Page 31 - Campus Security & Life Safety, March/April 2019

“Custom mobile safety apps offer an essential, lifesaving mechanism to alert students, faculty and staff in the event of an emergency.”
By David Sinkinson
emergency managers can relate. In any emergency notification, it is very important to drive users to a correct “source of truth” end- point. There users can get the full picture despite the fact that the alert may only have a brief message about the emergency. This is particularly where push notifications thrive versus other forms of alerts; the push notifications drive users into the custom branded safety app where they can get timely, relevant and accurate data in an emergency.
Lastly, custom mobile safety apps provide additional value to users in the form of advanced functionality. Whether it’s the ability to send your location to a friend in real-time, report suspicious activity, or simply contact the authorities, quality mobile safety apps will provide more value than simply a notification endpoint.
Now of course, like all mechanisms, push notifications have their own drawbacks. They are always “opt in,” in that users have to go to the popular application stores (Google Play or Apple AppStore) to download and sign up for the push notifications through the app. However, custom branded safety apps that are specifically branded to the institution, like those made by AppArmor, get 50 to 100 times more downloads than the previously mentioned “generic” or “vendor branded” apps.
Custom mobile safety apps also require that end users have a smartphone which not all users necessarily have (although an over- whelming number of students do have a smartphone). This is why a mobile safety app is part of and not a replacement for an entire alerting system.
Active Response to Crises
Custom branded mobile safety apps are also ideal tools to respond to a fluid situation. For instance, the AppArmor Safety app platform has a content management system where app content and features can be modified in real-time (versus other solutions which require a re-sub- mission to Apple and Google for updates). This real-time content can be absolutely essential in a crisis.
In 2017, when Hurricane Irma was threatening Tallahassee, Flori- da State University’s Emergency Management team knew that pro- viding accurate, timely, and effective communication to prepare their campus community was critical. Emergency management personnel were looking to bridge the communication gap between real-time updates on social media and the limited resources a static website could provide.
As the hurricane intensified and a direct hit to FSU seemed immi- nent, the campus community braced for impact and were looking for answers. Students, faculty, staff, parents, and other community mem- bers found them buzzing in their pocket on the SeminoleSAFE mobile app.
During Irma, FSU created a specific "Tropical Storms & Hurri- canes" button and pushed real-time updates directly to the app. The content included what to do before, during, and after the storm, near- by shelter locations, and other critical information of what to do dur- ing the storm. What’s more, other AppArmor institutions in the area—Florida State College at Jacksonville, University of Florida,
loads, the entire concept of a mobile safety app can be accidentally spoiled due to a rushed or partially-evaluated decision.
Custom branded safety apps allow for a number of keen benefits versus other forms of notification and are certainly an essential part of any emergency notification system. For instance, the mass notifica- tion tool (push notifications) are instantaneous. All targeted end users will be reached in one to five seconds, regardless of payload size. This varies significantly from other forms of emergency notifica- tions, such as SMS for instance, in which text messages are sent out at a certain “pace” (e.g. 100 text messages a second).
Push notifications travel over both the WiFi and cellular net- work; again, in comparison to SMS messages which can only be transmitted over the cellular network, this provides a significant advantage in the form of improved accessibility (users on WiFi will still get the push, whereas they wouldn’t receive the SMS) and messages can avoid network traffic.
Pushes also perform an absolutely essential function to which all
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