For years, emergency communication centers have operated under a tough reality: enormous responsibility, massive call volumes, rising public expectations… and limited visibility into what’s actually happening inside the center from moment to moment.
Directors often tell us, “We can see how many calls we take and how fast we answer them. Everything beyond that is a black box.”
That limited view simply doesn’t match the complexity of today’s PSAP (Public Safety Answering Point) environment. With turnover rising, call types expanding, and expectations higher than ever, leaders need more than siloed data and manual reports. They need true operational intelligence.
Today, that clarity is finally possible
(more on that in a moment)… but first, more on the problems.
The Reality Today: Data Everywhere, But None of It Connected
Walk into any PSAP and you’ll find data in every corner. The challenge isn’t a lack of information — it’s that none of it talks to each other.
This disconnect leads to delayed or missed insights, overlooked trends, avoidable mistakes, and coaching moments that only surface
after performance or morale takes a hit.
A call taker may struggle for weeks before anyone notices. A CAD entry bottleneck might happen every afternoon, but the pattern remains invisible. Multiple factors may be affecting dispatch times, yet the evidence sits buried across different systems.
The old model of reporting forces PSAPs to react to problems instead of anticipating them. And some issues stay hidden so deeply that they’re never uncovered at all…until it’s too late.
Limited Metrics, Constant Blind Spots
Historically, most emergency communication centers have relied on two core metrics:
speed (how fast are we answering calls?) and
volume (how many calls are we taking?).
These metrics matter — often because funding is tied to them — but they barely scratch the surface of what’s happening inside the PSAP.
Behind every call are dozens of questions leaders might need answers to:
- How quickly was it entered into CAD?
- Was the right priority assigned?
- Were the right units dispatched — and how fast?
- How long did it take to get someone on scene?
- Is a call taker struggling silently with a run of high-stress incidents?
- Where are delays occurring — call taking, dispatch, radio, field?
- Are certain call types prone to QA issues?
- Which call takers need additional coaching?
- Are resources being dispatched appropriately?
When the information lives in multiple systems, getting answers isn’t easy.
Managers end up pulling reports from each platform and manually merging them into spreadsheets — hoping nothing critical slips through the cracks.
A Breakthrough: NiCE Inform Intelligence Center Provides a Unified Analytics Hub
Now, PSAPs can access true clarity with a unified analytics hub that aggregates data from CAD, CPE, radio, Quality Assurance, RapidSOS, recordings, and more — all in one place.
This aggregation and analytics layer powers the
NiCE Inform Intelligence Center PSAP Performance Dashboards, transforming once-siloed data into meaningful, real-time intelligence.
With 50+ customizable dashboards and hundreds of out-of-the-box metrics, managers can finally dissect every aspect of call handling and radio dispatching. The platform even automatically calculates hard-to-measure metrics that draw data from multiple systems (like time-to-dispatch and time-to-on-scene), and can organize highlights by incident type, shift, and individual telecommunicator.
Managers can filter data by different high-priority incident types, drill down into individual, team or shift performance details, and listen to any associated call or radio recordings to understand exactly what happened, from start to finish.
With all core systems connected, the Intelligence Center reveals:
- The full incident lifecycle
- Where bottlenecks occur
- How people are performing
- When someone is struggling
- And, any trends that are emerging early on
The dashboards aren’t just “nice visuals.” They’re operational, actionable game-changers. PSAP leaders don’t just see data — they can see cause, effect, and context.
What Intelligence Center Dashboards Can Reveal — Through Real PSAP Scenarios
Below are just a few real-world examples of what the dashboards can uncover.
Scenario 1: Supporting Mental Wellness for the Call Taker Who’s Struggling Quietly
A supervisor notices one call taker’s performance seems “off,” but the reason isn’t clear.
The dashboard reveals the bigger picture: over the last three shifts, that call taker handled multiple domestics, cardiac arrests, suicides-in-progress, and a fatal motor vehicle crash — all within a tight window.
With that insight, the supervisor can intervene early and offer support before burnout or errors escalate.
Scenario 2: Coaching With Context, Not Guesswork
QA scores dip for a few call takers. Traditionally, supervisors would pull random calls to investigate.
The dashboard pinpoints the exact calls driving the decline — and listening to them reveals the issue.
A single call type is consistently causing scoring drops due to a confusing protocol. It’s not a performance problem; it’s a training gap.
What could have been a disciplinary conversation becomes supportive, targeted coaching.
Scenario 3: Managing Alternative Response With Real-Time Insight
A center has recently expanded its use of alternative responders for mental health and low-acuity calls, but no one knows how well the model is working.
The dashboard changes that instantly.
Leaders can now see which calls are being diverted, how quickly teams arrive, and what outcomes follow. Patterns emerge: some call types show longer response times, others show strong results.
By drilling into the data, the center pinpoints where training, staffing, or workflow adjustments are needed — and can evolve the program based on evidence, not assumptions.
Scenario 4: Understanding ASAP-to-PSAP Impact in Minutes, Not Months
A center has been using ASAP-to-PSAP digital alarm service for years but hasn’t been able to measure its true impact.
A new dashboard changes that immediately.
Instead of waiting weeks for compiled reports, supervisors now see the number and types of alarm incidents coming through ASAP-to-PSAP versus traditional emergency calls. Clear patterns emerge: alarm traffic shifts, incident types form predictable trends, and false alarms can finally be compared to true emergencies.
What was once a black box becomes visible, measurable, and actionable.
Total Clarity, Finally Within Reach
PSAP leaders don’t need
more data — they need
connected data, in context of what matters most.
And they need clarity.
NICE Inform’s Intelligence Center delivers that clarity and practical insight by blending information from every critical system into one unified analytics platform. Leaders can finally see the entire call lifecycle — from answer to CAD entry to dispatch to radio to arrival — with all contributing factors visible in one place.
So now, instead of saying, “We think there’s a problem,” leaders can say:
- “This is what’s happening.”
- “This is when it’s happening.”
- “This is why it’s happening.”
- “Here’s how we fix it.”
And they can say it all with confidence.
With clear, connected, actionable insights, emergency communication center leaders are able to identify staffing gaps before they snowball, detect operational risks in real time, anticipate training needs, and support telecommunicators long before stress turns into burnout.
No more flying blind — this is what it looks like when PSAPs can finally see.
Interested in learning more?
We invite you to watch this
brief video and
on-demand demo webinar to learn more about how the NiCE Inform Intelligence Center can bring clarity to your PSAP operation.
