After assessing their emergency response on June 28, UW has identified that the lack of alerts on the WatSAFE app that day was not due to an issue with the app itself. However, there was a problem identified with the app offloading or hibernating on devices, which there will now be testing cycles to mitigate.
Inactive apps are forcibly stopped when put in a hibernation state, preventing the delivery of push notifications from the app. To mitigate this effect and ensure that users remain familiar with how to use the app, a monthly testing cycle for the emergency notification system will be implemented starting in October. The tests will include WatSAFE push notifications on user phones and alerts on other on-campus devices incorporated in the emergency notification system, including digital display screens and network-managed computers.
For any further questions, reach out to the Information Systems Technology (IST) team.
To make sure that you are receiving safety alerts, after you have the app installed and ensured it is not offloaded, follow these steps to disable the app’s offloading or hibernation settings.
