If an emergency such as a fire, earthquake, building closure, public transit disruption or street protest occurs when you’re away from the office, can UCOP reach you?

It’s not a matter of “if” but “when.” You’ve probably already experienced a BART strike or street protest that affected the building you work in and you may have dealt with an earthquake in the past. When these events happen, you can have emergency notifications automatically pushed to you at the phone number and/or email of your choosing from UCOPAlert, OP’s off-hours notification system. That way you’ll know what’s going on before you come to work and won’t have to scramble to find out what to do.

Because UCOPAlert is entirely voluntary for employees, you will only receive these messages if you supply your personal contact information.

UCOPAlert delivers messages to your personal phone and/or personal email outside normal business hours when you need to know about a situation that affects your workplace or ability to work. The alerts include a description of the emergency, instructions on what to do and, depending on the situation, a request to confirm that you received the alert and are safe.

During normal work hours, UCOP will notify employees of emergencies through work email, office phones or the public address system. But outside of regular business hours, UCOPAlert is the only emergency notification system OP has to reach employees on their personal cell phones or email.

“We want to encourage everyone to register for UCOPAlert so that we can notify you quickly about emergencies and make sure you have the information you need to stay safe,” said Robert Charbonneau, program manager in Risk Services Emergency Management. “Remember that emergencies can happen any time, so being prepared is important.”

To add, verify or change your contact information:

1. Log in to the UCOPAlert portal at http://ucopalert.ucop.edu by entering the same ID and password that you use on other UCOP systems such as email.
2. Follow the instructions on this page to register as many phone numbers and email addresses as you want. Designate which device you want to receive alerts first, then second, then third, etc.

Your personal contact information will be kept confidential. It is stored in secure government-grade data servers administered by Siemens, the global technologies firm that provides this service to UCOP.

Visit the UCOPAlert website for more information and FAQs.

Questions? Please contact Alicia.Jensen@ucop.edu.