On February 16, 2018, Kari’s Law became effective in the United States, requiring multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) to allow dialing 911 without a prefix and to provide a notification that 911 has been dialed. Genesys Cloud Voice’s E911 feature supports the Kari’s Law requirements as long as you have these two things in place:

  1. Security desk email address
  2. The physical location address
Note: If you are using a Bring Your Own Carrier (BYOC Cloud or BYOC Premises) telephony connection option, you must check with your carrier for details on how they are implementing Kari’s Law. For more information, see Set up emergency services with BYOC.

No prefix required

Kari’s law requires direct dialing of 911 without having to dial a prefix, such as 9 or 0, when dialing out. No additional steps are required by customers when dialing 911 in Genesys Cloud Voice.

911 notifications

Kari’s Law requires that a notification is sent to a central location, such as a security office or a front desk, for an MLTS to rapidly dispatch assistance or first-aid, either through a phone call, email, or text message. The intention of the notification is for a designated person to be made aware of an emergency.

Configuration

Genesys Cloud Voice supports these notifications based on the physical location address. You configure the physical location address in the Location Details page. To configure these settings and ensure that your Genesys Cloud Voice implementation is compliant with Kari’s Law (United States only), contact Genesys Cloud Voice support and provide the following information: 

  • Summary of your request
  • Your OrgID
  • Full location address – this requirement is only applicable for United States addresses. Notification is not supported for Canadian addresses. 
  • Email or email as text notification list of addresses to notify in case of emergency (for example user.name@gmail.com, 5551234567@txt.att.net, or carrier addresses such as AT&T: number@txt.att.net (SMS), T-Mobile: number@tmomail.net (SMS), or Verizon: number@vtext.com (SMS)).
Notes:
  • You can register a maximum of 100 notification addresses with each location.
  • If you have many notification targets, consider asking your email administrator to create an email distribution list and then submit only that distribution list email to Genesys Cloud Voice support for registration. Using a distribution list allows you to retain control over who receives notifications and removes the need to resubmit in the event of any personnel changes.
  • The full address must be provided exactly as configured in the Admin UI for this location.