In an emergency, things don’t always go according to plan. As Ben Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Failure isn’t an option in an emergency though, especially not for a university responsible for thousands of people. Operating emergency management procedures manually can be a bit of a mess, however. From missed phone calls to messages relayed incorrectly, it’s easy to miscommunicate in the heat of the moment. You need a means to ensure that the right messages reach the right people at the right time, and you need to be required to think about it as little as possible during the emergency.
You need a digital solution that can enable you to change plans instantly, notify everyone involved, and guide the emergency manager in their next steps without having to formulate a new plan on the fly, or sending manual messages notifying people of the change.
SimplyCast introduces the Contingency Plan Communications use case, constructed specifically to take some of the pressure off during an emergency in which not everything goes to plan. Even better, alternate emergency plans can also be enacted with the click of a single button. The next steps of each plan will be displayed to the emergency manager and the right notifications will go to the right people to alert them of a change in plans. You can read how to set up a base notification platform and read information on SimplyCast’s emergency tools.
Before this solution, it’s likely that a contingency plan being activated meant manually informing management or administrators of the change, who would then notify their immediate subordinates, and have them notify others – in a scenario not unlike a phone tree. In other situations, you might try to leverage a loudspeaker or television alerts system on campus. These could be effective but they won’t help anyone who can’t see or hear the alert due to a power outage, their location in the building, or other problems. The automated system can send messages directly to their mobile device, increasing the likelihood that they will be able to see and react to the message.
Setting up contingency plan communications
SimplyCast anticipated the need for a contingency plan communications solution that can take the pressure off emergency managers and save precious time for everyone involved.
Here are the four steps to implementing the Contingency Plan Communications use case:
Create Plans
Any contingency plan automation you intend to do must begin with the templating of the plan itself. You need to determine what the steps are, what tasks need to be completed, and create those plans in advance based on data and knowledge from past emergencies. This will allow you to have a flexible and versatile approach moving forward.
Send Alerts
Once the contingency plan is necessary, you can activate it with a single button click. When that is done, an alert will automatically be sent to people that you determine at the time of creation to alert them of the change in plans.
Live Surveys
In the event that you need to assess if a contingency plan is possible due to limited resources or public safety, you can send a live survey to your contacts, checking in with them safely, asking them if resources are available or otherwise ascertaining the reality on the ground.
Central Dashboard
The central dashboard will keep track of which tasks have been completed, how long the emergency has been ongoing for, and show you responses from your contacts. You can also view reports once the emergency is over, to help optimize future emergency responses.
And that’s the operation of your contingency plan communications solution in four easy steps, ensuring better communication, more effective implementation and plan switching, and a smoother transition when things start to deviate from your original emergency management plan.
Why SimplyCast?
To put it simply: we have a ready-to go and proven solution for managing contingency plan communications.
The SimplyCast platform is a no-code platform that allows anyone to build and edit their solutions. As a result, this solution is fully customizable - it can be tweaked or altered to meet the exact needs of every institution.
Don’t worry about scalability and security! SimplyCast is an ISO 27001:2013-certified company with data centers in the USA and Canada. This means we can assure you that your confidential data is safe on our secure server and the messages you transmit are completely encrypted. Our platform has the capacity to send 100,000+ messages every hour and allows 10,000+ concurrent sessions.
Interested?
Don’t wait! Our experts are ready to give you a one-on-one demo to explain how this solution works. Simply request a demo by clicking the button below and let us show you how our solution can help you manage your contingency plan communications more efficiently.
