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E911: Overview and Enablement
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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.

Table of Contents

 

Availability

  • Regional Support: E911 emergency calls are supported for users physically located in the United States and Canada.
  • Product Integration: E911 is available as part of Talkdesk Conversations™ and Talkdesk Phone™. Agents can dial 911, the emergency test number 933, or any of these with a prefix (X911 or X933).

 

Compliance

In compliance with Kari’s Law and Ray Baum’s Act, Talkdesk’s E911 offers the following capabilities:

  • Enabling E911: Features are available for configuration and enablement by Talkdesk Admins.
  • Direct Dialing: Agents can dial 911 directly without the requirement of a prefix.
  • Notifying Designated Personnel: The system sends an email notification to emergency contacts for every 911 call placed.
  • Managing Missing Information: Notifications are generated even if address information is incomplete, as long as the agent's identity and callback number are known.

 

Enabling E911

Admins are responsible for enabling the E911 feature and configuring the account emergency information.

To do this, please follow these steps:

1. Click on the Admin app and select Emergency Calls [1].

2. Fill out the “Default Address” [2]. This is the company address and will also be used for taxation purposes regarding the costs incurred with the E911 services. Please add the following details:

  • Country (required).
  • House number (required).
  • Street line (required).
  • Street line 2 (optional).
  • City (required).
  • State (required).
  • Zip (required).
  • Plus 4 (optional).

3. Hit Validate Address [3]. Before moving to the next section, the address needs to be checked and validated by our system. 

E911_1.png

4. Enter the “Emergency Contacts” [4], one by one: This is the list of emails of the personnel that should be notified in the event of a call to 911.

  • Hit the + (plus) button for each email address. The email addresses need to be checked and validated by our system. 
  • You can add up to 10 e-mails or mailing lists. After a call to 911 is placed, these contacts will receive an email describing the details sent to the PSAP: the user’s display name; callback number; and (device) emergency address.

E911_2.png

5. Add a “Callback Number” [5]. This is the number that will be dispatched with the call, in case the user opts for the company callback number to be sent by default to the PSAP. This contact will be used if authorities need to reach back to the caller or the notified person who is able to get in touch with the caller. Please add the following details:

  • “Display name”: Preferred display name that will be sent to the PSAP. It must contain only letters and numbers.
  • “Callback number”: Phone number to which the authorities can reach back.
  • “Preferred language”: This is the language in which the caller who reached out to 911 prefers to be addressed by the authorities, if they reach back. Agents can select this preferred language or another one when they configure their emergency information.
  • Validate the Callback Number by clicking on Save [6]. Before moving to the next section, the number needs to be checked and validated by our system. 
  • “Enable Emergency Calls” [7]: After filling out the mandatory fields, you can enable the E911 feature by clicking the toggle. 

E911_3.png

Note: If agents call 911 before defining the required emergency information, the call will not fail, and it will be forwarded to a specialized sorting center to determine that user’s location; however, there will be additional costs per call.

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For more information, please read the article Setting up Emergency Information.

 

Enabling E911 with RedSky’s E911 Anywhere

Customers using RedSky’s E911 Anywhere as their emergency calling solution can integrate with Talkdesk. The integration is number-based. Talkdesk uses custom E911 headers to identify Users and E911 Locations within RedSky, which RedSky then uses to route emergency calls to the correct location.

Emergency Services uses these headers to help RedSky map the right location.

  • E911-User-ID: Identifiers for users.
  • E911-Location-ID: Identifiers for physical common-area phones.
  • E911-Organization-ID: Identifier of the Talkdesk organization sending the 911 call.

 

Configuring RedSky with Talkdesk

To configure RedSky with Talkdesk, follow these steps: 

  1. Contact Talkdesk using a Support Ticket and request your unique Account ID within Talkdesk. In the same request, ask that your account’s emergency provider be set to RedSky, and provide one phone number from the account that will serve as the main Emergency Services number. This number will be passed to RedSky if Emergency Settings haven’t been configured for the user or device placing the 911 call.
     
