How do I provision emergency notifications in the Bandwidth Dashboard?

This article explains how you can provision emergency notifications in the Bandwidth Dashboard. For instructions on how to do this in the 911 Access Dashboard, see this support article. Want to provision emergency notifications via API instead? Check out our developer docs.

Note: Emergency notifications are not available to Unified Communications (UC) customers.

What are emergency notifications?

When a 911 call is placed from within an enterprise, like a corporate campus or a university, certain individuals may need to be aware so they can react quickly and assist the first responders as they arrive. These individuals could be front desk attendants, security teams, or facility managers. Bandwidth supports a variety of emergency notification methods to notify an enterprise’s chosen representatives that a 911 call is being made, including email, SMS, text-to-speech voice call, and HTTP webhook.

The provided elements of the emergency notification are:

• Time of call 
• The phone number that originated the call 
• Subscriber name
• Address on file (including Address Line 2, if populated)

Emergency notifications are an essential component of regulatory compliance for enterprises pursuant to the mandates of Kari’s Law. Kari’s Law applies to multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) which are defined as: “a system comprised of common control units, telephone sets, control hardware and software, and adjunct systems, including network and premises-based systems, such as Centrex and VOIP, as well as PBX, Hybrid and Key Telephone Systems [...]”.

Note: Bandwidth continues to develop improved feature functionality for provisioning emergency notification information in the Bandwidth Dashboard. As a result, much of the user interface will change over the course of the coming weeks, however, the core functionality to support the requirements of Kari’s Law will continue to be available throughout the ongoing development process. We’ll continue to update this article as new feature functionality becomes available. 

Provisioning emergency notifications

To begin provisioning emergency notifications: 

1. Log into the Bandwidth Dashboard.
2. In the top navigation bar, select Emergency and click 911 Notifications. 

Note: If you don't see the Emergency section in the top navigation bar, it means that you must manage your E911 services in the 911 Access Dashboard. For instructions on how to do that, check out this support article. 

Adding recipients

1. Select Recipients and click Add. 

2. Under Recipient, enter the name of the recipient. This can be:

• • An email address
  • A phone number for SMS messages
  • A phone number for text-to-speech voice messages
  • An HTTPS webhook URL on a web server you maintain

3. Under Delivery Method, click the dropdown arrow and select a valid delivery method for your recipient.
4. Click Add Recipient.

Editing recipients

1. Select Recipients and click Edit next to the recipient you want to edit.

Note: Recipients with an HTTP delivery method can’t be edited.

2. Make your edits and click Save Changes. 

Deleting recipients

1. Select Recipients and check the box next to the recipient(s) you want to delete. 

Note: If the recipient is part of one or more notification groups, the checkbox will be greyed out. To select and delete that recipient, you first have to remove them from their associated notification group(s). 

2. Click Delete.

Searching recipients

1. Select Recipients.
2. Under Search Recipients, enter at least 3 characters contained in the recipient’s name and click Search.

Adding notification groups 

1. Select Groups and click Add. 

2. Under Notification Group Name, enter the name for the notification group.  
3. Under Recipient, enter at least 3 characters contained in the recipient’s name and then click the dropdown arrow to find and select the matching recipient from the list. If you want to add more than one recipient, click Add Another Recipient below. A notification group can have a maximum of 3 recipients.

4. Optional: You can link endpoints to the notification group so that the recipients in the group are notified when that endpoint makes a call. You can link up to 5,000 endpoints in the Bandwidth Dashboard UI or more via API, although we recommend adding any large number of endpoints via API. 
   1. Under Endpoint, enter at least 3 characters contained in the endpoint’s name and then click the dropdown arrow to find and select the matching endpoint from the list.
   2. Once you select the endpoint, click Link Endpoint. You can link up to 5,000 endpoints at a time. If you decide you don't want an endpoint to be linked to your group, click Unlink next to the endpoint.
5. Click Add Notification Group.

Editing notification groups

1. Select Groups and click Edit next to the notification group you want to edit.

2. Make your edits and click Save Changes. 

Deleting notification groups

1. Select Groups and check the box next to the notification group(s) you want to delete.

Note: If the notification group is linked to one or more endpoints, the checkbox will be greyed out. To select and delete that notification group, you first have to unlink its associated endpoint(s). 

2. Click Delete.

Searching notification groups

1. Select Groups.
2. Under Search By, select whether you want to search notification groups by Group Name or by Recipient.
3. Under Search Notification Groups, enter at least 3 characters contained in the notification group’s name (if you’re searching by Group Name) or in the recipient’s name (if you’re searching by Recipient) and click Search.