Review your alerting workflows: Find weaknesses before an emergency

A successful alert drill means more than: The message arrived

The simplest functional check looks like this:

Trigger an alert. Confirm that the message arrives. Done.

For a technical check, that may be enough.

But it does not tell you whether your organization would actually be ready to respond during an emergency.

A complete alerting workflow involves several steps:

• Was the alert triggered as intended?
• Did the right people receive it?
• Did they notice it in time?
• Were they able to respond?
• Was it clear who would take responsibility?
• Did the escalation work when nobody responded?
• Did everyone know what to do next?

Only when these questions can be answered have you reviewed the actual alerting process, not just the technology.

What an alert drill often reveals

Small inconsistencies may seem harmless during normal operations. During a drill, they can suddenly become important.

1. The wrong people receive the alert

Employees change roles. Teams are reorganized. On-call responsibilities change. Responsibilities are reassigned.

But the alerting plan has not been updated for months.

An alert drill may reveal that:

• former responsible employees are still being alerted
• new employees are missing
• no backup person has been assigned
• a recipient group no longer reflects the actual organization

An alerting plan should not be something that is created once and then forgotten.

Changes within the organization also need to be reflected in the alerting workflow.

2. The alert is not noticed in time

A message may be technically delivered without being noticed quickly enough.

This can be particularly relevant in industry and manufacturing, where employees may work across production areas, shifts and different locations. Someone else is in a meeting. A phone is not nearby. A field employee is on the road.

Situations like these show why relying on a single communication channel can be risky.

Combining different alerting channels can help improve reachability. Depending on the scenario, employees can be reached through an alert app, SMS, phone calls, email or desktop notifications.

An alert drill can show whether the selected channels actually fit the working environment of the intended recipients.

3. The response does not provide enough information

An alert is sent and five people select “Acknowledge.”

At first, that sounds positive.

But what does that acknowledgment actually mean?

“I have read the message”?

“I am available”?

“I will handle it”?

“I am already on my way”?

Depending on the scenario, a simple acknowledgment may not provide enough information.

A drill is a good opportunity to check whether the available response options actually help coordinate the next steps.

4. Nobody feels responsible

Several people receive the same alert.

Everyone gets the message.

And yet, nobody takes action.

The reason may be very simple: everyone assumes somebody else will handle it.

Adding more recipients does not solve that problem.

It needs to be clear what response is expected and how those coordinating the incident can see that someone has actually taken responsibility.

We look at this problem in more detail in our article “What happens if no one responds to an alert?”.

5. Escalation works differently than expected

For technical disruptions, a scenario might look like this:

• The on-call team is alerted first.
• If nobody responds within five minutes, the next group is automatically notified.
• The drill then shows whether this process actually works in practice.

Maybe five minutes is too long.

Maybe the time window is too short.

Maybe the next group receives the alert, but nobody understands why the escalation occurred.

Or perhaps the designated backup person is also unavailable.

Questions like these are much easier to answer during a drill than during an actual incident.

6. The technology works, but the process after the alert does not

This can happen as well:

• Everyone receives the alert.
• The response options work.
• Recipients react.
• And then uncertainty begins.
• Who coordinates the response?
• Who informs additional people?
• Who documents what happened?
• Which role is responsible for which task?
• When is the scenario considered closed?

An alert drill should therefore not stop exactly where the alerting system has completed its technical task.

For important scenarios, it is worth reviewing at least part of what happens next.

What should you review during an alert drill?

A useful drill does not need to be complicated.

It is often enough to observe a few key areas systematically.

Reachability

• Did all intended recipients receive the alert?
• Which channels reached them?
• Were there noticeable delays?
• Did the selected channels fit their actual working conditions?

Response

• How many people responded?
• How long did it take to receive the first useful response?
• Were the response options clear?
• Could you tell who had actually taken responsibility?

Escalation

• Did the next escalation step start as planned?
• Were designated backup people reachable?
• Were the escalation times realistic?

Responsibilities

• Did recipients understand why they were being alerted?
• Was it clear who was responsible for what?
• Were there duplicate or conflicting reactions?

