Lone Worker App Overview

Lone Worker

1. What it is

Lone Worker is a safety check-in and SOS escalation app for frontline workers. Workers confirm they are safe on a timed cadence; if they miss a check-in or tap the SOS button, an alert climbs an ordered responder ladder — push, SMS, and voice — until a human acknowledges it.

• Enablement: Lone Worker is a licensed, admin-enabled app. An admin turns it on from Apps Marketplace and configures at least one responder roster before it does anything.
• What it is not: Lone Worker does not track location continuously. It captures a single GPS reading at the moment an SOS is triggered, if the admin has left that setting on.

2. Standing it up

1. Go to Apps Marketplace, find Lone Worker, and enable it for your business.
2. Go to Lone Worker → Responder Rosters and create at least one roster. A roster is scoped to a site (location), a team (scheduling group), or a specific shift. Choose the scope from the grouped picker in the new-roster drawer.
3. On the roster detail page, add at least one tier. Each tier needs at least one responder and a set of notification channels (push, SMS, voice). A roster with no populated tier has nobody to notify.
4. Check-in coverage starts from a roster, not the app toggle. A worker’s shift must resolve to an active roster before check-ins arm. Enabling the app without creating a roster does nothing — no workers will be prompted.
5. Optionally, go to Check-in Schedules and create a schedule for a site or team to override the default check-in interval and grace window.
6. Go to Settings to adjust defaults (check-in interval, grace window, escalation timeout) and to turn on optional features such as location capture, Live Assist video, and Safety Hub incident handoff.
7. To confirm it works: clock a worker in on a shift at a site that has a roster. Within one check-in interval the worker will see an “I’m safe” prompt on their My Safety page and receive an Inbox notification with push. The Dashboard will show the active roster count and any live alerts.

Silent-until-paired warning: A roster scoped to a site only covers shifts at that site. A worker on a shift at a different site — or on a shift with no site at all — has no roster and will never receive a check-in. If you expected coverage and see none, verify the roster’s scope matches the shifts you are running.

Who sees what: The app sidebar has two groups. Every user with the app enabled sees the Safety group (Dashboard, My Safety, Alerts). The Manage group (Responder Rosters, Check-in Schedules, Analytics) appears only when the viewer can manage rosters. Settings is restricted further to admins and app admins.

3. How it fits together

Responder Roster — the ordered list of people to contact when something goes wrong. Each roster is scoped to a site, team, or shift. The most specific active roster wins: a shift-specific roster overrides a team roster, which overrides a site roster. If no roster resolves, the alert routes to every business admin as a break-glass fallback.

A roster has one or more tiers, each with its own responders, notification channels (push, SMS, voice), and an acknowledgement timeout. The escalation engine walks the tiers in order: it notifies the first tier, waits for the timeout, and if nobody acknowledges, climbs to the next. A tier marked Break-glass also notifies every business admin on top of its own responders.

Worked example: A warehouse has a roster named “Warehouse Night” scoped to the night-shift site. Tier 1 is the floor supervisor (push + SMS, 120-second timeout). Tier 2 is the safety manager and the site lead (push + SMS + voice, 120-second timeout). Tier 3 is break-glass. A worker triggers an SOS → the floor supervisor’s phone buzzes. Two minutes pass with no acknowledgement → the safety manager and site lead receive push, SMS, and a voice call. Two more minutes → the break-glass tier fires: every business admin is notified across all three channels. The climb stops the instant anyone acknowledges.

Check-in — a timed “I’m safe?” prompt armed automatically when a worker clocks in on a covered shift (a shift whose site, team, or shift id resolves to an active roster). The interval and grace window come from a check-in schedule for the site or team, or from the app-wide defaults if no schedule exists. When a worker answers, the next check-in is re-armed immediately. When the grace window lapses without an answer, a missed check-in alert fires through the same roster escalation as an SOS.

Check-ins are armed and cancelled by the clock-in/out hook and by a background sweep that runs every five minutes. The background sweep also sends the worker an Inbox/push notification when their check-in is coming due, so they do not have to keep the My Safety page open.

Check-in Schedule — an optional per-site or per-team override of the default check-in interval and grace window. Only one schedule per site or team is allowed. When no schedule covers a shift, the app-wide defaults apply. Schedules are managed under Lone Worker → Check-in Schedules.

Alert — the escalation record. Alerts are raised by three triggers:

• SOS — one-tap emergency from the worker’s My Safety page or the mobile app. Only one active SOS per worker at a time; a second tap while one is live does not restart the ladder.
• Missed check-in — raised automatically when a check-in’s grace window closes without an answer.
• Floor issue — a worker-reported equipment or line problem (“Report a floor issue” on My Safety). Follows the same roster escalation but does not capture GPS.

Every alert ends in one of two terminal states: resolved (safe, false alarm, or incident) or exhausted (the responder ladder ran out with no acknowledgement, triggering the dead-man’s switch). There is no silent terminal state.

Dead-man’s switch — if the entire ladder is exhausted with no acknowledgement, every business admin is notified by push, SMS, and voice call. This guarantee cannot be turned off by any tenant setting.

