Introducing the Text Command Interface and Text-To-Call

Today we released the beta of our Text Command Interface (TCI) for Resgrid. This allows your personnel to interact with Resgrid completely via Text Messages. Allowing all your personnel to get access to complex features and perform actions by sending simple commands to a private number. In addition to allowing personnel without smartphones to use Resgrid on-the-go the TCI feature also allows personnel that are in areas with bad cell data coverage to use the system.

We are very excited about this feature. Our goal is to allow Resgrid to be utilized by as many communication means as possible because we know that not all places have good cell data coverage. In addition to enabling a text communications channel we are working hard on re-tooling our mobile apps to allow them to work offline and use less data when connected.

Resgrid also recently started importing dispatches via Text Messages called the Text-To-Call system. Both the Text-To-Call and the Text Command Interface can be used at the same time. Eventually we will be exposing more functionality via text messaging like generating reports, performing complex actions and retrieving information.

Currently Text-To-Call and Text Command are limited to the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia. We will be working hard to expose this functionality to other countries as soon as we can.

Below we will show how to enable the Text Command Interface and Text-To-Call.

Step 1

Log into Resgrid as a department administrator and open up the department menu. Select the Text Messaging option.

Step 2

Select the option you want enabled. Note if you want both Text-To-Call and Text Command enabled you must supply a list of source phone numbers that text dispatches will originate from. Resgrid uses the ‘From Number’ field in the text messages to determine if the text message is for someone in your department or from dispatch.

Click the “No Phone Number” button to bring up a popup allowing you to select your departments private text number.

Step 3

Once you’ve selected your country from the drop down the Phone Numbers table below will populate with numbers to choose. Select the number you want to use as your departments private text number. Note that these numbers most likely won’t be in your area code, but long distance charges don’t apply to text messages only voice calls.

Step 4

Once you have selected your number, supply inbound dispatch numbers (if you are going to use Text-To-Call with Text Command) and select your inbound dispatch message type. If your type is not listed you can use the Generic type, or contact us to create a type for you.

Step 5

Each Text Command user of Resgrid will need to supply their Mobile Number that they will be sending Text Commands from. This is how Resgrid will know what person each command is coming from. Their mobile number, and carrier are required. If your carrier isn’t listed contact us and we will get it added for you. They should also ensure that the Text/SMS checkboxes are enabled for both Message and Call options. Each user can configure their own profile in Resgrid or a department or group admin (if the users are in a station group) can configure their users for them.

Text Commands

Here is a list of the text commands we support and what the result will be when you text that command to Resgrid. These are just the commands we are launching with, there will be many more added in the future.

Text Command	Short Command	Area	Result
responding	1	Status	Sets user status to Responding
notresponding	2	Status	Sets user status to Not Responding
onscene	3	Status	Sets user status to On Scene
available	4	Status	Sets user status to Available
normal	s1	Staffing	Sets user staffing to Normal\Available
delayed	s2	Staffing	Sets user staffing to Delayed Response
unavailable	s3	Staffing	Sets user staffing to Unavailable
committed	s4	Staffing	Sets user staffing to Committed
onshift	s5	Staffing	Sets user staffing to On Shift
help		General	Text back commands to user

You will receive text message reply’s and confirmations from Resgrid from a different number, so they won’t be threaded in your text/sms client. In the future we will work on having those all route thorough the same number. We are very exited to add this support to Resgrid and extend Resgrid to first responder organizations that otherwise might not be able to get the most out of the system.