Here at Little Green Button, we’re always iterating on our products to help businesses keep their teams safe and secure. We’ve been hard at work behind the scenes on new features to make our apps even better.
Today, we’re delighted to announce the latest feature addition to the Little Green Button apps, across mobile and desktop: Alert Types.
This is a feature that we know a lot of our customers have been asking for, so we’re super excited to share it with you.
In this blog post, we’re going to give you a brief introduction to the feature and how it works, as well as looking at some common scenarios where it’ll be most helpful.
Introducing Alert Types
The new Alert Types feature in Little Green Button introduces four new types of alerts. These are:
- Fire
- Medical
- Lockdown
- Intruder
This allows you to make the notifications you send even more specific, allowing you and your staff greater customisation over how they ask for help and how they respond. This is a great way to make your team even safer using their little green buttons, giving those responding a chance to change how they respond based on the alert types. This also allows you to use Little Green Button alerts for situations where response isn’t necessary, like a mass-notification for lockdown or fire situation where those receiving the alert should follow the relevant procedures.
You can still send default ‘Assistance Required’ alerts, too – so for those generic situations that don’t fit into any of the new categories, or where a member of staff still needs general assistance, you can still use these kinds of alerts.
How do the new alert types work?
To change which alert type you’re sending out, simply right click on your little green button, select ‘Choose Alert Type’ and then click the relevant option. On mobile, simply swipe up from the on-screen button to choose your alert type. Then, you can simply activate the button as usual.
The icon shown on the button will reflect the alert type, and the notification window shown to those receiving the alert will also display the icon and text corresponding to the alert type.
You can also change the default alert type – handy for those situations where you know you’ll be using the Little Green Button software primarily for lockdown situations, for example. To do this, simply go to the menu in your app and select the default alert option.
To find out more about how this feature works, simply go to our Knowledge Base.
Lockdown Alerts for Schools and Universities
One common situation we’ve had a lot of feedback around is a lockdown procedure. Commonly used in schools and universities, particularly in America, we’ve heard from lots of our customers that they’d like to use the Little Green Button as a tool to help mass notify classrooms and members of staff of a live lockdown situation.
With the new lockdown alert type, you can. Simply select this alert, and all connected devices running Little Green Button will receive an alert notifying them of a lockdown. This alert cannot be responded to, unlike our conventional ones, as the correct procedure in the event of a lockdown is to shelter in place and follow the other processes set out by the school.
Medical Assistance Alert
Another common situation that the Little Green Button software can now be used for is medical assistance. Now, you can raise a specific medical assistance required alert, meaning that those responding know that they’ll need to bring a first aid kit, for example. Or even that only those medically trained should respond, unlike with a general alert.
In this case, using a more specific alert type could save precious seconds when it comes to responding to a medical emergency, ensuring that trained members of staff are quickly alerted and are able to respond.
We’re really proud of the new Alert Types feature in Little Green Button, and we hope you find it helpful when it comes to keeping your customers and teams safe.
Looking for more info? Head over to our Knowledge Base, book in for a demo with our team, or just send us an email.
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