A phrase staff say over the radio when they cannot say they are in trouble. Hearing it opens a case for the speaker, puts it above everything else on Monitoring and reaches every security manager's phone — and sends nothing back to the speaker.
What a Duress Phrase Is For
Sometimes a member of staff is in trouble and cannot say so. Somebody is standing over them; a situation has turned in a way they cannot describe out loud; a customer has become a threat. They can still key the radio and say something ordinary. A duress phrase is an ordinary-sounding phrase your team agrees in advance — "code tango", "can you send Michael up" — that means I need help and I cannot ask for it. When it is heard on the radio, the platform opens a case for the speaker and raises the control room, and does it without a sound anywhere near them.
Nothing is ever sent back to the speaker. No chime plays in their room, no message goes to their phone, nothing changes on their screen, and nobody acknowledges over the air. Anything sent back could get them hurt. This is a property of the feature, not a setting, and every part of the response below happens off the radio.
Setting up phrases, claiming and resolving cases, ringing a phone and declaring an incident need the permission to manage Security Operations; seeing the case on Monitoring needs the permission to view it. Nothing is matched until your workspace turns duress phrases on in Security Ops → Settings → Duress phrases.
What Happens When It Is Heard
A case opens for the speaker. The person who said it, the room, the moment, the words as heard and the recording, on a distress case marked immediate. One person has one open case: if they say the phrase again, it is added to the same case.
Every security manager is told. A notification at the highest level — it reaches phones through Do Not Disturb and every mute — saying who, where, and do not answer on the radio.
Monitoring shows it above everything. The condition band reads Duress in red with the person's name, the room and how long ago; a red card sits above the signals with the actions; the room summary is refreshed at once so the control room can read what else the room is saying.
Nothing reaches the room. The speaker's radio is silent. Their app is unchanged. The room in focus, if it is their room, looks the same as it did.
The Card and Its Actions
Play — Plays the transmission from the recording, so the control room hears the voice and what was around it.
Claim — I have this. The case shows your name; the band shows claimed by you; other managers see it is taken.
Declare incident — Opens the Declare launcher on the scenario the phrase suggests (set in Settings), with the case put on the incident and the speaker's room left out of the alarm so nothing sounds beside them. A silent scenario is suggested first.
Call — Rings the person's phone, when the platform has a number for them. Because a phone ringing beside them can tell whoever is with them that help was called, this asks you to confirm you have judged it safe — you can see them, or they have moved away — before it dials.
Resolve — Closes the case with an outcome — safe, false alarm or escalated — and a note, which go on the case's record and the day's Log.
The card stays until the case is resolved. If an incident is declared for it, the case also appears on the incident's Response tab beside any other people needing help, and the incident cannot be closed while the case is open.
Setting It Up
Choose the phrase. Two words that nobody says by accident, easy to remember under pressure and easy to say in a normal voice. "Code tango", "is Michael about", "send the blue folder". Avoid anything a customer might hear as strange, and anything the team says in ordinary work.
Add it. Security Ops → Settings → Duress phrases → Add a phrase: a name, the phrase, and — after Try it — its other spellings. Leave Allow transcription slips on unless the phrase keeps matching ordinary speech; a false alarm is cheaper than a missed one.
Try it. Say the phrase a few times in a room — normally, quickly, with noise behind you — then run Try it at the bottom of the tab. It shows how each transmission was heard and whether it would have matched. If code tango came through as code tangle, add code tangle as a spelling. Nothing is opened and nobody is told.
Practise. Turn Practice mode on for the phrase and run a drill on a live day: the phrase is matched and recorded, managers are told it was practice, nobody's phone is pushed and nothing is declared. Drills are how you learn whether the phrase survives the transcription before you rely on it.
Choose a scenario (optional). The scenario suggested on the card's Declare incident. Silent scenarios are listed first; choosing one that sounds an alarm shows a warning, because an alarm elsewhere in the venue can still be heard where the speaker is.
Turn it on. The switch at the top of the tab. It applies to the next transmission.
Declaring Automatically
A phrase can be set to declare its scenario automatically — nobody presses anything; the incident is declared the moment the phrase is heard, from the first open Monitoring screen held by a security manager, with the speaker's room left out of the alarm. It is off by default and we suggest leaving it off until your phrase has been through drills: a phrase that matches ordinary speech would then sound a real alarm. Managers are notified whether or not it is on, and the card's Declare incident is always there for a human's finger.
Rooms and Who Is Told
A phrase listens in every room unless you tick the rooms it applies to. Everyone with the permission to manage Security Operations is notified; if nobody holds it, workspace admins are. A phrase cannot be snoozed or muted for the afternoon, and turning duress phrases off for the workspace is the only way to stop matching.
Privacy
A duress phrase is matched against the transcripts your rooms already produce under their existing settings; it adds no recording and no transcription of its own. A match records the speaker's name, the room, the time, the words as heard and a link to the recording, because a case needs to say who needs help. Cases are visible to people who can view Security Operations in your workspace and are kept with the incident record. The speaker is never told that a case was opened by the platform — that is the point — so brief your team that saying the phrase is a request for help that will be answered in person.