Kari's Law: Alerting Your Team When Someone Dials 911

When someone in your building calls 911, the people on site can often reach them faster than emergency responders can — by unlocking a door, meeting the ambulance, or guiding paramedics to the right room. Notification groups send an instant alert to your chosen staff the moment anyone on your phone system dials 911.

This is not just a nice-to-have. In the United States, a federal law called Kari's Law requires business phone systems to notify a central point (like a front desk or security office) whenever a 911 call is made. Setting up a notification group helps you meet that requirement.

Two things Kari's Law expects

1. Direct 911 dialing. Anyone must be able to dial 911 and reach emergency services directly — with no need to press 9 first, or any other prefix. ReliaRing accepts 911 directly, so this works out of the box.
2. On-site notification. Someone at your organization is alerted when a 911 call happens. That is what notification groups are for.

Setting up a notification group

1. In the portal, go to Emergency Dialing → Notification Groups.
2. Click into the "Create new group" section and give the group a name, such as "HQ emergency contacts".
3. Add up to three recipients. For each one, choose how they should be alerted and enter the destination:
   • Email — an address like alerts@yourcompany.com
   • SMS — a mobile number to receive a text
   • Voice — a phone number that will receive an automated spoken alert
   • Webhook — a web address, for connecting the alert to another system
4. Optionally give each recipient a name so the list is easy to read.
5. Click Create group.

You can create more than one group — for example, a different group per building or department.

Choose which locations the group covers

A group is only useful if we know which site it belongs to. Once the group exists, its card shows a Locations covered row listing every address on your account.

1. Click each location this group is responsible for. Selected locations are highlighted.
2. Click a highlighted location again to remove it.
3. The count at the top of the card updates to show how many locations are attached.

A 911 call from an attached location alerts that group. If you run more than one site, this is what stops your Calgary front desk being paged for a call in Toronto.

If a group has no locations attached, it is treated as an account-wide backstop: it is only used when the site the call came from has no group of its own. The Compliance tab reports groups with no locations, so they are easy to find.

What recipients receive

When a real 911 call is placed, everyone in the matching group is alerted right away so they can respond.

The alert makes it clear that this is a genuine 911 call. Routine 933 test calls (used to safely check your setup) send a separate, clearly-marked "test call" alert, so your team is never alarmed by a drill. See Testing Your 911 Setup Safely with 933.

Test your recipients

After you create a group, send a test alert to make sure each recipient actually receives it:

1. On the Notification Groups tab, find the recipient in the list.
2. Click Test next to that recipient.
3. Confirm the message arrives at the email inbox, phone, or system you expect.

Testing recipients this way does not contact emergency services — it only checks that your alerts are wired up correctly. Each test is recorded in your notification history, so you have a dated record that the recipient was checked.

If the test alert never arrives, see 911 Alerts Are Not Reaching My Team.

Tips

• Pick people who are usually on site and reachable. A front desk, office manager, or security desk is a good choice.
• Use more than one method. Pairing an email with an SMS makes it more likely someone sees the alert quickly.
• Keep the list current. Update recipients when staff change roles, and remove anyone who has left.
• Review after a move. When you change offices, check that the right people are still on the list. See Moving Offices: Updating Your 911 Location.

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Related articles

• How 911 Works on an Internet Phone Service
• Testing Your 911 Setup Safely with 933
• Registering and Updating Your 911 Address

For a real emergency, always dial 911.