Locate & Message: Requirements and Best Practices

This article covers the requirements and best practices for using Locate & Message. For an overview of what the feature does, see What is Locate & Message?

Requirements

What you need

1. An Administrator or Dispatcher user account.
2. Access to the Connect Rocket web app or mobile app, or the ability to start a session by text message. To start by text message, you only need the subject's phone number.

What the subject or bystander needs

To exchange text messages:

• A mobile phone that can send and receive text messages. Any text-capable phone works, smartphone or not.
• Cellular coverage or a Wi-Fi connection.

To share their location (every Locate request, including one sent partway through a Message-first session):

• A smartphone with GPS (the phone's built-in location tracking), with location services turned on.
• A data connection strong enough to load a web page. This can be mobile data or Wi-Fi. The subject opens the link in their phone's web browser.

How location refinement works

When the subject taps the Locate link, Connect Rocket asks them to keep their browser open for 120 seconds. During this time, repeated attempts are made at set intervals to refine their location as the phone's GPS gets a stronger signal.

Locate is one tool among several for establishing a subject's location. Use it alongside any other information available to you, rather than relying on it exclusively.

Best practices

• Where possible, tell the subject what to expect before you send a Locate request. Let them know a link is coming and ask them to keep their browser open after tapping it. You can do this by phone or in a text message.
• Once the 120 seconds are up and a location has been established, ask the subject to close all unnecessary apps on their phone to save battery power.
• If you start a session with a text message and you know the subject's language, set it before you send the first message.
• Practise using Locate & Message before you need it operationally, so you're familiar with the workflow on both ends of the exchange.