It’s been brought to our attention that there have been several of our dealers lately that don’t know or understand the difference between a Subscriber or the Contact List and what the purpose of a subscriber is.
On Residential accounts:
- On Fire & Gas alarms Subscriber/Premise numbers are the only ones called to verify prior to dispatch.
- The only number(s) called prior to dispatch on Panic signals.
- Medical alarms are verified via subscriber number, then dispatched.
- Burglar alarms will use the standard 2 call verification that starts with your Subscriber #’s, but if only one number is listed, we’ll also call the first # on the contact list to honor 2 call unless otherwise instructed.
- If you have 3 subscribers listed, we will call all 3 on all of the above residential signals. And if it’s just 1, the same thing will apply.
It’s important to know that we DO NOT call Contact Lists (aka keys) after residential panics are dispatched, but we DO use those numbers for notification and/or follow up on all other alarms.
On Commercial Accounts:
- On Gas Alarms we call the subscriber/premise # before bringing in the Fire department for response.
- Medical Alarms are verified first using the subscriber/premise # before EMS is brought in.
- We DO NOT verify signals on Fire or Panic alarms.
With the exception of Burglary alarms, Contact lists are utilized AFTER dispatch has occurred.
If you are adding new accounts and aren’t sure how to enter Subscribers, click HERE to see the step-by-step process.
And if you’ve already got a bunch of accounts and didn’t realize how this worked, don’t despair. We’ve got a simple way for you to create subscribers out of existing lists.

If you already have a contact list posted, but no subscriber, you can easily convert a contact into a subscriber simply by going into data entry and clicking the little box above the arrow and hitting the save button or Control+S to save your work.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out!