ElectriCities of North Carolina, Inc.
Overview
Location: Raleigh, North Carolina
Organization: ElectriCities of North Carolina, Inc.
ElectriCities is a not-for-profit membership organization of municipally-owned electric utilities headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina. The company maintains multiple satellite locations, 130 employees, and has many workers in the field — from the beach to the mountains. Their notification system previously consisted of PA announcements, emails, and an in-house designed mobile app, but they realized they needed to integrate their system to communicate with their employees in a more reliable, efficient way.
Challenge
When an uptick in violence started to rise across states, Electricities began to evaluate its current emergency notification system.
“Previously, we’d use a code word, “Edna” via our PA system for an incident such as an active shooter,” said David Schlabach, Senior Software Developer at ElectriCities of North Carolina. “However, most new employees didn’t know what that meant, and we needed to come up with a more concise way of getting that information to people.”
Along with their PA system, they deployed emails to employees and launched a mobile app created by Schlabach, but they were looking for a more cohesive and rapid method of communication. “Oftentimes, the emails that were sent out would be delayed or wouldn’t be seen in time,” said Schlabach. “It’s especially important for our employees in the field working on utility poles to receive the notifications in a timely manner – they need to know if there is a tornado in the area, for example, as soon as possible.”
Solution
Alertus DesktopTM Notification can deliver a facility-wide emergency notification in a matter of seconds.
ElectriCities leveraged the Alertus System to create a multilayered, integrated, and streamlined communication system across its three locations. They installed Alertus Desktop Notification and placed Alert Beacons in common areas, which integrate with their overhead speaker system. They created a custom emergency notification system called EDNA (Emergency Disaster Notification Alert) as a throwback. “Our VP of IT decided that we should integrate the Alertus System with the ElectriCities EDNA mobile app for a one-stop solution,” said Schlabach. “Now, if we activate an alert from that mobile app, employees get notified via push notifications, email, voicemail, desktop alerts, Alert Beacon notifications, and our PA system, which is also integrated with the app.”
The wall-mounted Alertus Alert Beacon® sounds, flashes, and displays an alert message in the event of an emergency.
Complete Automation
In addition to emergency notifications, the system can be used for non-critical weather alerts. Their CFO can send company-wide alerts such as, “the office is closed. Work with your manager to determine whether you can work from home or come into the building,” which can be activated through the ElectriCities EDNA mobile app or website to trigger their notification endpoints. Before, the CFO would have to manually type an email and call an employee’s voice system to leave a voicemail. Since integrating the Alertus System, everything has been completely automated.
Conclusion
The new Alertus System was streamlined with the ElectriCities EDNA mobile app and became much easier to manage. “With a solution like the Alertus System, you can maintain efficient communication with your employees,” said Schlabach. “The products offered by Alertus are far beyond anything else I’ve seen on the market.”
Schlabach also noted that the system is particularly beneficial for organizations spread across different locations because it’s critical to get information into those people’s hands quickly. The Alertus System provided them with a centralized way to disperse that information everywhere.