  2. Contact RedSky to set the “External Organization ID/Key” of your RedSky organization to the value of the account ID received in Step 1. 
  1. Set up a user on Talkdesk and assign an E.164 number to them 
    • Refer to the Numbers guide to purchase new phone numbers. 
    • Refer to the “Managing Dedicated Lines” section to assign a dedicated line to the user., ensuring inbound calls from the PSAP operator  route directly to them. 
    • Refer to this guide to assign the numbers as the user’s outbound caller ID. This number is set as the P-Asserted-ID when the call is routed to RedSky.

  1. Create common-area users for physical devices located in common areas, unless you plan to use HTTP-Enabled Location Discovery (HELD) supported devices to discover their locations from RedSky instead. Follow Step 3 to create these users.

    Note:  It is possible to assign up to 5 devices to one user. If multiple physical devices share the same location, assign them all to the same common-area user instead of creating a separate user for each device.
     

  2. Once the dedicated line is assigned,  the user must log in and go to their Emergency Settings to map the phone number to the device (see screenshot below). 

    Note: If this step is skipped, all 911 calls from this device will route to RedSky with the special header (E911-User-ID or E911-Location-ID) set to the account’s main phone number in Step 1.

In the screenshot below, the user has selected two different numbers, +1 090 080 0701 and +1 218 693 3620, both assigned to them under Classic Settings in Step 3. Since this user also has a dedicated physical device assigned to them, their Emergency Settings let them choose which number applies to emergency calls for both desktop and physical devices.

  1. Create a corresponding user on RedSky and configure the phone number and “Device User ID” with the same E.164 number assigned in Step 5. Refer to the screenshot below. For more information on managing users, refer to this video from RedSky.

  1. Create an E911 Location for a corresponding physical device registered to Talkdesk. Refer to the screenshot below on how the location is configured to match the user’s configuration in Step 5. For more information on creating E911 Locations, refer to this RedSky video.

  1. Create a User and an E911 Location within RedSky for the main emergency phone number provided in Step 1. Assign the Device User ID of the User & Alternate ID of the location to the phone number, respectively. The callback number of this entity should be your main security number. This user and location ensure that the main security number and address are sent to the PSAP in case a user or device within Talkdesk is missing emergency settings configuration.

 

HTTP-Enabled Location Discovery (HELD) with RedSky’s E911 Anywhere

RedSky supports Network Discovery of physical devices. For more details, refer to this video.

If your physical devices support the HELD functionality, you can configure them to directly contact RedSky to discover their location using identifiers like MAC and IP addresses.

The devices store the location URI received from the RedSky server as a response to the HELD request. When the device calls 911, a Geolocation header is sent by the device in the SIP INVITE. Talkdesk Emergency Services passes this header to RedSky without modification. RedSky dereferences this URI, determines the location, and forwards the call to the right PSAP.

Note: If common-area devices utilize HELD to discover their locations from RedSky, Step 5 can be skipped for common-area devices. 

 

Limitations of E911 with RedSky’s E911 Anywhere

Talkdesk's integration with RedSky has the following limitations:

  1. No support for additional RedSky headers: Talkdesk supports only the headers E911-User-ID, E911-Location-ID, and E911-Organization-ID. No other RedSky headers are supported.
  2. HELD configuration and troubleshooting are out of scope: Configuration and troubleshooting of HTTP-Enabled Location Discovery (HELD) on physical devices is not handled by Talkdesk Emergency Services. Contact your device manufacturer and RedSky for guidance on how to configure devices. Raise a support ticket with Talkdesk if you require assistance with call routing issues after HELD is complete.
  3. No HELD on Talkdesk's behalf: Talkdesk Emergency Services will not perform HTTP-Enabled Location Discovery on behalf of devices.
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