Personnel Crisis Communication Management System

• US 20140379721A1
• Filed: 08/15/2014
• Published: 12/25/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AtHoc Incorporated (Blackberry Limited)
• Original Assignee: AtHoc Incorporated (Blackberry Limited)
• Inventors: Miasnik, Guy, Siegel, Aviv, Gupta, Rakesh
• Granted Patent: US 9,218,432 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/738
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/35 Clustering; Classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/95 Retrieval from the web
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/67 for remote operation
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 50/20 for computer-aided diagnosis, e.g. based on medical expert systems
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0227 Filtering policies mail message filtering H04L51/212
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/5116 for emergency applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/61 Time-dependent
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/63 Location-dependent; Proximity-dependent
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/14 Short messaging services, e.g. short message services [SMS] or unstructured supplementary service data [USSD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/60 Subscription-based services using application servers or record carriers, e.g. SIM application toolkits
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/90 Services for handling of emergency or hazardous situations, e.g. earthquake and tsunami warning systems [ETWS]

Abstract

Systems and methods are disclosed for providing personnel communications management within an enterprise or group of related enterprises during crisis situations. In particular, the systems and methods provide event management, shared situational awareness, personnel tracking, and unified crisis notification management to multiple users.

Claims

1. An integrated personnel crisis communications management system for distributing information, comprising:

a database including data about a plurality of entities and an event record storing information about an event;

an inbound event management subsystem operably connected to the database, the inbound event management subsystem, responsive to receiving a communication, classifies the communication as corresponding to the event and supplements the information about the event based on the communication; and

a shared situational awareness subsystem, operably connected to the database, the shared situational awareness subsystem providing, to a first device associated with a first entity, a first subset of the information about the event, and providing, to a second device associated with a second entity, a second subset of the information about the event, the first subset being determined based on data about the first entity stored in the database and the second subset being determined based on data about the second entity stored in the database.

2. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, further comprising:

a notification subsystem operably connected to the inbound event management subsystem, the notification subsystem sending, to one or more devices and responsive to the communication, a notification that new information is available.

3. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein classifying the communication as corresponding to the event comprises:

comparing metadata included in the communication with data describing the event in the event record; and

determining the communication corresponds to the event if the metadata included in the communication matches the data describing the event, within a threshold tolerance.

4. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein the inbound event management subsystem adds an additional event record to the database responsive to receiving an additional communication not related to the event, and adds information to the additional event record based on the additional communication.

5. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein the first entity is an enterprise constituent of a first type and the second entity is an enterprise constituent of a second type.

6. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 5, wherein the first type is one of:

emergency management personnel, emergency first responders, incident commanders, enterprise members, and individuals related to an enterprise member.

7. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein the first device is one of:

a networked computer;

a smart-phone;

an IP phone;

a tablet;

a satellite phone;

a landline phone;

a mobile phone;

a social network server configured to distribute the additional notification through via a social network;

a speaker system;

a display board;

a TV system;

a Land Mobile Radio;

a Voice-Enabled Fire Alarm Control Panel; and

a web site server configured to add the additional notification to a web site feed.

8. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein the entities include users, the personnel crisis communications management system further comprising:

a personnel tracking subsystem for tracking the status of a plurality of tracked users, the tracking comprising;

receiving status updates from a first subset of a plurality of user devices, each user device associated with a corresponding tracked user, and each response including a status for the corresponding tracked user; and

providing for presentation the statuses of the users corresponding to the first subset of user devices.

9. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 8, wherein the tracking further comprises:

identifying a second subset of the user devices from which recent status updates have not been received;

determining, for each of the second subset of the user devices, an inferred status for the corresponding tracked user, the inferred status based on previous status information associated with the corresponding tracked user; and

providing, for presentation in conjunction with the statuses of users corresponding to the first subset of user devices, the inferred statuses of the tracked users corresponding to the second subset of user devices.

10. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 8, wherein the statuses and inferred statuses are presented by:

providing a dashboard display indicating the status of viewed users, the viewed users being a subset of the tracked users;

providing user interface controls in conjunction with the dashboard display for at least one of;

viewing the status of a selected one of the viewed users in greater detail, filtering the viewed users based on status, filtering the viewed user based on location, filtering the viewed users based on assigned roles, and filtering the viewed users based on recency of status updates.

11. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein the communication is received from a device and the inbound event management subsystem, on receiving the communication, performs processes including:

authenticating credentials of the device;

validating content contained within the communication; and

acknowledging receipt of the communication to the device.

12. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein the communication is received from an automated system and the inbound event management subsystem, responsive to receiving the communication, performs processes including:

authenticating credentials of the automated system; and

validating content contained within the communication.

13. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein the inbound event management subsystem associates the event with a security/sensitivity categorization based on the communication and stores the security/sensitivity categorization in the event record, the first and second subsets being determined based on the security/sensitivity categorization.

14. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein the first subset of the information about the event is determined based on at least one of:

a type of the event;

a role of the first entity;

a role of the first entity in relation to the type of the event;

a geographical location of the first entity;

a geographical location associated with the communication;

characteristics of the first device; and

characteristics of a network connecting the integrated personnel crisis communications management system to the first device.

