Overview
Emergency alerts in Airtame Cloud let your organization instantly broadcast critical messages across Airtame-powered screens. They are built for schools, offices, and other places where everyone needs to know right away.
You can send alerts in two ways:
- From your existing alerting system (recommended). Connect the emergency notification platform you already use, such as InformaCast, Raptor Alert, CrisisGo, Omnilert, or Centegix. Learn how in How to create integrations for emergency alerts.
- From Airtame Cloud. Create, schedule, and stop alerts yourself. This suits planned drills, one-off announcements, and organizations without a separate alerting system.
How it works
1. Connect your alerting system
If your organization already has an alerting system, you can connect it to Airtame. Your screens then display the alerts you already send, with no separate tool to open during an emergency.
Requirements: Creating a connection requires an Admin or Owner role.
- Works with the systems you use. Any system that can send a standard HTTP POST request can trigger an Airtame alert. It can send either the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) or a simpler Airtame JSON format.
- Set up once. In Airtame Cloud, create a connection and choose which screen groups it alerts. Airtame gives you a unique URL and an API key to enter in your alerting system.
- Change targets any time. The screens to alert are set in Airtame Cloud, not in the alert itself. You can change them later without touching your alerting system.
Follow the step-by-step guide. For a specific platform, see Emergency alerts – integration with
2. Send an alert from Airtame Cloud
Requirements: Emergency alerts require an Airtame Hybrid or Airtame Core license. Only licensed devices display emergency alerts.
Use this when you want to start an alert yourself, for example for a drill.
- Create an alert: Users with an owner, administrator or content manager role log into Airtame Cloud, navigate to the emergency alerts section, and create a new alert.
- Customize the message: The alert includes an alert template where users can customize the title and a detailed message.
- Select screens: Alerts can be broadcast to all device groups or targeted to specific groups.
- Choose when it runs: Start the alert immediately, schedule it for a future date and time, or set it to repeat on a regular pattern — useful for recurring drills and planned lockdown exercises.
- Start the alert: Once sent, the alert appears on the selected screens, overriding existing content and stopping ongoing screensharing or conferencing sessions.
- Stop the alert: Alerts can be manually stopped by administrators or set to expire after a defined duration.
Three ways to run an alert
| Type | When it starts | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate | As soon as you confirm | A real emergency happening now |
| Scheduled | At a date and time you choose | A planned drill, a known upcoming event |
| Repeating | On a pattern you define, again and again | Periodic* fire drills, recurring safety exercises |
*Alerts can be repeated daily, weekly, monthly and yearly.
Which alert wins?
- More than one alert can be active for the same device group.
- Airtame resolves this with one rule: a scheduled or repeating alert never overrides a manual alert that is already running. Everything else defers to the newest alert.
- The reasoning: a manual alert means someone is responding to something happening right now. A planned drill should never push that off screen.
| Already on screen | New alert arriving | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled alert | Scheduled alert | New alert takes over |
| Manual alert | Scheduled alert | Manual alert stays |
| Scheduled alert | Manual alert | New alert takes over |
| Manual alert | Manual alert | New alert takes over |
Learn the detailed how-tos in the following articles:
- How to start an emergency alert from Airtame Cloud?
- How to stop an emergency alert from Airtame Cloud?
- How to create integrations for emergency alerts?
Known limitations
- Starting an emergency alert on Airtame Hubs and Airtame 2 will not wake up your Airtame screen if it is turned off. We are working to include this on future releases.
- Starting an emergency alert on Virtual Airtame will not wake up the hardware if it is turned off.
- Your organization can hold up to 256 scheduled and repeating alerts at a time. Immediate alerts do not count towards this.
- When a scheduled alert ends and reveals an older alert that is still active underneath it, Airtame apps on Android devices are not woken up to show it.