COVID-19 has turned much of the normality that we know and understand right on its head. As a result, business plans, technology strategies, and ways of working have changed and evolved for many organisations.
ServiceNow, like many other technology providers, looked at ways to assist organisations through this time of need and implemented applications to help the workplace and wider community manage the rapidly evolving challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response to the current circumstances, ServiceNow released a set of 4 capabilities deemed as Emergency Response Applications. The core purpose is to drive engagement, awareness, and resource optimisation as we all come to grips with COVID-19. The apps have been released free of charge to current customers and ServiceNow also provided options for organisations not currently using the platform the opportunity to leverage these capabilities.
AC3, a Premier ServiceNow Partner, is already helping some of our customers utilise the capabilities in the Emergency Response Application suite which includes the following:
Emergency Self Report
This app helps an employee notify their employer that they are self‑quarantined and when the employee will return to work. The app provides workflow support for the employer. Reporting is conducted via the Service Portal. Workflows can be established to drive action on the back of status changes provided by an employee. Native ServiceNow reporting capabilities provide insight across the enterprise on the health status of all staff with the ability to sort and drill down accordingly.
- Provides employees a convenient way to notify of illness or exposure.
- Enables managers, HR, and response teams to take appropriate actions through workflow driven action.
- Helps employees notify employers when they can safely return to work based on health status.
Emergency Response Operations
Washington State’s Department of Health, a ServiceNow customer, initially created the Emergency Response Operations app on the Now Platform to manage their own response to COVID‑19. Working with ServiceNow, the Department of Health is making the app available to all government entities at no charge. This app allows public agencies and other organizations to optimise staff and resources to support emergency response.
- Digitise critical workflows to improve speed and accuracy of response efforts
- Optimise resourcing based on function, need and location for critical response efforts
- Simplify role assignment and resource activation during incident planning
Emergency Outreach
During a crisis, this app leverages the Now Platform to help companies connect with employees to assess the impact. Employers can reach out by email to provide information and safety measures and request a response to confirm if employees are safe and where they are located. Employers can also leverage the ServiceNow Now Mobile App to send push notifications to employees via mobile to get response.
The ability to report on response rates and types of responses is also supported via dashboards across the enterprise.
- Stay connected with employees via email or mobile push notification
- Share important information regarding emergency and safety measures
- Ask employees to report their status and locations
Emergency Exposure Management
When a company becomes aware that its employee is diagnosed with an illness, this app helps the employer identify other people who might have been exposed based on the employee’s meetings history and job location.
The workflow of this application supports tracing contacts between employees and co-workers after they have notified of an illness. The goal is to ascertain whether other employees are at risk of being exposed.
- Expedite containment by encouraging prompt precautions
- Automatically extract location and contact information for affected employees
- Export lists for follow-up
If you would like to understand the applications in greater detail and how it will help accelerate your crisis response, please reach out!