Regroup helps keep our staff safe

In addition to using Regroup to alert staff when there is an incident requiring the use of safety protocols, we use Regroup as a way for our staff to alert their teams when they are going out and returning from the field. This is a very helpful, especially when staff are not returning to the office after being in the field.

Pros

Regroup is easy to access, and a quick and easy way to alert staff when an incident is happening and to use safety protocols to enter or leave the building.

Cons

The fact that new users have to create an account on the computer before being able to log into the mobile app, it would be more convenient to be able to do it all from the mobile app.

Regrouping the Students

Overall we'd had a great experience! We use the system for critical messaging, and have used it more than once to respond to weather events, campus risks, and other safety notifications to the community. It's easy to use, and easy to train staff to use.

Pros

The ease of use and ability to maintain multiple lists, templates, and messages to engage with our faculty, staff, and student community is excellent. The price point compared to similar services is excellent and the support beyond setup is exceptional.

Cons

The initial setup was tough, and it felt like the team was very much on their own trying to get imports set up to do the things we needed to do.

Reveiw of Regroup Online Mass Notification

Pros

Somewhat easy to use. Managed in the cloud.

Cons

We explicitly found cross data contamination. We are a community college and our local K-12 school system already was using Regroup for mass notification. When we uploaded our data and ran reports, we found incorrect data with our dual enrolled students (these are seniors taking a college class before graduating High School.) Regroup explained that because we had a record that had the same name as a record for the local school system, we were getting the wrong data. Apparently, Regroup did not have the proper digital security boundaries between our data and the K-12 data, meaning all records were being kept in the same database. Regroup then claimed they would work to correct that within the year. Unacceptable in this day and age of high Cyber Security threats.

Regroup -- Useful for mass communication

Check if your institution needs mail merge right away. From my recollection- the mail merge (importing custom fields within a csv) did not exist when we were using it.

Pros

The ability to manually upload groups that you can pull from datasets. Prepopulating groups allows for quick emergency notification generation. The texting and opt out ability for students is pretty painless. Configuring users for admin level access easy and quick. Training is easy and quick. Support is there. The texting add on /texting carrier is pretty painless to use. There doesn't seem to be an issue using them as a texting aggregate. Best cost from others at the moment, both in text and user count.

Cons

Groups can be overwritten by anyone with admin level access. Count of members in the group reflect existing contact information/contact information doesn't always accurately reflect the manual load. Shared opt out-- if individuals belong to multiple bodies using regroup, opting out of one opts out of the entire regroup platform. Support is not very effective -- long response times. Inability to understand higher level technical questions (importing custom fields). The largest drawback is the inability to mail merge, which cripples the software for customization. There supposedly an update that was scheduled to include this feature, but we had to migrate to a different mass communication system for mail merge.

Finally, an effective an easy-to-use and manage emergency messaging system

We've spent the past few months implementing this solution and are now inviting users to update their profiles. Too soon to say for sure, but it is clearly an improvement from what we previously had. We are eager to finalize user profiles and schedule a test.

Pros

Integrates with our Active Directory for automated account creation. We lacked a good data source for personal email addresses and cell numbers, but after creating the accounts we're asking users to add this information to their profiles. Not finished yet, but it seems easy-peasy.

Cons

We struggled with some questions during the initial configuration, but slowly figured out the online resources available and the value they provide. Being on the East coast, we had to adapt to the West coast timing for scheduled meetings, but not a big deal.