Broadcasts & Alerts App Overview
Reach every employee on every channel a phone or browser can touch—Broadcasts deliver ack-tracked formal announcements with rich media, comments, A/B variants, and analytics, while Alerts handle emergency multi-channel dispatch with “I’m safe / Need help” muster roll-call and live delivery rollups.
What is the Broadcasts & Alerts App?
Broadcasts & Alerts is the workforce-native urgent-communication platform. It combines two complementary tools under one audience picker and one incident dashboard:
- Broadcasts — formal, company-wide announcements (policy changes, company updates, compliance reading) with acknowledgment tracking, threaded comments, emoji reactions, scheduling, and detailed analytics.
- Alerts — emergency dispatch (severe weather, lockdown, IT outage) sent across in-app, email, push, SMS, voice, and digital signage, with safety check-in roll-call and per-recipient delivery rollups.
Core Value Proposition:
- 📢 Multi-Channel Delivery — Reach employees via in-app, email, mobile push, SMS, automated voice, and digital signage—simultaneously
- ✅ Acknowledgment Tracking — Require employees to confirm they’ve read critical messages, with automated reminders and escalation
- 🆘 Safety Muster Roll-Call — During emergencies, employees respond “I’m safe” or “Need help” and you watch the rollup live
- 📊 Live Delivery & Engagement Analytics — Per-channel, per-recipient delivery receipts plus view, ack, and reaction breakdowns
- 🤖 AI-Assisted Composition — Draft, rewrite, translate, and time messages with built-in AI agents
At a Glance
| 📊 Designed For | 🔗 Delivery Channels | 🤖 AI Agents | 📱 Mobile Ready |
|---|---|---|---|
| Internal Comms · Security Ops · Crisis Mgmt | 6 (in-app, email, push, SMS, voice, signage) | 2 (Help + Admin) | ✅ Yes |
Perfect For:
- 🏢 Internal Communications teams — Ack-tracked company-wide broadcasts with engagement analytics
- 🛡️ Security Operations & Crisis Management — Emergency alerts with muster roll-call and live delivery rollups
- 👥 HR & People teams — Compliance reading with required acknowledgment and automated reminders
How It Works
Broadcast Lifecycle
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ BROADCAST LIFECYCLE │
├───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌───────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │
│ │ DRAFT │───▶│SCHEDULED │───▶│ PUBLISHED │───▶│ ARCHIVED │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ Compose, │ │ One-off │ │ Recipient │ │ Auto or │ │
│ │ pick │ │ or │ │ snapshot │ │ manual │ │
│ │ audience │ │ recurring│ │ frozen, │ │ archival │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ notifs │ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ │ │ dispatched│ │ │ │
│ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └───────────┘ └──────────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│
│ │ ENGAGEMENT TRACKING ││
│ ├──────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┬────────────────────┤│
│ │ Views │ Reactions │ Comments │ Acknowledgments ││
│ │ tracked │ 👍❤️😄😢😮🎉👏✅│ threaded, │ required or ││
│ │ per user │ one/user │ moderated │ optional + reminds││
│ └──────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴────────────────────┘│
│ │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Alert (Emergency Dispatch) Flow
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ALERT DISPATCH FLOW │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ┌────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌──────┐ ┌───────────┐ │
│ │ DRAFT │──▶│ (APPROVE)│──▶│ SENDING │──▶│ SENT │──▶│ COMPLETED │ │
│ └────────┘ └──────────┘ └────┬────┘ └──────┘ └───────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ Fan-out resolves audience │ → materializes per-recipient, │
│ per-channel delivery grid │ then dispatches each channel │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌───────┐ ┌───────┐ ┌──────┐ ┌─────┐ ┌───────┐ ┌──────────┐ │
│ │In-App │ │ Email │ │ Push │ │ SMS │ │ Voice │ │ Signage │ │
│ └───────┘ └───────┘ └──────┘ └─────┘ └───────┘ └──────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ MUSTER CHECK-IN: "I'm safe" / │ │
│ │ "Need help" → live rollup grid │ │
│ └─────────────────────────────────────┘ │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Integration Ecosystem
┌─────────────────────┐
│ BROADCASTS & ALERTS │
└──────────┬──────────┘
│
┌──────────────┬─────────────────┼──────────────┬───────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
┌───────────┐ ┌────────────┐ ┌────────────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌─────────────┐
│ Comms Hub │ │ Drive │ │ Digital Signage│ │ Inbound │ │ Notification│
│ Audiences │ │attachments │ │ screen feed │ │ Webhooks │ │ preferences │
└───────────┘ └────────────┘ └────────────────┘ └──────────┘ └─────────────┘
one audience media files alerts/news on Datadog / quiet hours,
picker shared on broadcasts token portal PagerDuty → per-channel
across both & comments screens auto-draft toggles
Key Features
📢 Broadcast Creation & Management
Create, edit, and manage company announcements through a full draft → published → archived lifecycle.
