Use Business Resilience

In this topic, you will learn how to use the Business Resilience solution and the set of capabilities and features that it provides.

Note:

Use your organization's data or configured apps to follow these workflows.

Visualize hazards

There are a variety of hazards, such as severe weather, fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes, that have the potential to affect your facilities. Many organizations have large geographic footprints and may be impacted by a diverse array of natural hazards and threats. The Business Resilience solution allows an analyst in an operation center to monitor hazards that may threaten your facilities.

To use the Business Resilience solution to visualize hazards, complete the following steps:

1. In a browser, open the Business Resilience Web App.

   On the right side of the app, the layers pane is divided into the following sections:

   • Organizational Assets
   • Weather Layers
   • Drought and Wildfires
   • Natural Disasters

   In the Organizational Assets section of the Layers pane, the Operational Assessment Survey and Facilities layers are turned on by default.

   Facilities are represented by point features that appear on the map and are symbolized to indicate their status.

   The Operational Assessment Survey layer shows results of surveys that have been submitted by facility managers.

2. In the upper right of the Weather Layers section, click the options menu and click Turn all layers on.

   These layers contain real-time weather feeds, many of which are published by the National Weather Service. Use these layers to track potential severe weather threats to your facilities.

   To see the symbology for these layers, you can expand them individually by clicking the arrows to the left of the layer visibility check boxes.

3. To optionally view more details on each layer, click the options button and click Show item details. Otherwise, in the upper right of the Weather Layers section, click the options menu and click Turn all layers off.

   Tip:

   You can also use keyboard shortcuts to turn groups of layers on or off and expand or collapse them. Press the Ctrl key and check the layer check box to turn layers on or off in the same level. Press the Ctrl key and click the arrow to expand or collapse a layer in the same level.

4. In the upper right of the Wildfires and Active Fires section, click the options menu and click Turn all layers on.

   These layers contain the latest up-to-date information on current and ongoing fire-related incidents. Areas suffering drought conditions may be at greater risk of wildfire, so these areas may pose an elevated risk to your facilities. Use these layers to track potential fire-related threats to your facilities.

   To see the symbology for these layers, you can expand them individually by clicking the arrows to the left of the layer visibility check boxes.

5. To optionally view more details on each layer, click the options button and click Show item details. Otherwise, in the upper right of the Droughts and Wildfires section, click the options menu and click Turn all layers off.
6. In the upper right of the Natural Disasters section, click the context menu to expand and click Turn all layers on.

   These layers contain real-time feeds of the latest natural hazards, such as hurricanes and earthquakes.

   To see the symbology for these layers, you can expand them individually by clicking the arrows to the left of the layer visibility check boxes.

7. To optionally view more details on each layer, click the options button and click Show item details. Otherwise, in the upper right of the Natural Disasters section, click the options menu and click Turn all layers off.

   Tip:

   When you configure the Business Resilience Web App, you can include your own sections, groups, and layers. For example, if you are tracking threats to coastal facilities, you can create another section named Coastal Threats and include layers from the National Weather Service, such as High Surf Advisory, Areal Flood Warning, and Coastal Flood Watch.

Send an assessment survey

The role of an analyst in the operations center is to watch over the multitude of threats that may impact one or more assets within your organization. When a threat has been detected to potentially impact one or more facilities, it is imperative to alert the facility administrators of the possible impact and understand the potential effects of the even on the facility to minimize disruption. The Business Resilience Web App is configured to allow you to quickly send out an assessment to the facility manager.

Send an assessment to a single facility

In this workflow, you will take on the role of an analyst who has be alerted to an event that is threatening a facility. You will be sending an assessment form to gather relevant information from the facility manager at the threatened facility.

1. In a browser, open the Business Resilience Web App app if you do not have it open already.
2. Select a facility of interest from the list on the left side of the application or zoom to the location of the facility and click the facility.

   In the pop-up window, general details about the facility are provided.

3. On the pop-up, in the Notes section, click the Click here to send Operational Assessment to Facility Administrator link.

   An email opens in your email client. It is populated with the email address of the facility manager, the name of the manager, text requesting information about the event, and a hyperlink to a survey that the manager can use to reply with status information.

4. Select the [INSERT EVENT DESCRIPTION AND DETAILS HERE] text in the email and add any other information that may be useful to the facility manager in evaluating the threat.
5. Send the email to the manager.

Send an assessment to multiple facilities

In this workflow, you will take on the role of an analyst who has identified a hurricane event that is threatening multiple facilities. You will be sending assessments form to gather relevant information from the facility manager at the threatened facilities.

1. In a browser, open the Business Resilience Web App if you do not have it open already.
2. Select the Create Assessment Report widget in the upper right of the application, above the layers pane.
3. With the Create Assessment Report widget open, define an area of interest by searching for a location in the Place Name tool or using the Draw tool. Click the Draw tool and click the Select by Rectangle button.
4. Click Choose selectable layers to expand the layer list and select Hurricane Irma Example – Forecast Cone. Uncheck all other layers.

