Agency Messages
PulsePoint can help disseminate information to your Respond app followers in real time through the Agency Message feature. Agency messages range from emergency information (such as evacuation details or sandbag filling site locations) to more routine announcements, such as community events or recruitment efforts.
Agency messages support web-style hyperlinks, activate the phone dialer for telephone numbers, and create calendar events from dates in the message text. Use Markdown to add structure and emphasis to your messages.
Agency messages appear at the top of the incident feed. Tapping the preview displays the complete message text.
Message Types
There are three general message categories in the PulsePoint Respond app: News, CERT, and Community Alert / Advisory. Users manage their subscriptions to these categories on the app's Notifications page. Users subscribed to a category will receive a push notification when a message is sent in that category; other users will only see the message if they open the app and view the incident list.
In addition to these three categories, several special-purpose categories are available for targeted use:
PROFESSIONAL RESPONDERS
A dedicated category is available for sending messages to Professional Responders. Because Professional Responders are automatically members of this group, all messages sent to this category generate a push notification.
CPR-NEEDED NOTIFICATIONS
A special category is available for sending messages to users based on whether they subscribe to CPR-needed notifications — useful for outreach campaigns targeting these specific groups of agency users. These messages are delivered as News messages, so only users subscribed to the News category will receive a push notification.
ALL AGENCY FOLLOWERS
A limited-use category is available for sending high-priority messages to all agency followers. Because all agency followers are automatically members of this group, every message sent to this category generates a push notification. Since users have not explicitly opted in to push notifications for this category, its use should be limited to messages that truly warrant reaching your entire user base.
Genasys Protect
In regions using both PulsePoint Respond and Genasys Protect, PulsePoint's Community Alert / Advisory message type provides an additional channel for distributing Genasys mass notifications. Because PulsePoint is already installed on the mobile devices of many community members, it provides a trusted, redundant path for critical communications — one that reaches people through the app they've opted into specifically for awareness of emergency events.
When a Genasys zone within a PulsePoint agency boundary moves to an active status (e.g., an evacuation order), a Community Alert / Advisory agency message is automatically generated and populated with the Genasys content. Like other agency messages, a preview appears at the top of the incident feed; tapping it displays the full message. The message identifies the affected zone(s) and includes hyperlinks to the Genasys map for further information and reference. If the user has this alert type enabled, a push notification is sent when the message is posted. Message updates (e.g., changes to the evacuation order) are automatically reflected in the message throughout the event, and each subsequent update triggers a new push notification if the alert type remains enabled.
How to send an Agency Message
To send an agency message, follow the steps below.
- Sign in to PulsePoint Central and select Agency Messages from the menu.
- Compose your message. Markdown is available to add structure and emphasis.
- Select the message category to alert.
- Enter the duration the message should remain visible to app users.
- Click Send.
The results panel displays the number of devices that received the message notification. The message automatically clears after the selected duration, unless you extend or shorten it by editing the original entry.