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Setting up your emergency information
Overview
Enhanced 911 (E911) is a Federal Communications Commission program designed to automatically route 911 calls to the appropriate Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), based on Automatic Number Identification (ANI). PSAPs are regional call centers staffed with 911 dispatchers.
Talkdesk’s E911 feature ensures that when a 911 call comes from the Talkdesk system, Talkdesk will use a “Verified Physical Location” tied to the user or device, so that the dispatcher can receive geographic data from the telephone company.
Availability
Telco (telecom) resellers are responsible for providing the E911 service that is available for customers who have agents physically located in the United States or Canada, regardless of whether the account is provisioned in a US or non-US regional cloud.
Compliance
Telco resellers are responsible for keeping the customer in compliance with Kari’s Law and Ray Baum’s Act.
Enablement
By default, Emergency services are configured for address-based providers. Thus, to use telco resellers, please reach out to support for enablement, providing:
- Identification of the service provider.
- Number that should be used as the Default Account Emergency Number.
As explained in the sections below, the Default Account Emergency Number and the address it’s assigned to will be sent to the authorities when a 911 call is placed, unless the user is using a dedicated line that has been assigned a personal address.
Setting up your emergency information
Note: If you are in Talkdesk Workspace, you can access all features described below by navigating to the Admin app. For more information, please refer to this article.
Account settings
Administrators can consult what is the configured Default Account Emergency Number and are responsible for keeping the address associated with that number correctly configured on the Telco‘s platform.
To do this, please access the provided URL and access the provider platform with the credentials provided to you by your telco reseller.
User settings
To add the required emergency information, click the Update settings button in the “Emergency information is missing” alert or go to the user profile logo in the top-right corner and select “Emergency information”.
Note: For instructions, see E911: Setting up Emergency Information in this article.
Once the E911 feature is enabled for the account, you will be able to call 911. If you don’t have dedicated lines assigned, the Default Account Emergency Number will be sent as your callback number (in case the call drops) to the Telco reseller, and its associated address will be dispatched to the PSAP on 911 calls.
If you have a dedicated line assigned, you will also be prompted to fill in your emergency number information so that emergency calls are routed to the proper Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP).
Notifications to designated personnel are generated even if an agent's address information is incomplete, as long as their identity and callback number are known.
Note: If you call 911 before configuring the required emergency information, the call will not fail, but the address defined for the Default Account Emergency Number will be dispatched to the Telco reseller, who is then responsible for routing the call to the authorities.