The Tipline feature allows individuals to submit tips about incidents or suspicious persons. Schools receive email and/or SMS notifications of tips.



Steps

Tipline URL and Emails

Use the URLs and email set by Visitor Aware for your location-specific Tipline to enable individuals to submit tips. Follow these steps.

  1. From the left navigation, click Tipline | All Tips. 
  2. On the Tipline Management screen, in the Location dropdown menu, select the location for the tipline. The Tipline URL, email address, poster, and tips will populate for this specific location.
  3. In the Tipline Link (URL) field, use the URL to access the tip form. 
  4. In the Tipline Email field, use the dedicated email address to allow individuals to submit tips to your school or district.  
  5. From the Tipline Poster field, copy the QR Code URL . This URL is for your school's poster, to enable your community to easily submit tips. You can copy the QR Code URL to share, or click the printer icon (on the right) and select whether to print the poster in English or Spanish.

System Settings

  1. To configure your Tipline settings for a specific location, from the left navigation panel, go to System Settings | Location Management | All Locations. 
  2. From the Locations page, click the name of the location. 
  3. Click the Settings tab.
  4. In Enable public tipline?:
  • To enable the public tipline, select Yes
  • To disable it, select No


Location-Specific Settings:

  1. The Public tipline URL field contains the URL where users can access the tip form. When users click the public, non-editable link, they will be directed to a tip submission page and form.
  2. The Inbound tipline email address field shows the email address for tip submissions. When users email the tipline email address, the tip will be received on the page at Tipline | All Tips.
  3. In the Hazard keywords for tip submissions field, add a comma-separated list of words that determine whether an email-submitted tip is hazardous, for example, “gun,” “blood,” “bomb.”
  4. In Require contact information on tipline submissions?:
  • To enable requiring contact information, select Yes
  • To not require contact information, select No
  1. Click the Save button.

Tip Form Example

The fillable form includes required and optional questions to evaluate the situation..




To submit a tip, a tip reporter will fill out the following fields, divided into four categories: Description, Person Involved, Images, and Your Information.


Description

This section collects essential details about an event, including its description, type, date and time, whether social media was involved (including usernames or URLs), and how the reporter learned about the program.

  • Event Description: A free-form field where the tip reporter can describe who, what, where, when, and how information about the event.
  • Concern / Event Types:  A dropdown menu of pre-defined types.
  • What time and date did the event occur to the best of your recollection?
  • Was Social Media (Facebook, X, Texting, etc.) used to express the problem? A dropdown menu with social media types.
  • Associated Social Media Username or URL: The reporter can add the user name of the person who has posted the event, and the URL for the post.
  • How did you hear about our program?: A dropdown menu from which the reporter can select an option.

Person Involved

This section consists of optional, free-text fields for the reporter to add additional information.

  • What is the name of the person involved?
  • Are there any additional details regarding the person involved? Grade, ethnicity, gender, age, identifying marks or clothing, etc.
  • What is the address or location of the person involved?
  • Any other comments.


Images

This section allows the reporter to attach up to five files (each under 5MB) such as screenshots or images.

Attach Screenshots or Images: The reporter can drag-and-drop or click to attach images or screenshots to the form

Note: You may attach up to five files of notes regarding the tip. Each file must be less than 5MB in size.


Your Information

This section allows reporters to provide contact information (name, email, phone number) or remain anonymous. Anonymous communication via email is still possible.

  • The reporter can include their contact information if they choose to.
  • Your Name (Optional).
  • Your Email Address (Optional).
  • Your Phone Number (Optional).
  • I would like to remain anonymous: If checked, your contact information will not be shown, however, staff at (school name) will be able to communicate anonymously with you via email.

Email Example: Person who Submitted the Tip


The tip will appear on the All Tips page.


Email Notification Example: School
Note: If the school or district has enabled tipline notification types, they will receive an email.


Submitted Tips 

Use the Tipline Management screen to manage incoming tips. When someone submits a tip, users will receive a notification depending on their notification settings: email, SMS, or both.




  1. From the left navigation panel, go to Tipline | All Tips. Scroll down to the table with the list of tips. 
  2. (Optional) In the Search by Type or Content search field, search by words used to describe the situation, such as bullying, assault, smoking, etc. 
  3. (Optional) Click the All Location dropdown menu and select a location to filter to tips submitted to a specific location.. 
  4. (Optional) Click the Filter by Status dropdown menu to select from one of the following options:
  • Pending: A new tip. Click the description in the Type column or click the Settings icon on the far right, then click Manage Tip to access the Manage Tip screen (details are listed below).
  • Closed: A tip that has been processed and then closed
  • Follow up: The user intends to follow up with the tip submitter, for example, by requesting more information from the tip submitter
  • Flagged: A tip with words your school or district has chosen to represent “hazard” words that call for immediate attention, such as “gun” or “bomb” 

    Note: This is determined by the setting that was initially configured in the Hazard keywords for tip submissions field.

  1. (Optional) Click the download icon to download the list of tips.
  2. The table includes the following columns:
  • Type
  • Location
  • Status 
  • Responses
  • Content
  • Submitted
  1. To view the details of a tip, in the Type column, click the description or click the Settings icon on the far right, then click Manage Tip. The Manage Tip screen appears. 


Manage Tips

From the Manage Tip screen, you can view and manage tips.




  1. The top of the Manage Tip screen displays two tiles:
  • From the Manage Tip screen, you can view and manage tips.  The length of time since the tip was reported
  • Response: The number of responses, which increments as responses are added in the Responses section, or statuses change

Set a Status

To set a status, click one of the following buttons:

  • Pending: A new tip
  • Follow Up: Requires the school to follow up
  • Flagged: Indicates the tip contains words the school identifies as “hazard” words indicating an urgent tip has been reported,  such as “gun” or “bomb”
  • Closed: No further action is needed on this tip; for example, the tip has been addressed per internal policy


Send and Receive Responses

In the Responses section, you can correspond with tip reporters who have included contact information in their tip form. 

  1. Type a message in the Enter a Response field and click the Add Response button to send a message. 
  2. Responses you or your school have sent appear in the responses thread, with the name, date, and time of the response.

    Note: If the tip submitter fills in the Your Email Address field when submitting the tip, Visitor Aware can send an email to that address if a staff member checks the Also Send to Submitter? checkbox next to the Add Response button, and submits a response.