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| Create / Save Draft | Compose a broadcast with title and rich description; save without publishing |
| Publish | Push live—freezes a recipient snapshot and dispatches notifications |
| Schedule | Set a future send time; supports recurrence (daily, weekdays, weekly, monthly) |
| Edit | Modify drafts; full edit history is preserved via audit trail |
| Archive / Delete | Move published broadcasts to archived (manual or automatic); remove drafts |
| Bulk Actions | Archive, delete, or publish multiple broadcasts at once |
Broadcast Options (set at compose time):
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| Mark as Critical | Forces delivery across channels regardless of routine preferences |
| Require Acknowledgment | Employees must explicitly confirm they’ve read the message |
| Allow Comments | Enable threaded, moderated discussion |
| Allow Reactions | Let employees react with emoji |
💡 Pro Tip: Save a frequently used announcement as a Broadcast Template (with its recipient groups baked in) so the next person can instantiate it in one click instead of rebuilding from scratch.
🆘 Emergency Alerts & Safety Muster
Alerts are purpose-built for crisis communication—separate from routine broadcasts so urgent messages cut through.
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Multi-Channel Dispatch | Send across in-app, email, push, SMS, voice, and digital signage in one action |
| Safety Check-In (Muster) | Recipients respond “I’m safe” or “Need help”; responses roll up live |
| Acknowledgment Required | Optionally require recipients to confirm receipt |
| Approval Workflow | Submit an alert for approval and withdraw approval before send |
| Cancel In-Flight | Cancel an alert that is sending or sent |
| Per-Recipient Delivery Rollup | A delivery grid tracks each recipient × channel as pending → sent / skipped / failed |
| Media Attachments | Attach images or video (e.g., evacuation maps) |
| SMS-Native Copy | A dedicated short SMS body avoids blind truncation of long messages |
Alert Lifecycle: draft → (submitted for approval) → sending → sent → completed, or cancelled at any point.
💡 Pro Tip: The check-in page is reachable directly from the alert email and push—employees can mark themselves safe without logging in, so your roll-call fills in even on personal devices.
📡 Multi-Channel Delivery & Preferences
Both broadcasts and alerts fan out through a channel dispatcher that respects employee notification settings.
| Channel | Notes |
|---|---|
| In-App | Notification feed entry, always available |
| Localized subject/body per recipient | |
| Mobile Push | Short push body, length-optimized |
| SMS | GSM-7/UCS-2 aware short body |
| Voice | Automated text-to-speech call with language/voice support |
| Digital Signage | Surfaces alerts on token-authenticated screen portals |
Preference Handling: The dispatcher honors per-channel toggles and quiet hours. Urgent alerts can override quiet hours when the business has enabled urgency override.
📅 Scheduling & Recurrence
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Schedule for Later | Pick a future date/time; a background job publishes when due |
| Recurrence | Repeat daily, on weekdays, weekly, or monthly—each occurrence spawns a child broadcast |
| Unschedule | Revert a scheduled broadcast back to draft |
✅ Acknowledgment Tracking, Reminders & Escalation
Ensure critical messages are read—and escalate when they aren’t.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Required Acknowledgment | Per-user “Acknowledge” tracking with timestamps |
| Automatic Reminders | A background job re-notifies users who haven’t acknowledged, at a configurable frequency |
| Escalating Subject Lines | Reminders progress in urgency as counts increase |
| Max Reminder Cap | Configurable ceiling per employee to prevent fatigue |
| Author Notifications | The author is emailed with a count of still-pending acknowledgments |
| Escalation Cascades | For required-ack broadcasts, progressively widen channels (in-app/email → +SMS → +voice) until the recipient views the message—viewing stops the cascade |
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ESCALATION CASCADE │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Step 1: In-App + Email │
│ ├── Viewed? ──▶ STOP (acknowledged) │
│ ▼ Wait N min │
│ Step 2: + SMS │
│ ├── Viewed? ──▶ STOP (acknowledged) │
│ ▼ Wait N min │
│ Step 3: + Voice Call │
│ └── Cascade complete │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
🧪 A/B Test Variants
