This feature is part of the system and comes standard, but many departments do not take full advantage of its usefulness. The feature is simple to set up and we can walk you through the process or do it for you. It also allows significant customization so you can adjust the notifications to meet your department’s needs.
Customize the users who receive notifications
You can customize the notification from ARMS in nearly any way you want, including the users who receive the information. Take advantage of the system to ensure that officers in action know about crimes committed on campus. Or to confirm that the head of the department always knows about crimes instantly, even if there is a failure in another aspect of communication. You can also send automated notifications to those outside of the police department, such as your university’s legal department or anyone responsible for paperwork.
Choose your notification method
Every department is different, which is why the notifications are available via SMS text messages, emails, or Twitter. This allows you to customize the notification method depending on how quickly the recipient must know about a crime. Consider using SMS text notifications for those who must instantly be aware of incidents and emails for those who simply need the information at some point, such as the next time they check their email. There is also the option of sending notifications at the time of the incident or via a total recap email sent the following day. This latter option is particularly useful for those outsides of the police department who need to know about crimes, but not in real-time.
Select notifications based on location and type of crime
For further customization, you can select which notifications you and your department receive. Select to receive notifications only about specific types of crimes so no one becomes overwhelmed by alerts. You can also limit the notifications based on location, so only officers working within a particular range of the crime receive alerts.
Allows you to easily inform required departments
No university police department works in isolation, so you can take advantage of the notifications to ensure you meet requirements to inform other departments. If your university’s legal department must know about certain types of crimes for liability reasons, you can add them to the notifications. In the case of serious crimes that require assistance from or informing local police, the system will let you do this. Just choose to send the automatic notifications to the liaison with the local police department in charge of the specific crimes that require reporting, such as armed robbery. Even if you do not foresee these serious crimes occurring on campus, the program is free and simple to use, meaning there are no disadvantages to setting it up. The automatic notifications will save your department time and ensure the proper people always receive information about crimes and more. There is no cost for activating automatic notifications on your existing ARMS software, so you do not hesitate to call to schedule your appointment.
