Using Cisco Emergency Responder

Cisco Emergency Responder is an emergency communication system that helps you respond to a crisis quickly and efficiently. When someone in your telephone network makes an emergency call, Cisco Emergency Responder automatically notifies you and routes the call to the local public safety answering point (PSAP) operator. Using the extension that Cisco Emergency Responder provides, you can look up the location of the caller through the Cisco Emergency Responder user web interface. Once you know the location of the caller, you can go to the site of the emergency, send help, or otherwise complete your company's emergency response policy requirements.

Cisco Emergency Responder also keeps a record of emergency calls your system receives so that you can access this information later.

How to Access the Cisco Emergency Responder User Web Interface

You must log in to Cisco Emergency Responder to view web alerts and obtain more information about an emergency call.

Step 1

In your browser's location field, enter the URL provided by your administrator.

Step 2

Click on the Cisco ER User link at the bottom right area of the screen.

Step 3

Enter your name and password and click Login. The user name and password is normally the one you use to log into Windows. Ask your administrator for your name and password if you have trouble logging in.

To exit the Cisco Emergency Responder user web interface from any page, choose Logout from the main menu at the top of the screen.

Tip

For help about how to use a feature on the Cisco Emergency Responder user web interface, select Help for this Screen.

What Happens When Someone Makes an Emergency Call?

As soon as Cisco Emergency Responder receives a call, it forwards the call to the public safety answering point (PSAP) for your area. At the same time, Cisco Emergency Responder calls you on your telephone and tells you that an emergency call was made, and tells you the extension of the caller. Depending on how your administrator sets up your system, you might also receive an e-mail message or an e-mail page containing the emergency caller's extension, the Emergency Response Location (ERL) name, and the time of the emergency call.

Information about the emergency call also appears on the Emergency Call Alert page of the Cisco Emergency Responder user web interface. This information includes the time and date of the emergency call, the extension of the caller, the ERL name, and the phone location. Additional details about the caller's location such as the complete physical address for the ERL and the port name are displayed when you click on a call record. (The port name can be configured on the switch for a particular port.)

Note Cisco Emergency Responder displays the port name for automatically-tracked phones only.

When you determine the location of the caller, you can respond to the call according to your company's emergency response policy.

With Cisco Emergency Responder 1.2 and later, the Emergency Call Alert page refreshes as soon as the emergency call is made. If Cisco Emergency Responder cannot perform the real-time update for some reason (for example, because you are temporarily not connected to the server), the Emergency Call Alert page will be refreshed in 30 seconds.

Note Cisco Emergency Responder provides you with the extension of the emergency caller only; you cannot listen to the actual emergency call.

How to Acknowledge an Emergency Call

To acknowledge an emergency call means that you will take responsibility to act according to your company's emergency response policy on behalf of that call. Your policy might require you to go to the physical location of the caller. Or, it might require that you monitor the emergency situation by telephone.

All security personnel (onsite alert personnel) who have access to the Cisco Emergency Responder user web interface see the same emergency calls on the Emergency Call Alert page. When you acknowledge a call, Cisco Emergency Responder removes the call from the list.

Even though the call record is removed from the list on the Emergency Call Alert page, the information about this call is saved. You can see information about an emergency call after it is acknowledged by viewing the call history. For information about how to view the call history, see the "How to View a History of Emergency Calls" section. You can also see detailed information about that caller's location by looking up the phone extension. For information on viewing details about a caller's location, see the "How to Get More Information About a Call" section.

This procedure assumes that you are logged in to Cisco Emergency Responder and that the Emergency Call Alert page is displayed.

To display the Emergency Call Alert page from any other page, select Web Alert.

Step 1

On the Emergency Call Alert page, click ACKNOWLEDGE for the emergency call you want to acknowledge.

The entry disappears from your Emergency Call Alert page and the Emergency Call Alert page of every onsite alert person in your system.

How to Get More Information About a Call

To respond to an emergency call, you might need more information than that displayed on the Emergency Call Alert page. Or, you might need to provide these details to law enforcement or other emergency personnel later (see the "How to View a History of Emergency Calls" section).

You can immediately see details about an emergency call by clicking on that call record on the Emergency Call Alert page.

Details shown, such as the street address and the 3-digit area code, depend on how your system administrator has configured your system. They are the same details that the PSAP operator sees.

While these details might not describe the exact physical location of the caller, they should describe the area from which the emergency call came. If you find that these details are not helpful in locating the emergency caller, talk to your system administrator.

Table 1-1 describes the fields you see when you click on a call record from the Emergency Call Alert page.