Optimize how a broadcast lands by testing alternate copy.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Multiple Variants | Define variants with their own title/description and a percentage split |
| Percentage Allocation | Splits must total 100% across variants |
| Stable Assignment | Each recipient is assigned a variant and that assignment is recorded |
| Per-Variant Stats | View and acknowledgment counts are tracked per variant |
🌐 Translations
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Per-Locale Content | Broadcasts store translated title/body; alerts store translated title/body/SMS body |
| AI Translate | Generate translations from the composer |
| Pre-Generated at Send | A background job materializes alert translations across locales so delivery is instant |
| Localized Delivery | Each recipient sees content in their language; staleness is flagged when the source changes |
📎 Rich Media & Attachments
| Surface | Media |
|---|---|
| Broadcasts | Hero image (AI-generated or uploaded) + Drive file attachments |
| Comments | Drive attachments on discussion replies |
| Alerts | Images / video attachments |
💬 Comments & 😀 Reactions
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Threaded Comments | Parent/child replies for organized discussion |
| Auto-Moderation | Optional content moderation flags/redacts before posting |
| Soft Delete | Removed comments are hidden but retained for audit |
| Emoji Reactions | One active reaction per user: 👍 ❤️ 😄 😢 😮 🎉 👏 ✅ (toggle to change/remove) |
🌍 External Sharing
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Token-Based Public Link | Each broadcast can be shared via a unique, secure token |
| Branded Public Page | External viewers see a no-login page using business branding |
| Anonymous View Tracking | External views increment the broadcast’s view counter |
🤖 AI Agents
Two agents are available through the Ask AI sidebar.
| Agent | Role | Example Capabilities |
|---|---|---|
| Help Agent (read-only) | Reporting for all users | List recent alerts/broadcasts, acknowledgment summary, list pending acks, muster status, diagnose why a person wasn’t a recipient, predict ack rate |
| Admin Agent (write, confirmation-gated) | Author & dispatch | Compose an alert or broadcast, send an alert now, cancel an alert, withdraw approval, summarize an incident |
AI-Assisted Composition (in the composer): body rewrite, generate-from-brief, translate, suggest A/B variants, generate hero image, generate channel-native copy, and recommend an optimal send time.
💡 Pro Tip: Ask the Help Agent “Why didn’t ** get the alert?" before you re-send—per-recipient diagnostics often reveal a quiet-hours skip or a missing phone number rather than a delivery failure.
🔌 Inbound Monitoring Webhooks
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Monitoring → Auto-Draft | Inbound webhooks (e.g., Datadog) can auto-draft an alert from a monitoring event |
| Review Before Send | Auto-drafts are never auto-sent—an admin reviews and dispatches |
📊 Analytics & Insights
Per-Broadcast:
- View count and unique viewers
- Acknowledgment count and rate
- Reaction breakdown by type
- Comment count and unique commenters
- Per-channel delivery and escalation stats
- CSV export of per-recipient data (name, email, department, location, view/ack status, reminders)
Aggregate (Admin Dashboard):
- Totals by status, total/average views, unique viewers
- Acknowledgment and engagement rates
- Reminders sent, per-channel notification volume
- Monthly broadcast trend
Alert Rollups:
- Per-recipient × per-channel delivery status
- Muster check-in tally (safe / needs help)
AI Insights: acknowledgment-rate prediction, send-timing recommendations, delivery diagnostics, and post-incident summaries.
🔔 Notifications
| Type | Trigger |
|---|---|
| New broadcast | A broadcast is published to a recipient |
| Acknowledgment reminder | A required-ack broadcast remains unacknowledged |
| Author reminder summary | Sent to the author with pending-ack counts |
| Emergency alert | An alert is dispatched, with check-in buttons |
User Roles & Permissions
| Role | Capabilities |
|---|---|
| Employee | View targeted broadcasts/alerts, acknowledge, comment, react, respond to safety check-ins, view on mobile |
| Manager | All employee capabilities + create/publish broadcasts (if permitted), view own broadcast stats |
| HR/Admin | Create/publish/archive broadcasts, compose & dispatch alerts, view analytics, manage app settings |
| System Admin | All admin capabilities + global system alert settings and escalation configuration |
Manager create/publish rights are governed by business-level permission settings; alert dispatch can require an approval step.
