Family SMS

Owned by Rosemberg Rojas Ruiz
May 10, 2022
3 min read

Family SMS was designed to allow users to add a phone number of a spouse or family member to be notified when the user is responding to a call. When a member's device receives an alert, and the member selects a response (other than Unavailable), an SMS text will be sent to the phone number of their spouse/family/friend. The SMS text contains information about the member's response to the alert.

Each Family SMS device starts as a free 14-day trial. After the trial, the device requires a subscription. The base price for Family SMS is $10 per phone number for a year subscription. Subscriptions can be paid for by the agency, or by individual members.

 

Note: In order to use this feature, you must have a paid subscription or an active trial.

Adding Family SMS Devices as an Admin

  1. Login at active911.com.

  2. Go to the Family tab.

  3. Select the Add device button.

  4. Use the User's name option to select the person the Family SMS device should be tied to. If the user you're looking for isn't on the list, navigate to the Users tab and add them there before trying again within the Family tab.

  5. Enter the family member's phone number into the Family SMS Phone Number field.

  6. Enter an appropriate title into the Relation field (EX: Wife, Husband, Son, etc.).

  7. Make a selection for the Subscription field.

Adding as an Individual Member

  1. Login at active911.com.

  2. Navigate to the tab titled with your name.

  3. Look for the "Family SMS Phone Numbers” section at the bottom.

  4. Click the “+ Add Number” box, and a new line will appear where a phone number can be entered.

  5. Enter the required information, and click the green button on the right side to add the device.

  6. An “Activate” button will appear to the right. Click that button to complete the purchase process. The cost is $10.00 per phone number for a year-long subscription.

Once the Family SMS device has been activated, it will receive notifications via SMS text message for each response vocabulary that is selected within the Active911 app by the user’s device (other than Unavailable).

Note: In order for this to work, the email associated to the User's device needs to match the email associated with their User Profile and the one that they use to Login with on the website.

Determining Data Sent to Family SMS Devices

The admin of an agency determines the amount of information about an alert that is sent to Family SMS devices. Within the Agency tab at active911.com is a setting titled Family SMS call fields to include?. The fields selected will appear in gold, with a green checkmark. Listed below are the descriptions for each of the fields:

  1. RESPONSE - This is the default option, and can't be enabled. This tells the Family SMS device what response was selected by their family member (EX: Resp, Arriv, Cancel, Avail, etc.). Family SMS was designed to not send messages for the Unvl response.

  2. CALL - When selected, this tells the Family SMS device the call type of the alert that their family member selected response for (EX: Structure Fire, MVA, etc.).

  3. PLACE - When selected, this tells the Family SMS device the commonplace name of the address the alert is for (EX: McDonald's, City Hall, etc.). Most Active911 alerts don't include this information because dispatch doesn't send it.

  4. TIME- When selected, this tells the Family SMS device the time the alert was dispatched.

  5. DATE - When selected, this tells the Family SMS device the date the alert was dispatched.

  6. ADDR (ADDRESS) - When selected, this tells the Family SMS device the address the alert was dispatched for (EX: 123 Main Street, 4567 1st Avenue, etc.).