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Enhanced 911 (US Only)

Introduction​

E911 (Enhanced 911) is a service that automatically provides emergency responders with the caller’s phone number and the registered physical location when dialing 911 from your contact center system. This is crucial for ensuring timely and accurate response in emergency situations.

When enabled, contact centre agents in NEONNOW configure their current address upon login, and should update it following a physical change in location. Amazon Connect allows for testing of this 911 functionality via a test number 933.

Configuration​

NEONNOW Admin, under Instance\Agents, toggle on the ‘Enhanced Emergency Calling’ feature.

This will enable the address collection functionality for agents:

  • Agents will be able to set & update their address under ‘preferences’
  • The agent’s address will be retrievable via a Lambda functional that should be called via the Outbound Whisper Flow associated with the agents, as detailed below

Outbound Whisper Flow Setup​

Overview​

To utilize Amazon Connect’s in-built E911 functionality, the user’s address must be set to the Contact Attribute ‘CivicAddress’ in a very specific format. For an overview, please see Amazon’s guide here.

In addition, the address should be formatted and verified to ensure it matches the standard PSAP address keys. This is done within NEONNOW when the agent saves their address so there is no need to check this within the Outbound Whisper flow.

Configuring the Flow​

Carry out the following steps to retrieve and set the agent address:

  1. Set Logging, if this aligns to your requirements

  2. Add a ‘Check contact attributes’ block, to check ‘Customer endpoint address equals 911 or 933

  3. If there is a match, connect a Lambda function - the Lambda endpoint will be specified within NEONNOW Admin as shown below: alt text

  4. Following the Lambda invocation, set a Contact Attribute ‘CivicAddress' to the value of $.External.location. Note, in addition, $.External.statusCode can be used to check for a valid return (200).

The following screenshot shows a sample end to end flow: alt text

Saving the Address​

Where the Agent’s address is not set, the following screen will appear for the agent upon login: alt text

Once the address is entered, the agent should select ‘Save’ to store the location. ‘Skip' will delay agent location entry until the next login. If the Agent’s address is not validated, the following error will occur - review the address and try again.

Note - the full Street Name must be used - i.e. ‘Main Street’, not ‘Main St’. alt text

At any point, agents can access and set their address via Preferences/My Location.

Testing​

To test the E911 address configuration, once the above steps are completed, dial 993 from the configured agent’s NEONNOW dialpad. If configured correctly, Amazon Connect will readback that the number is ‘Enabled for 911’. It will also read out the address. If there are issues, check the Contact Flow log to debug.