Latest Version of Amcom e.Notify Takes Users Beyond Notification Blasts And Simplifies Complex Emergency Management Challenges

Amcom Software, the leader in mission-critical communications, today announced the release of Amcom e.Notify 4.5, a next-generation advance in mass notification and emergency management technology. With this release, the industry-leading flagship of Amcom’s emergency management suite strengthens Amcom’s position as a Mass Notification 2.0 provider. In addition, the release continues and expands on the company’s easy-to-use, highly effective platform of solutions to the problems organizations face in managing complex safety and health issues.

“Customers are telling us they want to do more than simply ‘ring the bell’ to tell their employees, guests, patients, students or response teams that there is a problem,” said Amcom CEO Chris Heim. “They need to know if the victim or caller is safe or in trouble. They need a focused dialog with emergency teams to ensure situational awareness, coordinated response, and risk management. They need to escalate and communicate in many different ways in order to make sure teams are handling assigned tasks via standardized procedures and are aware of dependencies. This release of e.Notify takes the next step into ‘Mass Notification 2.0’ to help connect everybody involved in managing an emergency, so they can work quickly, with better information and coordination, to solve the problem at-hand.”

As mass notification has matured, organizations are finding that they need to surpass simple blast notifications and they are demanding a new set of capabilities, based on best practices in managing emergency situations. They also know any system must be easy to use, configure and update, to accommodate the rapidly changing roles, responsibilities and availability of their personnel.

Amcom’s next generation e.Notify, like earlier versions, includes a full range of mass notification capabilities. It quickly and reliably initiates, monitors and manages day-to-day or emergency notifications of all types, automatically delivering messages, collecting responses, escalating if needed and logging all activities for reporting and analysis. This version takes those capabilities a step further, with easy access to online tools even novices can use to activate and effectively manage events and incidents. It also has a robust set of high-level incident notification, communications and management capabilities.

Using e.Notify’s new template wizard, organizations can plan, prepare and organize their complete national incident management system (NIMS), business continuity (BC), disaster recovery (DR) or healthcare incident command system (HICS) emergency plans. Another powerful enhancement is the ability to create an unlimited number of dynamic, role-based messaging groups tied directly to existing databases in real-time, for current assignments and hierarchy. The message groups are alerted using pre-set, easily configurable criteria for escalation and reporting of progress, including alternate device, call repeat criteria or both. Customers will also appreciate the usefulness of the enhanced text-to-speech function of e.Notify. And when response teams meet to conduct BC, DR, NIMS and HICS required post-incident reviews, the advanced reports available from e.Notify will provide a complete record of every exchange, action and result, for better analysis and improvement planning, as well as for training purposes.

“The new and enhanced features of e.Notify are really going to open people’s eyes,” said Ed Hixon, Amcom Software’s director of product management. “They’ll see easy ways to bring their entire organization into the next generation of mass notification and emergency management planning – one focused on highly effective, tailored notification and greatly improved emergency incident management. We built this new version of e.Notify because we’ve seen increasing interest across all our markets in the ability to go beyond mass notification. We can help our customers meet their plan’s requirements in ways no other company can.”

The Amcom suite of software can help organizations attain the four cornerstone capabilities of a fully featured emergency management system: enhanced 911 caller identification and location; PC-based public safety answering point (PSAP) technology; personalized, dynamic mass notification and two-way communications; and implementation of effective business continuity and disaster recovery best practices. “Our full suite of management tools is unique in the industry and the number one reason people should be exploring what Amcom can do for them,” concluded Hixon.