Facebook decides who sees your burn ban
Alerts go straight to the inboxes and phones of residents who asked for them.
Communication & engagement Public alerts for your residents
Community Alerts New
Your department’s own resident notification service: a public signup page, topics and areas, email, text, and browser alerts, approvals, and delivery analytics.
- Email, text, and browser alerts
- Residents pick topics and areas
- Signup tracked per QR code
Why departments switch
What Community Alerts fixes.
Residents sign up from a page you link, embed, or print as a QR code. They choose the topics they care about — burn bans, road closures, department news — the parts of town they live in, and email, text, or browser notifications for each topic. Officers write an alert once, and it goes to the public feed and to subscribers at a severity that decides how loud it is.
- Reach residents directly
- Nobody gets what they didn’t ask for
- Know which flyer worked
Everyone gets everything
Residents choose topics, areas, and the channel for each topic.
A 2 AM text for a pancake breakfast
News waits out quiet hours. Only emergency severity overrides them.
No idea which outreach worked
Each signup code counts scans and signups, so you can compare the engine decal with the fair booth.
Inside the module
A closer look at Community Alerts.
Real screens from Station Clipboard, shown with a sample department.
01
Your own public page
Current alerts with severity and update tags, readable by anyone.
- Updates thread onto the original
- No login to read or subscribe
02
Growth and sources
Who joined, who left, estimated text spend, and where signups came from.
- Daily signups over time
- Signups by code and placement
- Estimated text spend
03
One code per placement
QR codes, a website embed, and a text keyword, each with its own count.
- Scans vs finished signups
- Printable QR and poster
04
Drafts and approvals
An advisory waiting on approval, a scheduled post, and a draft.
- Approval banner for the reviewer
- Schedule an alert ahead
On the phone
Sign up on a phone
Residents choose topics and how they want to hear about each one.
How it works
From setup to a record you can trust.
Set up
Create topics, areas by ZIP code, signup codes, and the public page.
Write
Draft an alert, pick topic, severity, areas, and channels, and send yourself a test.
Approve and send
Severities you choose need a second person to approve. Send now or schedule it.
Follow up
Post updates or an all-clear on the same thread, and read how the send went.
Capabilities
Everything Community Alerts includes.
Public page and feed
Current alerts and a signup form on a page you can link or embed, plus RSS and JSON feeds.
Three channels
Email, text message through your Twilio account, and browser notifications.
Topics and areas
Residents pick topics and ZIP-code areas. Mark emergency topics as always sent.
Severity levels
Emergency, advisory, or news, with quiet hours that only emergencies override.
Approvals
Choose which severities need approval. Nobody can approve their own alert.
Threads and expiry
Updates and all-clears attach to the original alert, and alerts can expire on their own.
Signup codes
QR codes, links, website embeds, and a text keyword, each counting scans and signups.
Consent and list health
Double opt-in, a consent record per subscriber, a do-not-contact list, and sending caps.
Part of one portal
Works with the rest of your department.
Members keep one secure sign-in and one set of role permissions across every module you turn on.
Questions
Community Alerts FAQ
Do residents need a portal account?
No. Residents subscribe on the public page with an email address, a mobile number, or both, and manage their own preferences from a link.
What does texting cost?
Text messages go through your department’s Twilio account. Each send shows how many texts went out and an estimated cost, and you can set a monthly text cap.
Can we bring our existing list?
Yes. You can import a subscriber list after confirming those people agreed to receive alerts.
Can an alert be changed after it is sent?
No. A sent alert is never edited. Post an update or an all-clear on the same thread instead.
See Community Alerts with your department’s workflow.
Tell us how you handle this work today. We’ll walk you through it in the full Station Clipboard portal.
Need something we don’t have yet? We build custom modules.