Emergency mass notification and business continuity software
“The one thing that always goes awry during a crisis is communication with your staff and customers. Imagine having a system that not only allows you to tell them what needs to happen, but also allows them to reply. A system that puts all your business continuity plans at your fingertips. Well, I think you’ve found it.”
- Chris Phillips, GCGI, FSyl, Former Head of the National Counter Terrorism Security Office.
Effective communication is the cornerstone to successful crisis management. YUDU Sentinel is a multi-channel crisis communication software that lets you coordinate an incident response across all of your staff, stakeholders and partners in a matter of seconds.
Sentinel’s Broadcast Centre can send emergency notification messages via SMS, email, in-app messages and push notifications. You can create template messages to ensure that your broadcast is approved by the senior leadership and to save time in a crisis. Custom alert sounds can be used for urgent messages so that they don’t sound like everyday social notifications.
Two-way communication can be used to check that everyone is safe. Recipients can respond to yes/no questions (E.g. “Have you left the building?”) and the answers are displayed in real-time on the Sentinel dashboard. Your number one crisis management objective is to ensure everyone is safe: this two-way communication allows you to facilitate dispersal evacuations and direct your resources towards people who respond “No” or do not respond at all.
WhatsApp and other social media messengers should not be used in a crisis. Sentinel provides a fully audited and secure chat channel for your teams to communicate and share files. Sentinel’s chat channels are fast, GDPR compliant and facilitate effective collaboration within a team.
Secure Instant Teleconferencing (SIT) gives you the ability to set up a conference call with your team straight away, without wasting time checking everyone’s availability. No PINs or dial-in numbers: your chosen contacts are sent an invitation and dialled in once you choose to start the conference call. The call can be recorded and downloaded, along with an attendee list, for auditing purposes.
Sentinel’s Contacts Directory means that you always have the contact details for your team, even if your own comms channels go down. Internal and external contacts can be grouped in whatever way works for your organisation, including hybrid groups containing both internal staff and external contacts. You can have a group just for your London office, a group for your internal comms team that also contains your external PR agency, a group containing all the Data Protection Officers for your technology supply chain or a group just for your business continuity team. Your Directory can be made to suit your organisation’s needs.
The Contacts Directory is quick to set up and easy to keep up to date. Our API connects your Sentinel system to your HR database, automatically pulling through your staff details. Staff are then prompted to verify their profile, check that their contact details are correct and they have the option to make their profile private from other Sentinel users on your system. Users that don’t verify their profile can be sent reminders automatically and will show in the Sentinel dashboard, so you can see who has and hasn’t completed this step. This means that the system is as up to date as possible and GDPR compliant, as everyone is aware and has control over the data hosted in Sentinel. Leavers can be automatically hard-deleted from the Sentinel system through the same API connection with your HR database.
YUDU have been making document hosting apps and digital publication for over 10 years and our expertise in digital publishing is what forms the core of Sentinel’s Document Centre module. Users of the mobile app can access the documents they need on any device, from any location and even offline. Whether it’s evacuation plans, data breach protocols or any other vital document, Sentinel makes sure you have it in your hand - not locked away in a filing cabinet.
You choose which documents to share with which groups, so everyone only has the materials they need. Documents held in Sentinel cannot be forwarded via email or shared on social media, reducing the chances of them ending up in the wrong hands. When you upload your chosen document, it is automatically pushed through onto users’ Document Centres so that you do not need to rely on people remembering to download them. This mechanism also ensures version control as it updates existing documents when you upload a new version.
No other crisis management platform can offer this combination of emergency mass notification and offline document access. Our document annotation capabilities are uniquely advanced: you can extract relevant pages, highlight sections and make notes before sharing with your staff.
Sentinel was developed as a mobile-first solution. The Sentinel app works on any iOS or Android device, and our PhoneView technology ensures that documents are resized smoothly to fit any screen. The app also allows you to send in-app messages and push notifications.
Having the mobile app means that a crisis can be managed remotely, without needing to be at your desk. The Sentinel app is purpose-built as a crisis management platform with all the communication tools you need, unlike other social apps – like WhatsApp or Slack - that are not appropriate for a business or effective as a crisis response tool.
The Sentinel app offers a channel of communication where everything can be logged and downloaded later for auditing purposes and your organisation has control of who has access to what. Your Sentinel system can be white labelled with your organisation’s branding, so that it is a familiar and trusted source for your people.
Sentinel is not an off-the-shelf solution – we tailor our product to meet your organisation’s unique needs. One of the ways that we can do that is through our network of consultants from a broad spectrum of expertise.
We work with IPPSO, International Protect and Prepare Security Office, to create bespoke counter terrorism advice. This advice, created by Chris Phillips GCGI, FCiiSCM, FSyl, is embedded in Sentinel as action cards. Simply tap the scenario, such as “Active shooter” or “Suspicious package” to reveal the advice. These cards are created in consultation with you, so that advice is specific to your organisation and premises.
KRTS International are the trauma counselling experts behind Power to Respond: an online self-help course to help people recover from trauma. The course, which is made up of video content, can be included in Sentinel’s Document Centre so it’s there in case your people ever experience a terror attack, workplace violence or bereavement. The content is accessed anonymously through the app and can help friends, family and colleagues understand how they can support someone experiencing trauma.
We also work with consultants in workplace recovery, disaster recovery, business continuity and cyber security. If there is a specific service that you need, then please just ask.
Sentinel is hosted on a single-tenant, secure cloud server. This is so that your Sentinel system is completely separate from other YUDU clients, and separate from your existing systems, so that it is as resilient as possible from cyber attacks and server loss. Having your contacts and emergency documents hosted in the cloud means that they are still available on any device, even if your systems go down. Sentinel is a specialised piece of business continuity software that helps you recover from an incident faster.
The Sentinel app is protected by two-factor authentication in order to add an extra layer of protection. Permission controls ensure that only authorised administrators can send broadcasts and control who sees which documents. Secure Instant Teleconferencing (SIT) is initiated by an invite-only code, and you can see exactly who is one the call. All aspects of Sentinel have been designed to be as secure as possible and with accountability at every step through our audit logs.
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