15. The integrated personnel crisis communications management system of claim 1, wherein:

the inbound event management subsystem, responsive to receiving an additional communication including updated information about the event, updates the information about the event in the database; and

the shared situational awareness subsystem, responsive to the information about the event being updated, updates the first and second subsets and provides the updated first and second subsets to the first and second devices, respectively.

16. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing executable computer program instructions for providing personnel crisis communications management, the computer program instructions when executed causes one or more computing systems to:

receive a communication including additional information about an event;

determine that the event corresponds to an event record in an event database, the event record containing available information about the event;

supplement the available information about the event based on the additional information about the event; and

provide each of a plurality of devices with a corresponding view of information included in the event record, the view of information included in the event record provided to each device based on information about an entity associated with that device stored in an entity database.

17. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computer program instructions further comprise instructions that when executed causes the one or more computing systems to:

identify a plurality of entities associated with the event to which additional information is available based on properties of the event and information about the plurality of entities stored in the event database; and

send a notification to a plurality of devices associated with the plurality of entities, the notification indicating the available information about the event has been supplemented.

18. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computer program instructions further comprise instructions that when executed causes the one or more computing systems to:

receive status updates from a first subset of a plurality of user devices, each user device associated with a corresponding tracked user, and each status update including a status for the corresponding tracked user;

identify a second subset of the user devices from which recent status updates have not been received;

determine, for each of the second subset of the user devices, an inferred status for the corresponding tracked user, the inferred status based on previous status information associated with the corresponding tracked user;

aggregate the statuses and inferred statuses of the tracked users;

provide a dashboard display indicating the status of viewed users, the viewed users being a subset of the tracked users; and

provide, for a third user, user interface controls for at least one of;

viewing the status of a selected one of the viewed users in greater detail, filtering the viewed users based on status, filtering the viewed users based on location, filtering the viewed users based on assigned roles, and filtering the viewed users based on recency of status updates.

19. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computer program instructions further comprise instructions that when executed causes the one or more computing systems to:

send an additional notification to a notification device associated with the event, the notification device being one of;

a networked computer;

a smart-phone;

a tablet;

an IP phone;

a satellite phone;

a landline phone;

a mobile phone;

a social network server configured to distribute the additional notification through via a social network;

a speaker system;

a display board;

a TV system;

a Land Mobile Radio;

a Fire Alarm Control Panel; and

a web site server configured to add the notification to a web site feed.

20. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 19, wherein the computer program instructions further comprise instructions that when executed causes the one or more computing systems to:

authenticate credentials of a device from which the communication was received;

validate the additional information within the communication; and

acknowledge receipt of the communication to the device.

21. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the communication is received from an automated system and the computer program instructions further comprise instructions that when executed causes the one or more computing systems to:

authenticate credentials of the automated system; and

validate content contained within the communication.

22. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the computer program instructions further comprise instructions that when executed causes the one or more computing systems to:

determine a security/sensitivity categorization for the event based on the available information about the event; and

store the security/sensitivity categorization in the event record.

23. The non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein the information about an entity includes at least one of:

a permission level of the entity;

a role of the entity;

a geographical location of the entity;

characteristics of a device corresponding to the entity; and

characteristics of a network to which the device corresponding to the entity is connected.

24. A computer-implemented method for personnel crisis communications management for an enterprise, comprising:

receiving a message including new information about an event;

analyzing the message to determine a correspondence between the event and an event entry in a database, the database including a plurality of event entries, each containing existing information about a corresponding event;

adding the new information to the event entry in the database responsive to the determined correspondence;

identifying a first subset of entities and a second subset of entities based on information about entities stored in a database;

generating, responsive to the new information being substantially different to the existing information, a first report about the event based on;

the new information, the event entry, and information stored in a database about the first subset of entities;

generating, responsive to the new information being substantially different to the existing information, a second report about the event based on;

the new information, the event entry, and information stored in a database about the second subset of entities;

transmitting the first report to devices associated with the first subset of entities; and

transmitting the second report to user devices associated with the second subset of entities.

25. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

comparing the new information to existing information about the corresponding event in the database, the comparing comprising;

identifying keywords in the new information;

identifying keywords in the existing information; and

determining the new information to be substantially different to the existing information responsive to the new information including a keyword not present in the existing information;

26. The method of claim 24, wherein analyzing the message comprises:

comparing location data included in the message with location data included in the event entry;

comparing time data included in the message with time data included in the event entry; and

determining that the event corresponds to the event entry responsive to the comparing location data and the comparing time data.

27. The method of claim 24, wherein analyzing the message comprises:

comparing position information included in the message with position information associated with the event entry to determine a position difference;

comparing time information included in the message with time information associated with the event entry to determine a time difference; and

determining the correspondence between the event and the event entry responsive to the position difference being less than a position threshold and the time difference being less than a time threshold.

28. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

receiving position data for a plurality of users at regular time intervals, the position data indicating a location of corresponding users when the data was sent; and

providing, for display at a device, the location of at least one of the plurality of users.

29. The method of claim 24, further comprising:

requesting status updates from a plurality of users;

receiving a status update from at least one of the plurality of users, the status update including a current status; and

providing, for display at a device, the current status.