Product Review of DIR-S

This is a school safety app, connecting schools and law enforcement with real-time chat and interactive maps. The Disaster Incident Report and Security (DIR-S) System is a software application customizable for you to manage emergencies and give you the maximum amount of time to respond and communicate in real time with those who will help.
Website: https://www.dirsalert.co/
What Users Love About the App
“We’ve been testing the software in our local school. It’s quick, it’s functional, and it’s going to save lives.”
“I love the capability this provides for a coordinated response between our schools, district, emergency response teams, and police! We meet regularly with the DIR-S team to discuss updates and they are very responsive to making changes that benefit us.”
“Awesome. Very excited for an easy way to get help if I need it. Feels like this should have been a thing a long time ago.”
“I love being able to see the school, where it is safe and where is yet to be marked as safe. I also love that a teacher has the ability to control an alert if something is going on in the classroom. I love that you could use this in schools, banks, offices, event venues, or wherever. This is a state of the art, genius, and going to save lives.”
“I like that it is fast and easy to use. I also like that I can communicate with others in the building and that the police are notified right away. It seems safe and well designed.”
“It is easy to use for everyone, both civilians and first responders. It can be used for everyday occurrences in our schools and not just for the active gunman situation. In a serious emergency when 911 is overwhelmed and officers are responding from different agencies, it allows a quicker route to pertinent information. It saves time!”
“I love how easy it is to train people on how to use the software. It is super easy to send an alert! It makes me feel safer at work. It’s easy for teachers to learn how to use it. When we have questions about it, the staff from DIR-S are very helpful and good to work with!”
What Users Dislike About the App
“One of the only issues we had with it was that we have multiple campuses and some people that travel between campuses. In the early stages, we were having people from one school trigger the alarm at the other school, and for those who had their devices set to both campuses also got those triggers.”
“You can’t pick a location from the mobile device. The alarm volume is too low, no matter what the phone volume is set to on the phone.”
“Any system will always bring its share of bugs. It would be great if it interfaced with our employee database so we didn’t have to manually change employees in each school every year.”
“We have done emergency drills/procedures for many years without this software, and it has been efficient. Teachers are very aware of where their students are and what to do in an emergency. This just seems to be a hassle to try and do everything we are supposed to do with this system. And that’s on top of simply taking care of the children we oversee during an emergency. As a teacher, I do not carry my phone with me, nor do I have it on during the teaching day, simply because it is a distraction. Because I have moved schools frequently, I continually have to be updated in the system, and I don’t know how to do that. We had a school fire drill today and, though I thought I had been updated in the system when I tried to log into it on my phone, I didn’t know the passcode to get in. It just hasn’t been a very useful tool for me as a whole and does not seem that beneficial.”
“The only problem I’ve run into is that the maps sometimes don’t work properly on the mobile app. Also, on the mobile app, it’s hard to notice the alerts. We only get alert when we look at our phones. I wish it would continue to buzz so we notice the alert.”