   You can use the Choose selectable layer list to define the layers that are selectable on the map.

5. On the map, drag a small box on the Hurricane Irma forecast cone feature. This selects the feature from the service, just as it would select a feature in a live Hurricane Forecast feed.
6. Optionally, set a Buffer distance value to select facilities that are also within a distance from the selected feature, and click Report.

   The report of facilities within the buffer around the forecast cone is generated.

7. In the Create Assessment Report pane, click the Expand button next to Facilities to expand the list.

   The report contains information about each facility, including the facility ID, a survey link, the number of employees at the location, and the manager's name and email address.

8. If you would like a CSV file of selected facilities, click the Download button.
9. If you want a PDF report, click the Print button, choose a report layout size, and click the Print button to generate the report.
10. In the header section of the report web page, click Print to save.

    Tip:

    You can get a list of all the email addresses from the downloaded CSV file of selected facilities. Find the email column and copy the facility manager email address to your clipboard, and paste it into your email client to send a report.

Submit an assessment survey

For an organization to assess impacts, facility managers can share relevant information about the operational status of their facility and the impact of a likely event. The Operational Assessment Survey allows facility managers to submit this information back to the operations center. The survey contains assessment questions about the exterior, interior, and employee vulnerability. This information allows decision makers to understand the threat, prioritize aid, and allocate supporting resources throughout the organization.

In this workflow, you will take on the role of a facility manager at a threatened facility and use the survey link to send status information to the operations center.

1. In a browser, open the Operational Assessment Survey.

   This is a link to the survey for Facility #104.

   Note:

   The URL for the survey includes the facility ID. This ties the survey to a specific facility location and allows the survey to be populated with information about the facility, saving the manager time.

   The survey opens in a browser tab. The Potential Impact Assessment section is open with a number of questions that you can answer to communicate your facility's status back to the operations center.

2. Click the header for the top section, Facility Location Details.

   The details for your facility are prepopulated in the survey.

3. Complete the Potential Impact Assessment section.

   Parameter	Value
   External Vulnerablity	Select Low.
   Interior Vulnerablity	Select Negligible.
   Employee Vulnerablity	Select Moderate.
   Employee Vulnerablity Extent	Select 25% to 50%.
   Do you foresee the need to possibly temporarily close this location due to this event?	Select Maybe/Not Sure.
   Is there a potential need for local evacuation?	Select No.
   Describe any relevant information, thoughts, strategies, or issues	Type relevant information.

4. Optionally, upload pictures of the facility and of any vulnerability concerns in the Media group to provide further context.
5. Once the survey is completed, click the Submit button.

Review assessments

Upon submission of assessment reports, they appear as points on the map. The feedback in the survey is key to assessing the potential impact to the health and safety of customers, employees, and assets while also understanding how to facilitate resources and minimize interruptions.

In this workflow, you will take on the role of the analyst in the command center reviewing an open submission by a facility manager.

1. In a browser, open the Business Resilience Web App app.
2. In the Facilities pane on the left side of the Business Resilience web app, expand the Assessment Status section if it is not already expanded.

   This group contains a list of assessments by status with the latest submission at the bottom.

3. Click the latest submission in the list.

   The assessment is selected, and the pop-up appears on the map.

4. On the pop-up, in the lower right corner, click the Options button and click Smart Editor.

   The Review Assessments pane appears. You can see the responses the facility manager sent, describing the probable impact of the event on the facility.

5. Review the information provided by the facility manager.
6. Optionally, change the status from Open to Under Review.
7. Click Save and close the Review Assessments pane.

   The assessment status changes to Under Review on the map and in the Assessment Status group. Once the review status is set to Closed, the assessment is removed from the list and the map.

Modify operational status

Upon review of an assessment, an analyst can modify the status of one or more facilities in the organization to reflect its current state for visual awareness. This is important when working with a team that needs to keep track of the overall operational impact to an organization and share the latest information with an executive audience.

In this workflow, you will take on the role of the analyst in the command center updating the operational status of facilities to reflect their current state.

1. In a browser, open the Business Resilience Web App if you do not have it open already.
2. Zoom in on the map to the facility you want to update.
3. Select the Modify Facility Status widget from the upper right of the application, above the layers pane.
4. In the Modify Facility Status pane, click the Select by Rectangle button.
5. Drag a box around the facility you want to modify.

   The Modify Facility Status window appears with multiple drop-down buttons.

   Note:

   You can also select and update multiple facilities at the same time.

6. Enter the following values for the parameters:

   Parameter	Value
   Notes	Manager reports local flooding with the power and gas service out.
   Operating Status	Select Impacted.
   Electric Service Status	Select Impacted.
   Fire System Status	Select Operating.
   HVAC Status	Select Operating.
   Gas Service Status	Select Impacted.
   Water Service Status	Select Operating.

7. Click Save.

   The change in status updates the symbology of update facilities on the map as well as the Facilities list on the left side to reflect the current count of facilities by status.