Emergency Broadcast Groups

Vocera provides a scalable emergency notification feature that is set at the site or group level in the Administration Console.

Emergency broadcasts are initiated on the badge when you click the Call button on your Vocera badge twice. You can also initiate an emergency broadcast from the Vocera Collaboration Suite on your cell phone. When an emergency broadcast is triggered, everyone in the group hears the caller immediately—no speech recognition or Genie interactions are necessary.

Support for Multiple Emergency Groups

If your organization requires more than one emergency broadcast group or needs the emergency group set to a specific functional group, you can do so at the group level. This feature provides the flexibility to meet the emergency needs of different departments, each with their own set of responders.

Site and Group Level

At the site level you can designate an existing group as the emergency broadcast target group, or add specific members to a group utilizing it as the emergency broadcast target. However, each site can have only one emergency broadcast target group.

Similarly, at the group level you can designate an existing group as the emergency target, or add specific members to a group which can be used as the emergency responders. However, at the group level, you can have multiple emergency broadcast target groups, each one designated to a different emergency broadcast initiating group.

Default Behavior

If a user is not a member of a group that has a designated emergency broadcast target group, an emergency broadcast is delivered to the site level emergency target group (if configured) when an urgent broadcast is initiated. In addition, If a emergency broadcast group is not designated at the site or group level, the default behavior is to use the emergency broadcast target group set at the Global site.

If the emergency broadcast initiator triggers a site-level emergency, it will preempt or cut through any members already receiving a group emergency broadcast.

The Everyone and Everyone Everywhere group cannot be designated as an emergency broadcast group. In the Administration Console, the Emergency Broadcast field is not available on the Edit Group dialog box for either of these groups.

Setting up Emergency Broadcast Groups

Add an emergency broadcast group to your site or group when you are creating or editing a site or group.

To add an emergency group your site:

  1. Click Sites in the navigation bar.
  2. Click Add New Site to add a new site, or choose a site name from the list and click Edit Site to edit an existing site.
  3. Under Site Information section, click Select to choose a group for the Emergency Broadcast Group field.
  4. From the Select Group page, search for the desired group and click Finish.

    The selected group is displayed in the Emergency Broadcast Group field.

  5. On the Add New/Edit Site page, click Save.

To add an emergency group your group:

  1. Click Groups in the navigation bar.
  2. Click Add New Group to add a new group, or choose a group name from the list and click Edit Group to edit an existing group.
  3. On the Add New/Edit Group > Info page, click Select to choose a group for the Emergency Broadcast Group field.
  4. From the Select Group page, search for the desired group and click Finish.

    The selected group is displayed in the Emergency Broadcast Group field.

  5. On the Add New/Edit Group page, click Save.

Setting Up Silent Emergency Broadcasts

Set up the emergency broadcast group for your site and then specify whether to initiate emergency broadcasts to the emergency broadcast group silently, without playing a chime.

  1. Click Sites in the navigation bar.
  2. Click Add New Site to add a new site, or choose a site name from the list and click Edit Site to edit an existing site.
  3. Under Site Information section, click Select to choose a group for the Emergency Broadcast Group field.
  4. From the Select Group page, search for the desired group and click Finish.

    The selected group is displayed in the Emergency Broadcast Group field.

  5. On the Add New/Edit Site page, under Site Information section, select the checkbox next to Initiate Emergency Broadcast Silently field.
  6. Click Save.

Sending Out Broadcasting User's Location

Set up the emergency broadcast group for your site and then specify whether to send the location of the broadcasting user to the emergency boradcast group. Enabling Send Broadcasting User's Location to Emergency Broadcast Group option sends the location of a panicking user to the emergency broadcast group and helps reaching out to the user quickly.

  1. Click Sites in the navigation bar.
  2. Click Add New Site to add a new site, or choose a site name from the list and click Edit Site to edit an existing site.
  3. Under Site Information section, click Select to choose a group for the Emergency Broadcast Group field.
  4. From the Select Group page, search for the desired group and click Finish.

    The selected group is displayed in the Emergency Broadcast Group field.

  5. On the Add New/Edit Site page, under Site Information section, select the checkbox next to Send Broadcasting User's Location to Emergency Broadcast Group field.
  6. Click Save.