The Next Generation of Frontline Communication

Radios. Remember those? That was the beginning of Push-to-Talk.

In the century since the creation of walkie-talkies and analog radios, there’s of course been a ton of innovation. In search of a better alternative to analog and digital mobile radios (DMRs), some deskless workers turned to using shadow technology, such as using their own cell phones just to communicate with each other.

Push-to-talk (PTT) apps solved some of the problems frontline workers using multiple devices experienced. However, many users quickly discovered several popular PTT apps were not secure (creating large security and compliance risks) and none of the apps created a path for innovation (like automation, intelligence amplification, and analytics) or digital transformation.

And then… the innovation stopped. Push-to-Talk 1.0 came to a head with unsecure PTT apps, multiple devices, and DMRs — all while desked workers reaped the full benefits of collaboration platforms like Slack and Zoom.

That’s why we architected Push-to-Talk 2.0.

Get the PTT 2.0 Fact Sheet

PTT 2.0: The Future of Push-to-Talk

Orion’s PTT 2.0 solution is a cloud-based platform service that radically modernizes push-to-talk, moving well beyond the antiquated constraints of PTT 1.0.

There are four features that separate Orion’s PTT 2.0 platform from weak, unsecure PTT apps and take frontline communications into the future:

A Powerful Cloud Collaboration Platform — Fully Interoperational With Modern Systems

Orion’s PTT 2.0 platform is always on, from any location, at any time with HD quality audio. The platform employs a patented API layer leveraging Orion’s Voice and Location AI abstraction layer to connect to third-party services, data stores, and systems in real time. The platform leverages open APIs and a software development kit (SDK) that provides integration and voice activation to operational applications such as property, task, incident, and workforce management; routing; and situational awareness solutions.

PTT 2.0 provides tools for developers to write new integrations and utilize existing integrations with leading service providers, including IBM Watson, Microsoft, Twilio, Mapbox, HERE, ESRI, and ATAK — exponentially extending the operational benefits of the Orion platform.

Voice AI Bots and Workflows

With PTT 2.0, Orion Voice Bots participate in talk groups and perform tasks, respond to queries, and have agency. The always-on Bots listen and respond to commands, events, and actions automatically or manually. Orion’s PTT 2.0 Voice Bots enable you to:

• Handle routine processes by automatically routing commands through Orion’s cloud service
• Perform multiple complex actions with preset workflows like emergency alerts that send emails, audio recordings, geolocation, and electronic triggers for E911 calls
• Voice-activate third-party integrations to translate languages in real time, amplify intelligence, connect to best-practice manuals and guides, and more

End-to-End Encryption and Security

Orion’s PTT 2.0 platform and message service is end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) at AES256 level with ephemeral keys and is certified to the FIPS 140-2, NSA Suite B cipher to protect your proprietary and sensitive information, communications, and — most important — your deskless workers. Deploy in-cloud, on-premise, or air-gapped to support your security and corporate governance requirements.

Advanced Functionality

Voice-First Multimedia Communication

Communicate securely with voice, text, photos, videos, and files such as PDFs. Collaborate with a multimodal experience on the go and on one device, creating a truly connected workforce.

Unmatched Coverage

Any Distance
Communicate over any distance, including onsite, on the road, across town, or around the globe. And certainly don’t worry about floors, stairwells, or concrete walls.

Any Network
Utilize any network for your communications, including LTE (5G-ready), private LTE (CBRS), Wi-Fi, satellite, and mesh.

Any Device
Enjoy the broadest range of device support, including smart and/or ruggedized devices running Android, iOS, or browsers.

Operational Control

Operations Console
Communicate with distributed teams and handle dispatch with secure, web-based push-to-talk via a browser. Create control at central, regional, and local levels for team empowerment and accountability.

Advanced Location Services
Maintain centralized or distributed location visibility, mapping, management, and decision-making with advanced location services. Leverage real-time geolocation of each employee for better response, safety, and accountability, and utilize 3D (x-, y-, and z-axis) indoor location for asset and team member tracking beyond GPS capabilities.

Archiving and Compliance
Record, playback, and archive all staff messages and interactions, including voice, text, and visual media, as configured to company policy. Search and retrieve information at organizational, group, and user levels, as well as by date, time, and location.

