We have employed a company-wide VoIP telephone system from Shoretel that connects 12 buildings in 9 locations throughout the Southeast. As a small company most of our locations have just 3 or 4 employees and have been with the company for years. As a result they are all well-trained on how to use our phone system.
Our newest location employs several unskilled workers where English is a second language. This has resulted in confusion on how to use the phone when trying to call home. To get an outside line you have to dial 9 first then dial the phone number. It appeared the person(s) trying to call out was not pausing long enough for the second dial tone and was in fact dialing 911.
Shoretel offers a comprehensive solution to monitor for 911 calls with the ShoreTel E911 Notification Application that will alert a supervisor when an emergency call is made. Unfortunately, it is not included with the system and must be purchased separately at substantial cost.
Develop a way to monitor for 911 calls and notify supervisors when one is made. Identify which phone and try to determine the employee that made the errant call.
Shoretel records an event with the ID 1319 in the Application log whenever a 911 call is made. Using the Windows built-in utility "Eventtriggers" we can monitor the Event Log and execute a command whenever a specific Event ID is detected. An Event Trigger task was created to look for Event ID 1319 in the Application log and execute a VBS script that sends emails to all supervisors with the details of the event.
Using the details of the event we now know immediately when a 911 call is made and from which extension. Reviewing security camera recordings of the phone at the time the call was made allows us to identify the employee making the call.
Since implementing the monitoring script we have not had one illegitimate 911 call.
Another little-known Windows utility was discovered saving us thousands of dollars. Some research of Shoretel's solution revealed there are known issues with the application that may cause the 911 call to go undetected. I suppose this is due to the breadth of features in the application and as a result is not as reliable as a solution to just send email when 911 calls are made.
July 2012