Singlewire Software, which develops innovative voice applications including interactive voice response (IVR) systems, announced the launch of a Conference Call plugin for InformaCast, which allows users to automatically initiate a conference call session with a pre-determined group of phones.

InformaCast is a full-featured, network-based mass notification, emergency communication, and overhead paging system. Users can send an audio and/or text message to a variety of endpoints including IP speakers, Cisco (News - Alert) IP phones, overhead paging systems, computer desktops, digital signage, SMS text, social media sites, and more simultaneously.

This Conference Call plugin finds typical applications in emergency situations. “When an emergency is declared and an InformaCast broadcast is sent, all public safety managers are automatically called and placed into a conference call session to discuss the situation,” the company said in a press release.

Additionally, the service also allows members of the conference call group to listen to the broadcast message before accepting the conference call request.

"With the Conference Call Plugin, organizations can react much more quickly to an emergency situation," said Ken Bywaters, executive vice-president of product development at Singlewire Software, in a statement. "With one action, a security administrator can trigger an InformaCast broadcast and reach all managers, even if they're off-site, to coordinate a response."

Singlewire is offering the Conference Call plugin to any user of InformaCast 8.0 with a valid Singlewire maintenance contract. Additional plugins will be released from Singlewire on an ongoing basis throughout the year, the company said.

Earlier in July, TMCnet reported Singlewire launched Singlewire M2M plugin for InformaCast, which allows systems to interact with each other without human intervention. With M2M plugin, the user can easily send InformaCast broadcasts when a contact closure has been triggered. The user can also trigger a contact closure when a specific broadcast has been sent.