Get the PTT 2.0 Fact Sheet

Of course, radios and PTT apps can neither provide any of this next-generation functionality nor can they meet your organization’s advancing requirements. Orion created our PTT 2.0 platform to modernize communications and operational control while accelerating innovation for your deskless workforce.

PTT 2.0 + Innovation = The Orion Platform

Empower and connect your deskless workforce with innovation from Orion. In addition to our PTT 2.0 platform, Orion offers countless opportunities for innovation, including:

Intelligence Amplification

Connect your deskless workers to your digital organization to amplify their abilities. Equip them with real-time access to subject matter experts (SMEs) and voice-activated systems like inventory, manuals, and best-practice guides.

Analytics

Utilize substantial metadata, including user, team, location, time, sensor data, proximity, activity, and voice to produce predictive analytics for better decision-making. Conduct pattern analysis and detect anomalies to uncover opportunities for optimization and instituting best practices.

Amplify Your Push-to-Talk Communications Today With Orion’s PTT 2.0

Discover how Orion’s PTT 2.0 modernizes communications and operational control for your deskless workers. Get the fact sheet today to learn more!

Get the PTT 2.0 Fact Sheet

You Might Also Like:

• Fact Sheet: Push-to-Talk 2.0
• Video: 451 Research on PTT 2.0
• Video: The Orion Voice-First Intelligent Collaboration Platform
• E-book: The Future of Voice at Work
• Frontline Collaboration Solution Buyer’s Guide
• E-book: 12 Reasons Radios Are Holding Your Company Back
• Intelligence Amplification: Unlocking Limitless Potential for Deskless Workforces
• 3 Reasons Orion’s Multimodal Frontline Collaboration Platform is Critical for Operating a Digital Organization With a Connected Deskless Workforce

Why a modern digital communications platform enables healthcare workers to collaborate instantly and beyond the four walls.

Healthcare workstream collaboration needs have accelerated with the advent of the coronavirus crisis.  For example, offsite testing and separating frontline healthcare workers from other departments means healthcare teams are more distributed than ever, despite needing to work in lockstep. Constant communication beyond the four walls of a hospital is the new norm, leaving leading healthcare systems scrambling.

Communication between field frontline workers and institutional healthcare systems is critical, with constantly changing collaboration modes and participants. In a single solution, Orion delivers secure, encrypted voice and media messaging together with voice-activated digital workflows for crucial information retrieval and collaboration.  Orion also serves contemporary Workstream needs well beyond traditional hospital-bound communications with real-time location management and dispatch to synchronize healthcare teams, as well as facilities, operations, and security staffs.

It’s easier than ever to implement instant communication and collaboration. Conventional Healthcare communication tech has been tethered to server solutions that are costly to deploy, dependent on Wi-Fi connections and desktop computers, restricted to inside buildings and incapable of supporting the dynamic needs of today’s workstreams.  Orion’s cloud-native solution equips every participant of the workstream, on site or on the road, across the street or across town, with instant communication and access to information. Whether through an LTE & Wi-Fi wearable, handheld, tablet or web browser interface optimized for every role and function, Orion enables superior patient care, expert collaboration, and patient and worker safety and compliance. For those healthcare systems digitally transforming their operations, Orion seamlessly operates alongside healthcare apps, sharing the same devices.

The need for a new healthcare communication solution is urgent. Orion transforms healthcare workstream collaboration — today.

Due to coronavirus, retailers of all types — big box, specialty, hard goods, grocery, and restaurants — have instantly confronted the new COVID-induced operating mode: frontline workers are engaged in entirely new, and urgent, delivery and customer service workflows.  With needs well beyond traditional Store Operations communication, these new work modes require real-time location management, dispatch, and synchronization of distributed work teams inside and outside the store walls, across distribution networks, geographies, and the enterprise.

Digital and ecommerce initiatives to grow customer demand, combined with newly deployed drive-up and delivery fulfillment, have also abruptly reshaped the retail landscape.  The winners in this shift are those able to rapidly and flexibly spin up communications for teams of workers, including instantly joining gig workers, to reduce friction, and keep customer service high.

Similarly, operations managers need an operational control view of their frontline workforce, now including mobile on-the-road workers in delivery and fulfillment. Dynamic, on-demand, delivery workflows result in chaos unless you can see across teams, by worker, by location, task, and status, and communicate in real-time with voice and multimedia.