Table 1-1 Emergency Response Location Fields
Field Name	Description
Phone Location	The cubicle or office number that the port serves.
ERL Name	The emergency response location (ERL) name is the zone name that your system administrator has set for that call's location.
House Number	The number from the postal street address for the building (for example, the "170" in 170 West Tasman Dr.)
House Number Suffix	The number extension (such as /2) for the house number, if any.
Street Name	The street name from the postal address for the building.
Prefix Directional	A leading directional indicator if the street name contains one, for example, N for North.
Street Suffix	The type of street. For example, AVE for Avenue.
Post Directional	A trailing directional indicator if the street name contains one, for example, N for North.
Community Name	The community name for the address, for example, a city, town, or district name.
State	The 2-digit state abbreviation.
Main NPA	The 3-digit area code of the main number associated with the calling number.
Customer Name	The subscriber name associated with the ERL, typically, your company's name.
Class of Service	The class of service for the ERL.
Type of Service	The type of service for the ERL.
Exchange	The Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) exchange identifier for the serving telephone office for the phone.
Main Telephone No.	The main phone number associated with the ERL. This might be the number of the security office for the ERL.
Order Number	The service order number of the activity of establishing or updating this record.
Extract Date	The date on which the record was created.
County	The county identification code for the zone. In the USA, the FIPS code assigned to the county by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Company ID	Your NENA-registered company identification code.
Zip Code	The postal zip code for the address.
Zip Code Extension	The postal zip code "plus four" number.
Customer Code	Your customer code. Ask your service provider if you do not know your code.
Comments	Optional comments. These comments might be displayed at the PSAP if an emergency call is made from this ERL.
Longitude	The longitude of the ERL.
Latitude	The latitude of the ERL.
Elevation	The elevation of the ERL.
TAR Code	The taxing area rate code.
Location	Additional location information, in free form, to help identify the exact location of the phone. For example, this might repeat the street address that is defined in several separate fields elsewhere on this page.

If you need to see location details about a call after it is no longer visible on the Emergency Call Alert page, use the phone search to look up the extension. You can find the caller's extension in the call history if you do not know it. For information about how to view a call history, see the "How to View a History of Emergency Calls" section.

Step 2

Enter the extension of the caller you want more information about in the Phone Extension field and click Find.

To return to the Emergency Call Alert page, choose Web Alert from the main menu at the top of the screen.

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If an emergency call is made immediately after the Cisco Emergency Responder server is started, the caller's location details might not be available right away. Results of a phone search using this caller's extension will say "No matching phone for the given extension."

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A caller might make an emergency call from one emergency response location and then immediately move to a different emergency response location. If Cisco Emergency Responder registers this move before you use the phone search feature, the phone search screen will display the location details of the caller's second emergency response location.

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If you try to view location details for a phone that shares an extension, the phone search screen displays details for all phones for that extension. To refine your search, click Select a phone to view details. Choose the phone whose details you want to view based on the Last Time of Emergency Call field.

How to View a History of Emergency Calls

Cisco Emergency Responder 1.2 and later saves information about the 10,000 most recent emergency calls. You might need to provide this information to law enforcement agencies or to other emergency personnel.

This information might also be used for reporting purposes. For example, your company might need to determine whether it has enough security personnel (onsite alert personnel) to handle the average volume of emergency calls it receives over a given period of time.

You can see details about how many emergency calls were made on a given date, from a given caller, or that contain a specific keyword that describes the call by viewing a history of emergency calls. You can also enter or view additional information about an emergency call, such as the nature of the emergency or what was done by accessing the Comments field of a call record.

Step 2

Use the drop-down lists and text field to enter the conditions on which you want to search for calls. You can add conditions by clicking More or remove the last condition added by clicking Fewer.

If you specify more than one condition, make sure to select whether you want all or any of the conditions to be satisfied.

For example, if you wanted to see all medical emergency calls that came from your company's office in San Jose on July 6, your conditions might look like this:

Find Details of calls where all of the conditions are satisfied and where Date is 07/06/2003 and where ERL Name is Exactly SanJose Building and Comments contains medical.

If there is more information than can fit on one screen, Cisco Emergency Responder uses more than one page to list the calls.

To see more information, use the links at the bottom left-hand side of the screen. Or, you can enter a specific page in the Page field at the bottom right-hand side of the screen.

Table 1-2 describes the fields you see when you view a history of emergency calls.

Table 1-2 Call History Fields
Field Name	Description
ERL Name	The emergency response location (ERL) name is the zone name that your system administrator has set for that call's location.
Caller's Extension	The extension from which the emergency call was made.
Time	The time that the emergency call was made.
Date	The date that the emergency call was made.
ELIN Used	The callback number your PSAP operator uses to contact an emergency caller if the emergency call gets cut off.
Comments	The Comments field contains a link to details about the emergency call. You can view or enter details about the call by clicking on the edit link in this field.

Step 4

To enter or modify comments about an emergency call, click on the edit link in the Comments field for that call record.

Comments appear in the Comments about the call field of the Call Details screen. If the comment is longer than the field, use the right and left arrow keys on your computer's keyboard to scroll though the comment.

If you want to add or modify a comment, enter the information and click Update. If you want to return a comment to its last saved value, click Reset.

To return to the Emergency Call Alert page, choose Web Alert from the main menu at the top of the screen.

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Cisco Emergency Responder 1.2 and later maintains history records for the 10,000 most recent emergency calls. If you need to obtain call details for earlier emergency calls, ask your system administrator to provide this information. Your system administrator may have saved these records.

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