Good morning,
Yesterday, the new Emergency Notification System at UWaterloo, provided by Regroup, was tested for the first time on an all-campuses basis. The channels which were tested included:
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SMS/text
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Email
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X (formerly Twitter)
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Regroup Mobile (safety app)
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Desktop Alert
I wanted to share an update about the results of this test.
What went well?
We have heard from many of you that you received the notification from the Regroup Mobile app very quickly after the test was sent and that there were no issues with reading it and dismissing it from your mobile devices.
The X (formerly Twitter) notification was posted 60 seconds after the alert was sent through the Regroup system.
Emails were received as early as 60 seconds after the alert was sent through the Regroup system. We know that some people received emails after a longer period of time, however, this behaviour is expected with any mass email tool which is distributing over 50,000 emails.
What were the issues?
Desktop alerts were received successfully and quickly by most recipients. However, we did receive reports that some users experienced:
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receiving a desktop alert where they were unable to view the alert image, but were able to hear the alert sound
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receiving a desktop alert which included the image and the alert sound, but were unable to dismiss the alert sound, even after dismissing the alert image
SMS/text messages were received by some users, but many people reported a delayed SMS/text. This is unacceptable, and an issue that the University is working closely with the vendor to understand and remedy.
Thank you to the many of you who have sent feedback to the ens@uwaterloo.ca email address. User experience is a key measure of success for the project team overseeing this work and we very much appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Jacinda Reitsma
Vice-President, Administration and Finance
Office of the Vice-President, Administration and Finance