By Stephanie Osorno, Marketing Copywriter at Alertus Technologies

We know that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted and disrupted organizations—including schools, businesses, healthcare systems, and government facilities—around the world in unimaginable ways. That’s why Alertus is working around the clock to ensure our customers have the mass communications tools needed to maintain business continuity and stay regularly connected amid this time-sensitive crisis. 

Most recently, Alertus has developed the Alertus Crisis Response Grant in an effort to help state and local government agencies, as well as temporary treatment structures, with their crisis communication. Through this grant, recipients will receive the Alertus Desktop™ Notification and the Alertus Mobile App suite at no cost.

Take a look at how these innovative mass notification tools were specifically designed to facilitate rapid, redundant, and seamless communication with employees and critical response teams. 

Desktop Alerting

Alertus Desktop Notification is a great tool for organizational communication both with essential and remote employees. Depending on your unique notification needs, you can instantly keep your organization informed with relevant emergency procedures, COVID-19 alerts, office closure information, work from home tips and updates, and more by sending an alert directly to their desktop computer.

And now that many employees are using home computers both for work and as a temporary softphone while away from their standard office phones, having the ability to override that computer screen to heighten awareness and increase communication redundancy is more valuable than ever before. 

With a full-screen takeover, the Alertus message will cover the entire display of the computer screen so that it is visible, easy-to-read, and captures the attention of the intended recipient immediately. And for critical, yet non-emergency messages, you can opt to use a partial-screen computer desktop pop-up or a less intrusive ticker alert at the top of the screen. For example, this is an ideal time to utilize the partial or ticker alert feature to share ongoing COVID-19 preventative tips. 

Though your organization might not have all the answers that employees are seeking, keeping everyone regularly informed and up to date can help reduce panic, maintain productivity, and minimize business disruption as best as possible during a difficult and unusual circumstance. 

Keep in mind that you can also utilize desktop alerting to help with the transition back to a physical working environment. As you begin the process of phasing specific organizational teams or departments back to the building, you can send a quick desktop alert such as, “The HR Department will return to the office on May 15th,” without overriding your network with mass emails. 

Mobile App Notification

While SMS/TXT message alerts are a useful way to stay connected, it’s crucial to have an alternative, reliable method of communication—especially at a time when cellular network usage has spiked across the globe. 

Mobile app alerts, for instance, allow organizations to send and receive alerts within a matter of seconds using just a WiFi connection. Critical, at-risk areas such as temporary treatment structures can benefit from this simple and effective mass communication solution for rapid alerting. The Alertus Mobile App Suite, which includes the Alertus Activator App and the Alertus Recipient App, was built for enhanced mobile notification between authorized dispatchers and end users. 

With the Alertus Activator App, authorized dispatchers can quickly send emergency notification alerts to designated personnel via Android or iOS tablets or smartphones. The Alertus Recipient App, on the other hand, allows end users to not only receive push notifications, but also to quickly send geo-tagged incident reports to emergency management personnel via the incident reporting feature if needed. By using mobile app alerting, you can ensure that you’re reaching your employees even when they’re away from their computers or not checking email.

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Alertus has launched a new Alertus Recipient Mobile App feature, ThreatWatcher™ Mobile - Pandemic Alerts, where users who have tested positive for COVID-19 can anonymously submit their tracked movements from the previous 14 days to build a crowd-sourced database of detailed location information, such as a local movie theater, for a more accurate view of a potential interaction or exposure to the virus. This can help you and your team stay proactive about COVID-19 threats within the organization. 

In addition to receiving the Alertus Desktop™ Notification and the Alertus Mobile App suite, grant recipients will benefit from a cloud hosted solution that can easily configure a server within a day without the need for hardware or a system administrator. This is especially helpful for temporary treatment centers that likely don’t have the resources available to set up a server on premises. For the initial setup, grant recipients will simply need to set up groups/memberships with assistance from the Alertus Support Team.

To apply for and learn more about the Alertus Crisis Response Grant, be sure to check out the Alertus Crisis Response Grant page.