Lastly, keeping frontline workers safe and compliant is not optional; safety protocol completion and confirmation will be critical to retain customer confidence and staff, both. Easy voice-tag and standard operating procedure (SOP) voice workflows are an essential part of Dispatch/Delivery Operations success.

Things have changed for retailers — period! — and will not return to how they were before. Retail tooling is no longer just inside-the-store systems. Don’t be limited by wifi-based and desktop in-store systems – Orion works where you work, on any mobile client, anywhere, and on any browser from any work location. Orion is delivering each of these critical solutions today with our off-the-shelf frontline workforce platform.  Orion: transforming the future of work.

We are committed to providing a safe and healthy environment for our employees and to ensuring business continuity during this period of public health concern around COVID-19. We will continue to provide world-class enterprise voice services for our customers and partners around the world.

• We have augmented our Customer Success team to assist customers who are expanding operational teams such as cleaning, facilities, security, or healthcare.
• Our platform is ready to scale with any organization’s response needs including rapidly adding thousands of additional users, deploying new locations or teams, and activating advanced features.
• You may want to take advantage of our advanced indoor positioning and detailed audit logging to better help you, your workers, and your customers. Please let us know if you would like to discuss these options.

We remain open for business and are prepared for continuous operation to serve and support you and your own organization. We have an extensive incident management program in place, which we have activated to protect the health of our employees, customers, and partners, including those that visit us in accordance with public health recommendations.

It is our privilege to provide business-critical ‘command & control’ for team and worker communication, location history analytics, compliance, and safety. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to help you and your organization respond, conduct operations more effectively, and keep workers safe as you meet the challenges of the coronavirus.

About Orion

Orion Labs, Inc. is the voice-first enterprise software platform to connect frontline workers with voice automation solutions.  The company’s global customers transform their workforce productivity and safety with the secure instant communications, AI Workflows, advanced location services, and software integrations of Orion’s enterprise-grade and cloud-delivered service.  Founded in 2014, Orion is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by blue-chip investors; customers include ABM Industries, Marriott International, Facebook, Rio Tinto, and the Federal Government.  The company was recently named an IDC Innovator and won a 2019 Edison Award for Materials Science & Engineering.

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Media contact

Vanessa Naylon
Orion Labs, Inc.
415-800-2035

The State of New Jersey recently mandated into law a requirement for the hospitality industry to provide workers with wearable devices that have real-time connectivity to summon help in an emergency. Frankly, it’s about time. Other states seem set to follow, and industries are rapidly moving to protect and enable a category of lone workers who are often disconnected and out of the team-communications loop.

What are panic buttons, and why are they important?

Panic-enabled communication solutions employ devices with push-to-talk buttons worn by hospitality workers that instantly transmit a security alert when a worker is put in harmful positions, such as being assaulted or harassed. Lone workers like housekeepers have increasingly reported sexual assault and harassment by a small percentage of hospitality customers. For hospitality organizations to operate effectively for the vast majority of guests, it’s important that organizations better protect these workers from harm.

What other panic communication laws have been created?

Chicago, Miami Beach and Long Beach have also passed panic button legislation that requires hotels, motels, and/or hostels to provide panic buttons to workers who attend to rooms, restaurants, room service, minibars, and other environments where guests are present.

Additionally, Shawn D. Fabian of the Labor & Employment Law Blog adds (emphasis ours):

Apart from the passage of local ordinances, “panic button” measures have made their way into several collective bargaining agreements across the country, including those in New York. As a result, the lodging industry should keep a close eye on these measures as they are gaining momentum nationwide.

Learn more about the Orion panic communication solution

Orion provides a complete and easy solution using real-time push-to-talk communications and wearable devices, automated Emergency and Panic workflows, and, when coupled with Orion’s Indoor Positioning Services, enables rapid and pinpoint response to lone workers like hotel service staff, even for workers who don’t speak English natively.

Orion recognized this need across a variety of industries and has been deploying the Orion Voice Platform with Panic Workflows in Hospitality, Mining, Heavy Industry and other safety and compliance oriented industries with deskless and lone workers.

To learn more about Orion Panic Workflows, contact our sales team at sales@orionlabs.io.