Separate monitoring from sending authority
Emergency alerts use separate permissions for viewing, sending, cancelling, configuration, device management, and installer builds. The seeded Emergency Communications Manager role requires two-factor authentication. Limit Send and Cancel to people authorized by the organization’s safety plan.
Configure alert locations
- Open Emergency alerts (CAP), then NWS & locations.
- Create a location for each building, campus, or operational area that may receive a different alert.
- Optionally enter one public IPv4 or IPv6 egress CIDR per line. Use the WAN address the internet sees, not a private 10.x or 192.168.x workstation address. A newly enrolled Windows client is assigned to the matching location.
- Choose one district-wide default for devices that do not match a range or location-specific installer.
- Keep network ranges current after firewall, ISP, or site-routing changes.
Enable National Weather Service monitoring
- Add a source for one NWS county/forecast zone, two-letter state or territory, or latitude/longitude point.
- Select the tenant locations that should receive alerts from that geography.
- Start with Extreme and Severe warnings and the prepared high-impact event list. Add lower-impact alerts only when the organization has a documented need.
- Optionally adapt the staff-facing headline, description, or instructions with the documented placeholders. Leave them blank to preserve the official NWS wording; the original provider payload is retained either way.
- Save the source as disabled while another administrator reviews the geography, targets, and filters. Enable it only when the organization is ready for matching active warnings to be delivered.
- On an enabled source, Check now contacts the live feed and may immediately deliver any matching warning.
- Review source health after geography or procedure changes.
Prepare local emergency procedures
Lockdown, Secure School, Evacuate/Fire, Shelter, Hold, and All Clear starter procedures are included. Edit them to match the organization’s approved terminology before use. Preview background, text, border, monitor, sound, acknowledgement, and dismissal behavior.
- Open Templates & display and select a procedure.
- Use direct, action-oriented language and avoid unexplained local abbreviations.
- Choose full-screen takeover and every monitor only when the procedure requires it.
- Keep life-safety alerts non-dismissible unless the approved procedure requires acknowledgement.
- Save and conduct a controlled test with designated test devices before production use.
Send and end an alert
- Open Send & monitor and choose the prepared procedure.
- Review the headline, situation, protective action, severity, and exact locations.
- Type SEND and confirm the final prompt. Connected clients receive a realtime push, while the five-second protected polling snapshot remains the fallback.
- Monitor Active now. When the condition ends, select End alert, record a reason, type CANCEL, and send the clear instruction.
Standards and provider references
DMTG stores a CAP 1.2-compatible alert record and exposes authenticated CAP XML for approved integrations. NWS monitoring uses the official weather.gov Alerts Web Service and API guidance.