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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
Now, with telco (telecom) resellers, the E911 service becomes available in their region of operation.
However, to use E911 with telco resellers, the product must support xConnect. For the time being, E911 will only be available as part of Conversations, and not Talkdesk Phone.
Compliance
In compliance with Kari’s Law and Ray Baum’s Act, Talkdesk’s E911 offers the following capabilities:
- Feature for configuration at account level, for Talkdesk administrators.
- Emergency information configuration per user.
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 provider'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
When 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) 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 information so that emergency calls are routed to the proper Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP).
Note: If you call 911 before defining the required emergency information, the call will not fail, but the address defined for the Default Account Emergency Number will be dispatched to the authorities.
To complete the required information, please access the "Emergency settings" page:
First, access the telco reseller’s link to confirm or configure the address for your Personal numbers. Then, in the device dropdowns below, please assign the number corresponding to the address that should be dispatched to the authorities when the respective device is used to dial 911.
When all the listed devices are assigned a number, the alert banners will no longer appear. Please note that you are responsible for keeping the emergency settings up to date.