Emergency Locations

In North America, a system is used to automatically provide the caller's location to 911 dispatchers. The 911 dispatcher's comupter receives information from the telephone company about the physical address or geographic coordinates of the caller. This information is used to dispatch police, fire, medical and other services as needed. There are two methods to update emergency locations at RingCentral. Method 1 outlines how emergency locations are set today. However, the process for setting emergency locations is changing and method 2 should be used in the future once the feature is enabled. Keep reading to find out more.

Method 1: Update Location by Device

Setting the emergency address allows you to enter your physical location with a discrete address. This method is via update device.

Example Request

PUT /restapi/v1.0/account/~/device/<deviceId>

{
  "emergency": {
    "address": {
      "street":"997 BAKER WAY",
      "city":"SAN MATEO",
      "zip":"94404",
      "customerName":"RingCentral",
      "state":"CA",
      "country":"US"
    }
  }
}

Using the example above, updating the emergency.address updates both the emergency.address and the emergencyServiceAddress objects.

Method 2: Update Emergency Response Location

Another way to set emergency locations is through the Emergency Response Locations API. Instead of having to enter a discrete address each time you change locations, you can create location profiles for users to easily select their emergency location from a drop down list.

Checking to see if ERLs are enabled for your account

A feature will be set on the account to determine if Emergencey Response Locations (ERL) are enabled. Use the following method to check if this feature is enabled on the account:

Request

GET /restapi/v1.0/account/~/extension/~/features?featureId=NewEmergencyCallingFramework

Response

{
  "id" : "NewEmergencyCallingFramework",
  "available" : true,
  "params":[
    {
        "name":"maxNumberOfCompanyERLs",
        "value":"10000"
    },
    {
        "name":"maxNumberOfPrivateERLsForSingleUser",
        "value":"20"
    }
  ]
}

If the NewEmergencyCallingFramework feature is set to true. This means you can not set the discrete emergency address (street, city, country, etc) directly and must use the ERL flow instead.

Also, the parameters seen in this response have a particular meaning for Emergency Response Locations.

Set Company Wide Emergency Locations

Company wide emergency response locations are public locations available to all users on the company account.

Example

POST /restapi/v1.0/account/~/emergency-locations

{
  "name": "San Mateo Office Location",
  "address":
  {
    "street":"997 BAKER WAY",
    "street2":"5001",
    "city":"SAN MATEO",
    "state":"CA",
    "country":"US",
    "zip":"94404",
    "customerName":"RingCentral"
  },
  "visibility":"Public"
}

Please see the API Reference for more details.

Set user-specific emergency locations

User specific emergency response locations are private locations for use by the uesr (extension) only.

Example

POST /restapi/v1.0/account/~/extension/~/emergency-locations

{
  "name": "My work location",
  "address":
  {
    "street":"997 BAKER WAY",
    "street2":"5001",
    "city":"SAN MATEO",
    "state":"CA",
    "country":"US",
    "zip":"94404",
    "customerName":"RingCentral"
  }
}

Please see the API Reference for more details.