Safety Hub handoff — when a responder resolves an alert as Incident, Lone Worker can open a Safety Hub incident automatically (on by default; controlled by a setting). The incident inherits the alert’s location, shift, and worker. A floor-issue alert that resolves as an incident is categorised as an equipment failure; all other triggers are categorised as security.

My Safety — the worker-facing surface at Lone Worker → My Safety. Workers see:

• Their active check-in prompt with an “I’m safe” button (always visible while a check-in is armed, not only when due).
• A one-tap SOS button.
• A Report a floor issue button for equipment or line problems, with an optional note.
• Their recent alert history (last five alerts).
• Their currently active alert, if any.

On mobile devices this page redirects to the mobile-optimised view at /m/apps/lone-worker.

Audit trail — every alert records an append-only event log: raised, each tier notified (with per-channel delivery outcome), acknowledged, resolved, and exhausted. These events are never modified or deleted. They are visible on the alert detail page and exportable as CSV for EHS or regulator review.

4. Running it

Reviewing the dashboard

Go to Lone Worker → Dashboard. The dashboard shows four counts: active alerts, alerts resolved today, exhausted-but-open alerts, and active rosters. Below the counts is a table of currently active alerts.

Admins and app admins see all alerts across the business. Other users see only their own alerts and alerts on rosters where they are listed as a responder.

Responding to an alert

When notified (push, SMS, or voice), open the deep link to the alert detail page. The alert shows the worker’s name, the trigger type, any note the worker attached, the location (if captured), and the full event timeline.

Select Acknowledge to stop the escalation climb and take ownership. If the Open live video on SOS acknowledgement setting is on, a Live Assist video session opens automatically so the responder can see the worker’s camera.

Then resolve the alert with an outcome:

• Safe — the worker is confirmed safe; the alert closes.
• False alarm — accidental trigger; the alert closes.
• Incident — a real safety event occurred. A note is required. If the Safety Hub handoff setting is on, a Safety Hub incident is created automatically.

A worker cannot acknowledge their own alert — that would silently stop the climb. They can resolve their own alert only as False alarm.

Filtering and exporting alerts

Go to Lone Worker → Alerts. The alert index supports filtering by state (Active, Acknowledged, Resolved, Exhausted), trigger type, date range, and individual worker. The same filters apply to the CSV export.

Admins, app admins, and anyone on a responder roster can export a CSV of the filtered alert list. Each row records the alert id, trigger type, any trigger note, worker, state, resolution, raised/acknowledged/resolved timestamps, and linked Safety Hub incident id.

The export is scoped to the viewer’s own purview — a non-admin responder’s CSV contains only alerts they could already see on the index page.

Managing rosters and tiers

Go to Lone Worker → Responder Rosters. From the roster detail page you can add and remove tiers, add and remove responders on each tier, set per-tier notification channels and acknowledgement timeouts, and mark a tier as break-glass. You can also deactivate or delete a roster entirely.

When adding a responder to a tier, each person can appear on that tier only once. A responder who is also a business admin will not be double-notified on a break-glass tier.

Viewing analytics

Go to Lone Worker → Analytics (visible to users who can manage rosters). The page shows total alerts, acknowledged rate, average acknowledgement latency, exhausted-but-open count, check-in completion rate, and a 14-day alert volume chart. An analytics CSV export is also available.

Loading sample data

Go to Lone Worker → Settings and select Load sample data to populate responder rosters, check-in schedules, check-ins, and alerts with realistic demo data spread over the last 14 days. Sample data never fires real notifications and can be cleared with Clear sample data. If you resolve a sample alert as an incident, that creates a Safety Hub incident — clear it from Safety Hub separately.

5. Settings

All settings are at Lone Worker → Settings (admin or app admin only).

Setting	Default	What it changes
Enable the Lone Worker AI Agent in Ask AI	On	Whether the read-only Lone Worker agent answers questions in Ask AI.
Who can manage rosters & escalation policy?	Admins only	Whether only admins/app admins or any member can create and edit rosters and check-in schedules. Does not affect who can respond to alerts.
Default check-in interval	60 minutes	How often a worker is prompted “I’m safe?” when no site/team schedule overrides.
Default grace window	10 minutes	How long after a check-in is due before a miss fires an alert, when no schedule overrides.
Default acknowledgement timeout per tier	120 seconds	How long a tier waits for an acknowledgement before climbing to the next tier, when the tier does not set its own.
Open a Safety Hub incident when an alert resolves as “Incident”	On	Whether resolving an alert as Incident automatically creates a Safety Hub incident record.
Capture device location when an SOS is triggered	On	Whether the worker’s device GPS is captured once, at trigger time, and attached to the alert.
Open a live video channel to the responder on SOS acknowledgement	Off	Whether acknowledging an alert opens a Live Assist video session between the worker and the responder. Requires the Live Assist app and a configured LiveKit provider.

6. More help

• Lone Worker FAQ — specific setup, operating, and troubleshooting questions.
• Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Lone Worker from these articles.