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As back info, I work in a college police department as a dispatcher and switchboard operator. A lot of colleges have been using systems that can send out calls, texts, and emails in case of a campus emergency. We just recently set up one for our college.
Today we had a training session for ours that was for command staff, the dispatchers, and some of our tech people(only 12 people). I have to say, I'm impressed. It's very easy to contact the students quickly. It has all sorts of options. You can send out phone calls that are basically polls where they press different numbers for different answers. The trainer had us all send out a test poll which was only recieved by the test group (the people in the room). And of course everyone was professional and serious about the polls they sent out
There was about a 10 minute time period where ringers kept going off (since they're command staff and would be called in case of an emergency, they usually just leave their ringers on) as messages kept being recieved.
Chief told me this morning that since I'm the one giving keys to the new employees in the college I'm the one that gets to set up the accounts for them as well so that they are on the list to get notified. The system will hopefully be helpful. I'm not looking forward to all the calls I'm going to get from the parents demanding to be added to the notification list. Chief already said flat out that wasn't going to happen. There's room for 3 phone numbers when the students sign up. They can add their parent's number if they want, but we won't add the parents as a seperate entity. Especially since I can't even legally veryify if someone is a student if anyone asks.
Today we had a training session for ours that was for command staff, the dispatchers, and some of our tech people(only 12 people). I have to say, I'm impressed. It's very easy to contact the students quickly. It has all sorts of options. You can send out phone calls that are basically polls where they press different numbers for different answers. The trainer had us all send out a test poll which was only recieved by the test group (the people in the room). And of course everyone was professional and serious about the polls they sent out
There was about a 10 minute time period where ringers kept going off (since they're command staff and would be called in case of an emergency, they usually just leave their ringers on) as messages kept being recieved.Chief told me this morning that since I'm the one giving keys to the new employees in the college I'm the one that gets to set up the accounts for them as well so that they are on the list to get notified. The system will hopefully be helpful. I'm not looking forward to all the calls I'm going to get from the parents demanding to be added to the notification list. Chief already said flat out that wasn't going to happen. There's room for 3 phone numbers when the students sign up. They can add their parent's number if they want, but we won't add the parents as a seperate entity. Especially since I can't even legally veryify if someone is a student if anyone asks.