Hello AppArmor Nation! We’re happy to announce today a feature which we think you’ll be pretty excited about: WorkAlone. If you want to “cut to the chase”, no problem. Here’s a quick video on the new feature.
Prior to the development of WorkAlone, most campus security or police departments would have staff members, faculty or students who are working late on campus call them to schedule a regular “check in” to ensure they were safe. Of course, it’s the responsibility of your departments to make sure that individuals can work safely on campus, but checking in on individuals tended to increase the workload and stress on campus security or police staff members.
Enter WorkAlone. We’ve worked in close collaboration with the good folks at the University of Alberta (shout out to Adam Conway!) to develop a feature which automatically checks in on a user and can even automatically trigger a distress call to a contact in the friend’s phone or emergency services. Here’s how it works:
- The end user selects the work alone button in the app. There they enter important information such as how long they’re working, how often the app should check in on them, and who their emergency contact should be.
- Once they’ve made their selections, they “start” their WorkAlone session. The app will send them a push notification at the frequency they’ve selected. So for example, if I indicated that I’m working alone for 3 hours and I want a check in every 30 minutes, then the app would send me a push notification every 30 minutes. When the app sends the user a push notification, it will ask them to “check in”. If the end user checks in to confirm they’re OK, then the app will not contact emergency services. If the end user ignores or doesn’t reply to the check in within a 5-minute period, the app will make an outbound call using the AppArmor Alert Voice Call systems and contact the end users’ emergency contact and/or the campus safety services.
- The friend who receives the call has the option to call the end user back, simply by hitting “1” or to call the campus emergency services, simply by hitting “2”. These settings can be configured by your team.
- Otherwise, the end user simply continues to work alone and their work alone ends as scheduled
Again, here’s a quick video which shows the basics of WorkAlone.
We’re very excited by this feature as it’s the best of both worlds for your team. You can provide a regular check in without deploying your staff and provide end users with emergency services when necessary. Operationally it’s much more efficient and for end users it’s a simple process.
WorkAlone is a premium feature on the AppArmor platform, meaning it comes at an additional cost. However, significant discounts apply for the next few weeks as we begin to deploy it to a few institutions. Reach out to your AppArmor team member now for more information.
Until next time,
The AppArmor Team