What happened next

• Did participants know what should happen after their response?
• Were the necessary information and documents available?
• Was it clear when the drill or incident could be considered complete?

This turns a simple technical check into a review of the actual alerting workflow.

Scheduled or unannounced alert drill?

Both can be useful.

A scheduled alert drill

A scheduled drill is especially useful when a new process has just been introduced or employees are still becoming familiar with an alerting system.

Participants know that a drill is taking place and can focus on understanding the workflow.

This makes it easier to explain alerting channels, response options and responsibilities before reviewing the process together.

An unannounced alert drill

An unannounced drill can provide a more realistic picture of how the workflow performs during normal operations.

Are the intended recipients actually reachable?

Will someone notice the alert while they are in a meeting?

Do employees immediately know how to respond?

Of course, an unannounced drill must be clearly identifiable as an exercise, and its design needs to fit the organization, the scenario and internal requirements.

The more realistic the drill, the more likely it is to reveal weaknesses that might remain hidden during a simple scheduled functional check.

Practical example: Turning an alerting plan into a real drill

A good example comes from Wilhelma in Stuttgart.

As part of an exercise, an animal escape was simulated. The goal was not simply to check whether an alert could be sent. The organization wanted to see whether the prepared processes would actually work in practice.

Exercises like this show the difference between a process that looks good on paper and one that is actually carried out.

A similar principle applies to evacuation drills: only when people go through the process in practice does it become clear whether alerting, responsibilities and the response of those involved actually work together.

Realistic drills can reveal whether:

• the right people are reached
• responsibilities work as intended
• response options are clear
• important information is available quickly enough
• the prepared process fits the actual situation

Not every organization needs a large-scale emergency exercise.

The same principle can also be applied to much smaller alerting scenarios.

The real improvement starts after the alert drill

An alert drill provides little value if the only conclusion afterward is:

“The test was successful.”

The deviations are often much more useful.

Who was reached too late?

Which response option was unclear?

Which recipient group was incorrect?

Where were there delays?

Which question did employees have to clarify during the drill?

Those are the findings that lead to improvement.

A simple process could look like this:

1. Run the alert drill
2. Review responses and response times
3. Discuss issues with the people involved
4. Adjust recipients, response options or escalations
5. Review the workflow again after major changes

That is how an alerting process becomes more reliable over time.

How often should alerting workflows be reviewed?

There is no single interval that is right for every organization.

How often a review makes sense depends on factors such as how critical the scenario is, how frequently responsibilities change and how familiar employees are with the process.

An additional review is particularly useful when:

• a new alerting system has been introduced
• new scenarios have been created
• teams or responsibilities have changed
• new locations or employees have been added
• an actual incident revealed weaknesses
• an existing workflow has been significantly changed

For especially important scenarios, organizations should also consider whether regular drills should be part of their overall emergency preparedness.

Five questions for your next alert drill

After your next drill, you should be able to answer five questions:

1. Did the right people actually receive the alert?
2. How quickly did you receive a useful response?
3. Was it clear who was taking responsibility?
4. Did the planned escalation work?
5. Did participants know what to do after the alert?

If one of these questions cannot be answered clearly, the drill has already shown you something valuable.

It has revealed a weakness before that weakness can become a problem during a real emergency.

Prepare and review alerting workflows with safeREACH

With safeREACH, companies and organizations can prepare different alerting scenarios in advance.

Recipients, alerting channels, individual response options, backup contacts and escalation steps can be configured to match the scenario.

During an alert drill, this makes it possible to see more than whether a message was sent successfully. Those responsible can also review how intended recipients respond and whether the prepared workflow works in practice.

This helps organizations identify weaknesses and improve their alerting processes before they are needed in a real emergency.

Test safeREACH with your own alerting scenarios

An alert drill helps you review how well an existing alerting workflow performs in practice.

If you want to see how your own alerting scenarios can be set up with safeREACH, you can test the system free of charge.

Create your own recipients and scenarios, trigger alerts, and see how responses and escalation steps work within your organization.