SecurUO – WorkAlone

The University of Ottawa safety app, SecurUO, notifies the campus community when emergencies occur. But did you know it also hosts a variety of useful, institutional emergency procedures and tools? One such tool is the WorkAlone feature.

WorkAlone

This feature allows a user to receive, and respond to, push notifications at pre-determined times. Failure to respond to a push notification within five minutes will initiate a call to a designated emergency contact number. The feature is free of charge and does not require further downloads.

SecurUO

How to activate the WorkAlone feature:

Download and launch the SecurUO application
Tap “Safety Toolbox”
Tap “WorkAlone”
Review the instructions: tap “Continue to WorkAlone”
Fill in the fields and tap “Register”. We recommend that you check with your emergency contact prior to entering their phone number.
You have successfully subscribed to notifications for the period you set. The feature will deactivate automatically after the set period.

If you fail to check-in and your emergency contact uses the application to try to reach you, the number calling will appear as 1-888-519-4933.

There are limitations to the application, notably:

You can use Wi-Fi to check in, but you must have cellular service to accept calls.
If you’re moving (between buildings, between floors), you may need to reset the physical location parameters.