Self-Update feature from Send Word Now also simplify the process of updating contact information, so that individual people can receive an alert and quickly update their own contact information. The Self-Update alerts can be scheduled to be sent out periodically – every month or every quarter, for example – so that employees can update their own data at their convenience.