App Settings & Configuration
| Setting | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Audience fatigue lookback / threshold | Warn at publish time when an audience has received too many broadcasts in a window (defaults: 7 days / 3 broadcasts) |
| Weekly AI-drafted check-in | For silent tenants, AI drafts a routine check-in for admin review (never auto-published); default off |
| Auto-archive period | Automatically archive broadcasts after a configured number of weeks |
| Comment moderation & auto-close | Enable moderation; auto-close comment threads past a threshold |
| Acknowledgment reminder frequency & max | Tune reminder cadence and cap |
| Escalation steps | Define ordered channel/wait steps at the business level |
| Manager permissions | Allow managers to create and/or publish |
| External sharing | Allow broadcasts to be shared externally |
| System alert settings | Global recipients, thresholds, and a test-alert action (System Admin) |
⚠️ Note: Broadcasts & Alerts is a licensed app that is disabled by default. An administrator must enable it for your tenant before it appears.
How We Compare
MangoApps Workforce uniquely unifies formal internal comms and emergency mass notification in one app, on one platform with the rest of your workforce tools. Dedicated point solutions specialize in one half.
| Capability | MangoApps Workforce | AlertMedia | Everbridge | Staffbase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emergency multi-channel dispatch | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ⚡ |
| Two-way safety check-in / muster | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Voice call delivery | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Ack-tracked formal broadcasts | ✅ | ⚡ | ⚡ | ✅ |
| A/B variants + engagement analytics | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Built-in AI compose / agents | ✅ | ⚡ | ⚡ | ⚡ |
| Unified with HR / scheduling / intranet | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ⚡ |
| Legend: ✅ Included | ❌ Not Available | ⚡ Limited / partial |
Why MangoApps Workforce?
- 🔗 One audience picker, one dashboard — Broadcasts and emergency alerts share targeting and an incident-commander view
- 💰 No separate notification SKU — Urgent comms live alongside your other workforce apps
- 🤖 AI-native — Composition, translation, ack prediction, and incident summaries are built in, not bolted on
Competitor capabilities summarized from public 2026 comparison listings; verify current details with each vendor.
Getting Started
For Employees
- Open Apps → Broadcasts & Alerts to see messages targeted to you
- Unacknowledged and critical items surface first
- Acknowledge required reading, and react/comment to engage
- During an emergency alert, tap I’m safe or Need help—no login required from the alert message
For Managers
- Click New Broadcast, write a clear title and description, attach media
- Pick your audience, choose critical / require-acknowledgment, then Schedule or Publish
- Open Analytics to see who viewed and acknowledged
For Administrators
- Compose Alerts for emergencies—select channels and enable safety check-in
- Configure escalation steps, reminder cadence, and audience-fatigue thresholds in Settings
- Use the Admin AI Agent to draft and dispatch, and the Help Agent to audit acknowledgments and muster status
- Export CSV reports for compliance and after-action review
Best Practices
- ✅ Reserve Critical and voice for genuinely urgent messages—overuse breeds alert fatigue
- ✅ Use Require Acknowledgment for compliance reading; monitor ack rate in the first 24 hours
- ✅ Target the narrowest relevant audience; heed the audience-fatigue warning at publish
- ✅ For emergencies, enable safety check-in so you get a live roll-call, not just delivery receipts
- ✅ Route monitoring webhooks to auto-drafts, but always review before dispatching
- ✅ Provide a concise SMS-native body rather than relying on truncation
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What’s the difference between a Broadcast and an Alert?
A: Broadcasts are formal, ack-tracked announcements with comments, reactions, scheduling, and analytics. Alerts are emergency dispatches optimized for urgency, with multi-channel fan-out and “I’m safe / Need help” safety check-in roll-call.
Q: How do I know who actually received an emergency alert?
A: Each alert builds a per-recipient × per-channel delivery grid (pending → sent / skipped / failed) plus a muster tally of safe / needs-help responses. The Help AI Agent can also diagnose why a specific person wasn’t reached.
Q: Can employees respond to a safety check-in without logging in?
A: Yes—the check-in page is linked directly from the alert email and push notification, so responses come in even from personal devices.
Q: Who can create and send messages?
A: Employees view, acknowledge, comment, and react. Managers can create/publish broadcasts if the business grants the permission. HR/Admins compose and dispatch alerts; alert sending can require an approval step.
Q: Will an urgent alert reach someone during their quiet hours?
A: Routine messages respect per-channel preferences and quiet hours. Urgent alerts can override quiet hours when the business has enabled urgency override.
Related Resources
- Recognition App Overview — Another engagement-driven app with analytics and an AI agent
- Forms App Overview — Pair structured data collection with broadcast follow-ups
From routine company updates to lockdown roll-call, Broadcasts & Alerts gets the right message to every employee, on every channel, with proof of who saw it—and who’s safe.