In this blog, we will walk through key considerations and steps for implementing Critical Event Management.
For the steps below we are logged in as an admin role:
1. Set up your locations
Locations will be used to report where a critical event is occurring.
Ex. ServiceNow Waltham
Navigate to (cmn_location)
Add any location that you see if missing by clicking new and/or you can edit an existing location.
Tips / Notes:
- Utilize the mass import feature if you need to mass import locations Docs link
- Location hierarchy is honored within the CEM application. So if there are parent and child relationships ensure you follow that here. (see image below). This mean that each critical event location should have its own record unless you want the same message and response across each location. For example, if affected location is set to SF all child locations (Campus A, Campus B, BLD A, BLD B, Floor 1 – 20) and the impacted people in all the child locations will be assumed to be impacted. If only a specific location is required, then that specific location should be associated with the impacted location. This is why location hierarchy is very important during implementation.
On the location record, adding the latitude and longitude for each of the locations will provide a visual map representation of the location in the CEM workspace for customer utilizing the Google Maps API.
2. Add on-site responder groups and map to locations
As part of critical event response for the workflow, customers often have dedicated employee volunteers or individuals whose role is to assist employees in the event of an emergency. These on-site responders can perform tasks such as capturing headcount, navigating employees to the emergency exits, and communicating with employees in person.
These steps will outline how to align groups of onsite responders to locations.
Ex. Creating a group of on-site responders for the ServiceNow Waltham Office
Navigate to User Administration > Groups
Tip: Align the names of your on-site responder groups to office locations
Add the on-site responder groups that you would like to create for the locations in your organization. Then for each group add:
- The roles for the group (sn_critical.responder)
- All group members that will be a part of the onsite responder group
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Note: The group members added to this group will be the employees who will have access to CEM portal and be able to complete roll call in the event of a critical event.
Once you have the on-site responder group set up. Map the on-site responder group to the appropriate location:
- Navigate to Critical Event Management > Responder Group Mapping
- Click New
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Responder Group Mapping list. This will show all the mapped groups to the locations. |
Map the responder group to the location |
Completing this mapping will ensure that the on-site responder groups are automatically populated in the CEM workspace based on the Affected Location field value.
3. Ensure users (employee and on-site responder) location is accurate and updated
Once a Critical Event has been activated, an employee’s location from their sys_user will be used to add them to the impacted people list.
To ensure that employees are accounted for in the event of an emergency, double check that your sys_user records have a location populated.
Navigate to (sys_user)
Ensure that the user location is accurate. Accuracy of this location field is important for a few reasons:
- The Critical Event location field dictates which employees will be automatically included in the impacted people list.
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CEM Workspace Location Field (Affected location is ServiceNow Atlanta) |
Impacted People List (User Location is ServiceNow Atlanta and any child locations) |
- If the user is an On-site responder, they will see impacted people in their roll call based on their location for an active emergency. This allows the on-site responder to focus on the impacted people in their location / area that they are assigned.
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On-site responder user at Location ServiceNow Atlanta |
On-Site responder CEM portal experience to complete roll call at location |
4. Map for contextual sidebar map (Optional)
For customers with a Google Maps License, Critical Event Management has a property to enable google maps in the workspace.
Note: For customers wishing to use this property, you would need to purchase the license through google
- Critical Event Management > Properties
- Navigate to Critical Event Management System Properties
- Google Map Component Properties
- Enter in your Google API key
The Google Map API will showcase a map visual in the contextual sidebar within the Critical Event Management record. The map visual will pull from the cmn_location longitude and latitude and the reported location of the critical event.
If the API key is missing and/or the location information is incomplete no map will be visible.
5. Setting up communication plans, tasks, recipients and channels
Critical Event Communications Management provides a framework for defining and managing a communication process for any emergency. It helps you to streamline a communication process by creating designated incident communication plans for effective communication during an event.
The communication plan, with its defined tasks, helps you to focus on resolving the current issue instead of deciding when to send a communication, what information to share, and whom to inform.
After defining the task and channel for communication, you can define the contacts or the target audience to be contacted for each task.
After a communication plan is defined, the plan gets associated with the appropriate task table based on the conditions defined. Thereafter, the tasks defined in the plan get executed sequentially and stakeholders are contacted as defined in the plan.
OOB there are 5 communication plans for customers to help send out communications. Navigate to Critical Event Management > Communication Plan Definitions
Create new communication plan and/or edit the existing communication plan.
Clicking into an existing communication plan you can:
- Edit / add / remove tasks associated with the plan.
- Edit / add / remove the recipient list to who the communication will be sent out to. The CEM application will dynamically pull in all impacted people associated with the location. The admin is able to edit the recipient list if there are another requirement.
Clicking into the communication tasks, you can edit information about the communication task like: Name, description, frequency and communication channels (SMS via Twilio configuration and Email for MVP).
Each communication plan also has a communication contact definition which defines the recipient list (who the communication will be sent out to) for the tasks.
OOB we are providing some pre-configured recipient lists:
- All impacted people: All impacted people associated with critical event
- Impacted people Accounted: Based on users who have status “Accounted”
- Impacted people Need Help: Based on users who have status “Need Help”
- Impacted people Unknown: Based on users who have status “Unknown”
- On-Site Responders: All on-site responders associated with critical event location
Admin can add contact definitions via via, groups or recipient list.
With a recipient list admin is able to script a dynamic condition or upload a file of users.
An admin can setup the communication plan to makes communication and collaboration process smoother and brings a quicker resolution of the issue for the agent working the critical event.
In the workspace the agent can see these predefined plans the associated tasks and send out the communication as already predefined for any event.
If none of these plans and tasks are appropriate the agent is also able to create a new ad hoc communication to any recipients, they choose.
6. Changing and setting up email and SMS templates and responses.
To change the email templates and create your own templates for the different response channels (currently only Email and SMS).
Note: SMS requires a Twilio license. For more information on setting up Twilio refer to the links below:
Docs
Support
Email Templates:
Email templates can be predefined for the communications by navigating to All > Email Client Templates. Clicking this will take you to the list of templates. You can search for the email templates associated with the Critical Event Communication Tasks table. These email templates can be edited, added and removed per customer needs.
SMS Templates:
SMS templates can be predefined
All > notify_sms_template.list
This will direct you to the list of the SMS templates list that can be edited, added and removed per customer needs.
SMS response can be predefined by navigating to:
All > Decision Builder
This will open the workflow studio where you will search for the Critical Event Management People Response Policy
Here you will be able to configure what response leads to what outcome in the impacted people list in the workspace.
SMS responses will be stored in the impacted people list (based on the response choices) inputted in the decision table – see above. These responses choices and results can be configured by the customer based on their preferences.
