Staff duress alerts, activated from a Kontakt.io Smart Badge, are the heart of the Staff Safe solution. When an alert is activated, designated responders are notified of the alerting incident.
Things to know
At any time, staff can discreetly call for help by pressing a button on their Smart Badge that activates an alert and sends notifications to responders with the staff member's real-time location and alert details. Be sure to educate staff on your organization's Alert Rules and Smart Badge configuration, which is explained below.
Alert Rule configuration: Specifies the button (blue, red, or any) that activates an alert.
Smart Badge configuration: By factory default, a Smart Badge is configured to activate an alert with three button presses. This can vary by your organization's configuration (for example, two presses). If a badge has two buttons, both are commonly configured to activate an alert. Refer to your organization's duress alert button-press configuration and procedures.
About the alert lifecycle
The alert lifecycle represents the stages an alert goes through from activation to resolution, and the status it carries at each one. An alert's status — New, Acknowledged, and Resolved — gives responders an instant view of where every alert stands and enables data-driven metrics.
| Stage | What happens | Alert status |
|---|---|---|
| Activate | A staff member faced with a duress or emergency situation presses a button on their Smart Badge to signal for help — three consecutive presses by factory default. The button pressed must match the button event set in the Alert Rule: blue, red, or any button. | New |
| Notify | Staff Safe triggers the alert and sends notifications to the responders set in the Alert Rule. The methods are Emails, Text Messages, Phone calls, and Webhooks that deliver the alert to a third-party system. If the rule includes reminders, they keep notifying the same recipients until someone responds. | New |
| Acknowledge | A responder sets the alert to Acknowledge to indicate they are taking action. | Acknowledged |
| Resolve | A responder sets the alert to Resolve to indicate the incident is resolved, selects a Resolution Code, and enters any notes related to the incident. | Resolved |
Details the table doesn't carry:
- Notification contents: The name of the alert, the staff member that activated it, and where they are (campus, building, floor, and room), followed by the action's Message and a link to respond. See Reference: What a Staff Safe alert notification includes.
- Critical severity: Adds an in-app visual and audio notification for signed-in users, in addition to the notification methods set on the rule. The Simple View always shows and plays them.
- Permanent record: Staff Safe stores all alert details along with an activity timeline for historical reporting and metrics.
For what each status means and what to do about it, see Alert status values.
Example: alert activation to resolution
Alert notifications
How responders receive alert notifications — through Emails, Text Messages, Phone calls, or Webhooks to a third-party system — is configured within Staff Safe Alert Rules. Additionally, Staff Safe provides in-app visual and audio notifications for alerts with a severity level of Critical.
When a staff duress alert is activated, its notification provides the following details:
What: the name of the alert, taken from the Alert Rule that sent it.
Who: the staff member that activated the alert.
Where: the real-time location where the alert was activated; campus, building, floor, and room.
The action's Message and a link to acknowledge or resolve the alert follow these details. The alert's severity and the time it was activated are recorded on the alert and shown in Staff Safe, but are not part of the email, text message, or phone call. For the full breakdown, see Reference: What a Staff Safe alert notification includes.