Notify

Desktop Alerts and Messaging

Reliable, Effective Messaging

Delivering reliable and effective messaging to students across a campus has never been more essential as part of the day-to-day management of a school infrastructure. With students potentially utilizing a mixture of hardware and technology including desktops, laptops and Mac systems, the ability to simply and quickly deliver messages direct to their devices provides a number of benefits to the faculty.

Extra Security

Notify provides an extra level of security within an education establishment or campus for both critical security alerts as well as routine student communication. It does not rely on any external services, does not have any ongoing delivery costs, and perhaps most importantly, does not require regular management of contacts.

Alert Schedules

Routine Alerts can also be pre-scheduled for a fixed time and date in the future or be applied on a recurring basis. These are ideal for campus-wide events such as fire drills or routine IT system downtime.

White Label Branding

Alerts can be fully branded to include the logo and colors of your school or college to ensure immediate recognition by staff and students.

Desktop Alerts and Messaging Screenshots

Manuals and Brochures

  Notify Educational Brochure
  Notify Corporate Brochure
  Notify Manual
Testimonials
Excellent software for pushing critical notifications out to staff.
- Farmers State Bank

Instant Mass Communication

Notify offers the only direct, instant contact, mass communication method offering instant delivery to all or specific groups of users.

Within seconds, an administrator has the ability to deliver a clear and concise message, with instructions, to all connected users across a campus. Messages, which can come through with an audible alert, carry a priority level and a request for acknowledgement.

Instant Mass Communication

Message Tracking

All delivered, fully branded messages are easily recorded, registering both the time the message was delivered and the time acknowledged by the user. In seconds, you can view all delivered messages, filter those of interest, review a full list of recipients and, if needed, export a summary for future analysis.

Message Tracking

Notification Scheduling

Routine alerts can also be pre-scheduled for a fixed time and date or be set up to be sent on a recurring basis. This is ideal for events such as fire drills or routine IT system downtime.

Teachers can also use ACT to send an immediate notification to their tech support team, the front office or to a senior staff requesting assistance in the classroom. No more need to send students out of the classroom to locate staff.

Notify provides an extra level of security for both highly critical security alerts as well as routine student communication.

Notification Scheduling

No Contracts or Delivery Costs

It does not rely on any external services, does not have any ongoing delivery costs, and perhaps most importantly, does not require regular management of contracts.

No Contracts or Delivery Costs

Notify from a Windows Console

Notify Consists of Four Components

Notification Server

The Notify Notification Server, or Gateway, manages connections to all desktop Notification Agents and ensures immediate delivery of all alerts. And, a secondary Notification Server can be added. This server takes over if the primary Notification Server is unavailable. Notification Agents will automatically switch to the next available Notification Server, ensuring alerts can always be delivered.

Notify is based around its unique Notification Server technology. Installed on any Windows Server/Desktop, the Notification Server manages connections to all desktop agents and ensures immediate delivery of all alerts.

The Notification Server controls all agent and console connections and authenticates these against unique user-defined accounts and security keys, making certain that authorized staff only uses the system.

Notify also includes redundancy, allowing multiple Notification Servers to be implemented ensuring if one is unavailable at any time, agent connections will automatically switch to the next available server. You can use as many Notification Servers as you want and they are included for free in the standard license cost. Alerts can be sent to one or multiple Notification Servers simultaneously.

Notification Agent

Notification Agents receive and are responsible for displaying alerts and connect to the Notification Server on start-up and register their availability. When the Console sends an alert to all or selected departments, it will be delivered to the connected Notification Agents by the Notification Server.

Notification Agents can be:

  • Assigned to a department allowing the Notification Console operator to target alerts to specific departments
  • Assigned to multiple departments, this can be achieved by separating each department with a comma i.e. sales, marketing, support
  • Assigned to departments during installation in the Configuration Data Setup dialog or at a later date by running the Notification Agent Configurator
  • Assign Agents to departments by using the configuration option in the Notify Deploy tool

Notification Console

ACS's simple and easy-to-use Notification Console allows you to create and send alerts to all Notification Agents or targeted departments in a matter of seconds.

In addition to the installed desktop notification console, alerts and notifications can also be sent via the supplied web component. Once installed centrally, authorized users can initiate notifications directly through their web browser.

Notify Deploy Tool

The Notify Deploy utility provides network administrators with the ability to install and configure Notify on multiple workstations without the need to visit the machines individually.

Key Features of a notification from a Windows Console

Instant Message Delivery Across Platforms
  • Send alerts and notifications (up to 500 characters) instantly to any Windows, Mac and Linux desktop from a Windows PC operator console.
  • Send messages "full screen" to unattended devices such as large digital public information screens, with appropriate timeout.
  • Send targeted alerts dynamically to selected users/devices, specified departments or all computers.
  • In time-critical situations, send a pre-configured "emergency response" message by typing a hotkey combination.
  • Real-time message preview before delivery.
  • Supports unlimited number of connected user desktops.
  • Include clickable links to websites and network resources (UNC paths) in the body of the message.
  • Support for Terminal Server / Citrix clients.
  • Prioritize each message with clear and concise message types - News, Alert, Technical, Critical, and Message.
  • Customize alert and font colors and include organization logo in all notifications.
  • Include custom audio alerts and supporting sounds with each notification. The sound can be repeated every five seconds to really grab attention!
  • Flexible delivery options - auto close after XX seconds, close on user acknowledgement.
  • The same message can be sent to multiple sites, each carrying different local branding.
  • Notify is available in a range of localized languages.

Schedule Alerts - Schedule routine alerts to run at fixed times or dates: hourly, weekly, daily, even by the minute.

Alert History - View full alert history, view and amend current scheduled alerts and export delivery results.

Robust Reporting - Central audit log and detailed reporting of all messages sent, received and acknowledged.

Custom Alert Settings - Specify the length of time that notifications are stored and accessible for reporting.

  • Unique security codes limiting access to only authorized Agents and Consoles.
  • Integrate within existing systems via the supplied browser-based notification template and COM object.
  • Agent configuration can be centrally managed via Active Directory (AD) policies or similar.
  • Control ability to send alerts by Active Directory policy.
  • No need for router changes or support for broadcast UDP.
  • Easy to install with MSI installer or by utilizing supplied deployment utility or Active Directory.

Notify from an Android/iOS Mobile Console

The Notify Mobile Console for Android and iOS gives you the freedom to communicate with your Windows, Mac and Linux desktop users or unattended information displays on the move from an Android tablet/smartphone or iPad, iPod or iPhone.

Free to download from Google Play, Amazon App Store and iTunes, the Mobile Console allows you to send instant alerts and notifications to existing Notify users via your established Notification Servers.

Key features of a notification from an Android/Apple iOS device

  • Send alerts and notifications to Windows, Mac and Linux desktops from any Android or Apple iOS device.
  • Send full screen notifications to unattended digital public information displays.
  • Prioritize messages and alerts with clear and concise message types.
  • Support for clickable URLs in alerts.
  • Flexible delivery options: auto close after XX seconds, close on user acknowledgement.
  • Send targeted alerts dynamically to selected departments or all computers.
  • View full alert history.
  • Unique security codes limiting access to only authorized Agents and Consoles.
  • Send alerts to one or multiple Notification Servers simultaneously.
  • Available in a range of localized languages.