I would like there to be a way for all users in our community to set up their mobile device, maybe during their initial setup, so that they can be notified via SMS (text messaging) in the event of an emergency. Federal regulations will soon require ALL schools to have this system in place and it makes sense to have it integrated into Populi.
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Votes
30 comments
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Ernest Tako This will be a useful feature for the "Jeanne Clery Act"
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Allan Crowson We use a third party solution for this, but I would love to be able to do it within Populi. I would prefer to have some refinement available, however. For instance, notification about a tornado warning for the campus does not need to go out students who are online only, or (for some institutions) attending a secondary campus geographically distant enough from the first campus.
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Dave Kropf Ibid.
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Mike Krauss James - what third party do you use? -
Allan Crowson I am not directly involved in the notification system that we use, but I believe it is called ConnectED, or something of that sort.
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Patrick Friesen We would also like to integrate text messaging in contacting our students.
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Jason Stamper This would also be helpful for weather related cancellations (which we occasionally have here in Minnesota).
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Mark Braisher We currently use E2Campus, but it would be great if we can do it through Populi.
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Carolina Cordero This feature is a must and it should be something that should come within Populi. We need to be able to contact everybody at once in case of an emergency and it makes sense to me to have it through our web base system. We also need to have the capability to contact everyone through txt. Please let us know as soon as possible when this will be released. There should be a way in Populi that we should be able to email everybody without going through the user role tags in other to do it. In case of an emergency we don't have the time to go through the " student" role and email all, then the "faculty" role and email all again, we just don't have the time for that when an emergency is going on. Thank you!
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Eddie Grigg It would be excellent to have this feature for campus safety issues and for closures. I trust this is a high priority for Populi, as it is for us. Thanks you.
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Brendan O'Donnell We're still figuring out the best approach for text notifications, both in terms of emergency situations and other parts of Populi where this functionality might come in handy. Of course, you can always create a Mailing List in Communications that includes all of the User Roles; then it would simply be a matter of going to Communications > Mailing Lists > selecting the mailing list > clicking Email.
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Carlos Marin This week's incident at Virginia Tech reminded me about having the txt (sms) system in place. Obviously this is planned and in high priority for Populi, however, can anyone suggest a service that could handle this in the mean time? I've had a few calls from worried parents wanting to know if we have this in place now.
Thanks!
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Mark Braisher e2campus is who we use. They are very good and comprehensive.
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Shane Flynn While I can't really recommend the product since we haven't started using it but I've been looking into SchoolCast by high Ground Solutions.
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Adam Sentz Finally done! More details and a video demo on the blog http://populi.co/blog/2012/03/sms/
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Josiah Stephan can we see a list of those who have opted in for emergency notifications somewhere?????
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Josiah Stephan nevermind, it goes to everyone!!
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Jeremiah Miller Great job guys! I'm really excited about this new feature.
Two questions:
- Is there a way to get a list of those who have opted in for SMS notifications?
- If a person has opted-in, will they always receive notifications as long as they have a Populi account? What happens to former students or former faculty? Does the notification only get sent to those with an active role?
Thanks! -
Mark Braisher Thanks!
Who automatically gets the email? Active faculty? Anyone listed in faculty or only those teaching that semester? Past students? Only those taking classes at that time?
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Carlos Marin Great job guys!
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Shane Flynn http://populi.co/blog/2012/03/sms/
According to their blog, Active Faculty, Staff, Advisors, and Students will receive the notification. Everyone will need to opt in to receive the SMS version of the notification. Anyone who hasn't opted in to SMS and is in one of the groups listed above will receive an email version.
Once someone is no longer active in one of those roles, they will no longer receive the notifications.
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Isaac Grauke There is also a notice on the Emergency Notification page that says roughly the same thing.
@Jeremiah You can see if someone has an SMS number listed by going to the Info section of their profile. If one of their numbers has been entered as an SMS number, it will have a little SMS icon next to it. I don't think we've added a way to see everyone who has opted in yet but that would be a good idea.
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Allan Crowson This looks good, and but for one thing, could likely replace a service for which we contract currently. That one thing is the ability to send a phone (audio) message as well. The text is converted to speech and sent to phones.
Is that the sort of thing that could ever be on the radar for Populi? It's OK if it is not, it would just be good to know. On the other hand, if it is the sort of thing that could show up in Populi, we would want to know about that when it is time to renew our contract.
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Daniel Peterson Looks great thanks for integrating this into Populi. I use a google voice number for my text messages but I do not see it as an option under carriers. What should I select?
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Elizabeth Reed Thank you! This is really, really great!!!!
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Jeremiah Miller @Isaac, I will add a feature request to get some kind of reporting feature to see who has opted in. That would be really useful. Thanks.
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Adam Sentz @Daniel - We use email-to-SMS gateways for verification to ensure that we get a valid carrier entered. I looked into it and Google doesn't offer an email-to-SMS gateway for Google Voice numbers. Bummer :(
@Allan - It's certainly possible, but we don't have any plans to add that at the moment.
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Latricia Gonzales-McKosky It would REALLY help if we could use various lists for emergency notifications. We would use mostly for severe weather emergencies. We have various campuses in different cities and not all have the same weather at the same time. Also sometimes you only need to get in touch with one class (for example if a teacher cancels class etc)...
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Adam Sentz @Latricia - You can already target campuses (just click "Choose campuses"). We have definitely only scratched the surface with SMS notifications though, so we do appreciate the feedback.
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Donna Harrington BEST FEATURE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!
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