Campus Emergency Notification System

The vendor is required to provide an emergency alert system that enables designated university personnel to send emergency alerts to students, faculty, staff, and visitors.
- The recipients of the alerts should be communicated with through all the communication channels into which they have opted. Expected channels include text messages, email, phone calls, and, if the solution provides one, a mobile application. The system should be capable of sending all emergency alerts in a timely manner.
- Notification requirements
• Recipients: 40,000 to 50,000 students, faculty, staff; additionally, campus visitors will be able to receive campus emergency notifications.
• Channels: text messages, emails, and phone calls; if recipient app is included in the solution, emergency alert push notifications must be sent to app users.
• Response time: to comply with the act, notifications must be sent out within ten minutes of an alert being initiated by administrators.
• Modifiable pre-prepared or “canned” templates for initiating the emergency alerts are desired; authorized campus administrators should be able to quickly initiate the alert using incident-specific templates so that messages can be quickly modified; possible criteria for consideration are: (1) drop down menu/options for which campus, (2) type of emergency, (3) inserting date and time.
- Integration requirements
• Banner integration: the system should integrate with the banner system to obtain the current list of recipients.
• Integration: the system should pass emergency messages via common alert protocol (cap) to the campus current instance which operates on agency laptops and desktops.
- Mobile app requirements (if applicable to solution)
• Platforms: must support apple iOS and android systems.
• Apps: two separate mobile apps are required:
oRecipient app: for students to receive emergency messages.
oAdministrator app: for administrators to send out emergency messages.
• Accessibility: both apps must comply with accessibility standards and laws.
• Branding: the apps should allow for university branding.
- Text messaging service
• Delivery confirmation: the system must provide delivery confirmation for text messages.
- Data and privacy
• The system must comply with the state university system information security & accessibility standards exhibit; additionally, the system should have a valid TX-ramp certification.
- Implementation timeline
• The implementation must be completed by august 2025; budget information will not be provided to prospective vendors.
- Additional features
• SSO, SAML: the systems should support single sign-on (SSO), preferably using security assertion markup language (SAML) 2.0; for non-SSO (local accounts), MFA should be available.
• Geolocation: the recipient app, if an app is included in the solution, should include geolocation capabilities, and should comply with state government code chapter 2062 for acquiring and retaining consent of an individual’s location.
• Panic button: the recipient app, if an app is included in the solution, should have a panic button that sends the user’s location, email, and timestamp to the university police dispatch number in the form of a phone call.
• Reporting: the solution should generate, download, and archive reports on the number of messages sent, delivery status, and other relevant information.
• RSS feed: the solution must generate an RSS feed with the emergency message.
- Optional features
• “Are You Safe” button: in the recipient app, a button that allows users to confirm their safety, with responses viewable on an admin dashboard.
• Provide capabilities for multilingual translation and dispatch of alerts.
• “See something, say something” button: in the recipient app, a feature for users to provide feedback to the police.
• Provide safe mode or sandbox for testing and training purposes.
• Automatic recording: after pressing the panic button, the app should automatically record audio and video for 2 minutes.
• Ability to initiate alerts from different service accounts.
• Provide an upload feature to import a file that would be used to create a custom population for alerts.
- Contract Period/Term: 2 years