In 3CX, you can create separate emergency groups (list of extensions), one group for each location. Each group is assigned their own unique DID. The DID assigned to a group is only used by 3CX when you dial an emergency number. At your carrier, you assign a street address to each DID. In this way, normal phone calls from both locations share the same DID, but when someone dials an emergency number, 3CX sends the DID assigned to the emergency group (location) rather than the normal DID.
There are some challenges with this approach. if, for example, a user has multiple phones, one phone at each location, and the same extension number is assigned to all the phones. In this scenario, the emergency grouping by extension number does not work. For safety reasons, therefore, I strongly discourage you from assigning the same extension number to multiple phones --IF-- the phones are at different locations.
Another challenge is created when a user (or support staff) unplugs a phone at location A and moves it to location B. This might happen if you reassign an extension to a different employee, or an employee is temporarily working at a different location. In this scenario, it is important to remember to update the emergency groups to reflect the change of location. Even more common is the situation where a person uses a soft phone on their laptop. If they move from one location to another on a regular basis, it makes keeping the emergency groups updated a challenge. Unfortunately, users do not always consider the ramifications of moving a phone from one location to another.
We automatically handle the situation where a user moves their phone from one location to another with our
3CX Emergency Notifier tool by looking at the IP address reported during the phone registration process. For this to work, you need to assign a different IP subnet to each location (building, floor, etc.). When we see a phone register (which happens when you boot up a phone and throughout the day), we look up the IP address in a list, identify the location of the IP address, and automatically reassign the extension to the correct emergency group.
Another challenge with the whole emergency notification process is sending notifications to the right people. For example, if you have a school district with many schools (locations), all sharing the same phone system, what happens when someone dials and emergency number? The answer is everyone in all locations is notified. Do we really want to notify someone at the high school when someone at the grade school dials an emergency number? Maybe, if you are the superintendent over all the schools, but generally it is better to limit the people notified to only those people at the location where the person dialed the emergency number. We also handle that situation. You assign specific emergency responders to a location, and then they are only notified if it is an emergency at their location. But, in the case of the superintendent, if you want to be notified regardless of location, that is an option too.
3CX has, over time, expanded the different ways people can be notified when someone dials an emergency number, but we have expanded the channels even further. Our tool can call, text, email, and pop a dialog up on your desktop, when someone dials an emergency number. Frankly, we all get pounded with emails, and chats, and phone calls throughout the day. So providing multiple channels for notification provides the best chance that the people that need to know see the notification. In my situation, for example, an email is almost pointless because I get about 400 emails a day. But a customized phone call giving specific details about who and where the person is that dialed the emergency number is important. That's why we enable you to specify the exact location of every extension -- address, building, floor, pillar, and cubicle. And this information is provided along with the person's mobile number, in every custom message. By the way, our desktop notification can be configured to be quite obnoxious, if you choose, with alarms and flashing lights, and text-to-speech announcement of who/where the emergency is... and it has to be acknowledged before it will stop. So, it's hard to miss.
Finally, you may ponder "how do I keep track of when the call was placed, where the person was, who was notified, and how they were notified, and ensure the call was recorded"? We keep track of all these events and provide a place to notate the events with the actions that were taken -- useful information when authorities are trying to piece together what happened.
