Any office manager or school administrator who is in charge of making sure everyone within an organization has received important information knows the frustration of the followup. Did everyone receive the message?
Emails can get overlooked. And contacting people using various channels – email, instant messaging or phone – can be extremely time consuming.
The developers of a new app called iiris (short for "important information relayed in seconds") are promising to make communication across multiple channels easier.
The communication tool allows a single message to be sent out and received by the iiris app, SMS (text), email or voicemail.
The system works best if everyone on the contact list has the iiris app on their iPhones or Android phones – but it's not necessary.
"Our system can tell who has the app and who doesn't have the app," said Harpaul Lehry, founder and CEO of Vancouver's Progrid Technologies, which developed iiris. "If they have an app, the priority's always going to go to the app.
"If they don't have a smartphone, the message can also be relayed through SMS, through voicemail and through email. So the system is all-encompassing to cover the people who still don't have smartphones."
Progrid was founded in 2007. A year ago the software reseller stepped into new territory when it decided to develop its own communications app.
Lehry expects there could be a big demand for the app by schools, insurance companies, strata councils and organizations and businesses working on special projects.
For example, a school that subscribes to iiris can import all of its contact information into the iiris content management system. When an emergency bulletin or a reminder about parent-teacher interviews needs to go out, a single message can be sent.
Parents with the iiris app would get a push notification, and the administrator would get confirmation that message was received and read. Others would receive e-mails, SMS or voicemail messages.The app also allows for informal surveys. Parents could be asked, for example, if they favour a move to a balanced school year.
"The school then has a paper trail that the communication was done and these were the responses," Lehry said.
The iiris system is still in beta testing and is currently only available for iPhone and Android phones. And, with the exception of the survey function, communication is currently one-way.
The iiris system is a subscription-based service, with a business or school of 1,000 employees or students paying about $3,000 per year. Smaller organizations would pay less, based on their size.
Lehry said the iiris app is already attracting a lot of interest by potential users and other software resellers.
"We already have organizations approaching us wanting to be resellers," Lehry said.
