The University of Ottawa safety app, SecurUO, notifies the campus community when emergencies occur. But did you know it also hosts a variety of useful, institutional emergency procedures and tools? One such tool is the WorkAlone feature. This feature allows a user to receive, and respond to, push notifications at pre-determined times. Failure to respond to a push notification within five minutes will initiate a call to a designated emergency contact number. The feature is free of charge and does not require further downloads.
How to activate the WorkAlone feature:
- Download and launch the SecurUO application
- Tap “Safety Toolbox”
- Tap “WorkAlone”
- Review the instructions: tap “Continue to WorkAlone”
- Fill in the fields and tap “Register”. We recommend that you check with your emergency contact prior to entering their phone number.
- You have successfully subscribed to notifications for the period you set. The feature will deactivate automatically after the set period.
If you fail to check-in and your emergency contact uses the application to try to reach you, the number calling will appear as 1-888-519-4933.
There are limitations to the application, notably:
- You can use Wi-Fi to check in, but you must have cellular service to accept calls.
- If you’re moving (between buildings, between floors), you may need to reset the physical location parameters.