At PunchAlert, we are fortunate to work with all sorts of wonderful organizations and communities. This ranges from private and public schools and districts to colleges and universities, places of worship, YMCAs, financial institutions, government organizations and large corporate campuses. Our value proposition is the same for them all – make communication during an emergency more efficient so people can get help and safety information faster. Then something happened…. Covid-19. By the thousands, these types of organizations shut down or went remote, leaving their campuses empty. So the critical question on everyone’s mind is “How can we re-open safely?” In working closely with a handful of terrific customers, we have developed a solution called SENTRY.

The goal of Sentry is to provide any organization the ability to create a process for allowing employees or visitors to enter your campus safely without any hardware or breach of social distancing. Sentry allows you to customize the questions you need to ask every day to your community, and then optionally you can require people submit a Selfie (A Selfie is a photograph of ones self… for those of you still confused) . Why a Selfie? No, this is not Instagram. A selfie in Sentry is a terrific way to get someone to confirm that they took their own temperature (show the thermometer in the picture) or that they are wearing a mask. Once a user passes the questionnaire and submits their selfie, they get a Sentry Pass which can be scanned for validity upon entry into the building. The scans can also check people in and out as they come and go so the venue always has an accurate view of who is on campus. Here’s what one customer has to say about Sentry:

“I would like to thank the PunchAlert team for developing SENTRY! PunchAlert’s customer service has been above and beyond our expectations during the development of SENTRY. SENTRY is a tool within our University’s mass notification system. We have been an ongoing customer of Punch Alert for several years. Their ongoing response to our needs has been paramount!”

-John Hoebee, Chief of Campus Safety at Arizona Christian University

Sentry is available within PunchAlert, and it’s also available as a stand-alone product and mobile application at sentrypass.io. Whether you have 5 people or 5,000 people, Sentry is extremely simple and you can get it up and running in minutes without any training required. Give it a try today and let us know what you think. Maybe a selfie can keep your campus safe as well!

Did you know?

Other ways you can use the PunchAlert platform during the pandemic:

• Announcements – Organizations like Georgia Poison Center use PunchAlert to mass notify (via SMS among other channels) their public about updates and critical information regarding Covid-19 in the State of Georgia. Learn more or sign up here: https://www.georgiapoisoncenter.org/poisons/in-the-news/alerts-recent-trends/covid-19/
• 911+ – This critical e911 infrastructure is growing as many companies are integrating this functionality into their own products and services. A great example is our new home phone service provider Obihai (owned by Poly) where 911+ is the new official e911 provider for the service. Learn more at https://www.punchalert.com/911plus/obi
• Rescue – This water-activated panic button system will be delivered to our first YMCA customers in December and with pools open, this couldn’t be more timely. As re-openings continue and panic button regulations spread throughout many industries, we expect this hardware to be a critical component of our growth going forward. Learn more about Rescue at https://www.punchalert.com/rescue