2023 Locution User Group – Schedule of Events
Note on Tracks: For many class periods, Locution provides two tracks, track A and track B. In most cases, Track A classes are designed for all, both first time participants as well as those who have attended before. Track B classes are for those wanting to take deeper dives or wanting to understand more advanced areas of the Locution FSA system, though all are welcome to this track.
Monday, Sept 11, 2023 (Attendees fly into Denver)
Location: Golden Hotel
- 5:30-8 pm – Welcome Reception (Meet the Locution staff & enjoy beer, wine & soft drinks + hors d’oeuvres)
- 8 pm… – After the reception, attendees are free to explore downtown Golden.
Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023 (Conference Day 1)
Location: Golden Hotel
- 7:45-9 am – Breakfast Buffet at Golden Hotel
- 9:15 am – Bus leaves for Locution headquarters
- 9:30 am – Arrive Locution Headquarters
Location: (4th Floor Conference Area)
Common Track: For all
- 9:45 – 10 am – Welcome, what’s in store for the day
- 10-10:50 am – Locution Advancements – Glenn Neal
Locution will be adding a major advancement to our product twice a year currently mapped out through early 2025, with other future enhancements already on the development board.
Advancement #1 (Announced at User Group 2023):
New Software Enhancement: PrimeAlert Configuration Portal- Centrally managed configuration.
- Configurations updated automatically.
- Executables updated automatically.
- Logs automatically provided to support.
- Capability is user controlled on/off for maximum user security control.
Each advancement will have its own pricing model. Advancement #1 will be provided to all customers who have existing Locution systems at no additional charge. We want to say ‘Thank You’ to those using our system.
Location: Track A: 4th Floor Conf Area; Track B: 2nd Floor Training Area
Track A: For all interested
- 11 am–11:50am – Basic Troubleshooting – Tony Vasquez
See how Locution Support handles various basic issues that come up while maintaining our system with much information on how to do it yourself. This is the beginning class which will be followed by more advanced class later today.
Track B:On the Deeper or More Advanced Side (2 separate classes)
– In Locution Training Area Training Room –
- 11 am–11:50am – Radio Considerations – Gary Christiansen
Includes considerations for latest radio operation as well as any adaptations needed to work with latest radio models.
– In Locution Training Area Conference Room –
- 11 am–11:50am – PTT Radio Node Filtering – Glenn Neal
If using multiple radio nodes (typically PTT nodes), defines how you can simultaneously filter out different tones or units based upon the node. Essentially each radio node, each on its own dispatch frequency, is ‘owned’ by particular units, each node letting out dispatches only for the ‘owned’ units. Note this is presently used by less than 10% of Locution customers, but to those who do use it or may look to adding this in the future, it is an extremely beneficial feature.
Location: 2 nd Floor Kitchen Area, including choice of three balconies (2 tables each), downstairs umbrellaed table area, kitchen or training room areas
Lunch Time
- Noon- 1 pm – Lunch Buffet at Locution
Location: Track A: 2nd Floor Training Room; Track B: 4th Floor Conference Room
Track A: For all interested (zoning, automated tones and voice subjects)
- 1:15-2:15 pm – Zoning Demonstration Class 1 – Darrell Montano
The 4 Locution types of zoning are discussed. To assure all users have the chance to observe Locution zoning, two separate sessions, one each day, are provided for this demonstration (each class can seat up to 32 individuals). This is the first day’s class which is identical to the second day’s class. - 2:30-3:30 pm – Voice & Tone Basics – Tara Gover & Janet Neal
Learn the basics of Locution tone and voice, as well as how to set them up via your own operation or with Locution’s assistance.
Track B:Troubleshooting and Programming
- 1:15-2:15 pm – Advanced Troubleshooting – Tony Vasquez
See how Locution Support handles various advanced issues that come up while maintaining our system with much information on how to do it yourself. There is no prerequisite that the Beginning Troubleshooting class has been attended from the prior day. - 2:30-3:30 pm – Advanced Tone Configuration (commonly referred to as ‘Advanced Paging’ or ‘Advanced Field Mapping’) – Glenn Neal
This defines how to setup very complex toning definitions and scenarios based upon incoming field information using wild cards and Boolean equations. Field information include streets, units, incidents, as well as other information passed from CAD.
Location: 4th Floor Conference Area
Common Track: For all
- 3:45-5:00 pm – Interactive Breakout Sessions
4 Areas, user chooses and changes areas as desired;- Configuration w/ Tara Gover
- Troubleshooting w/ Tony Vasquez
- Audio Database w/ Janet Neal
- Users’ choice Create own groups for discussion based upon CAD type, feature usage, CADVoice/PrimeAlert setups, or other
Location: Golden Hotel
5:15 pm –Bus leaves for Golden Hotel
Location: The Fort Restaurant
- 6-9:30 pm – Special Off-site Dinner (The Fort)
- 6 – 6:15 pm – Load bus
- 6:15 pm – Departure to The Fort Restaurant in the foothills west of Denver featuring cocktails + hors d’oeuvres on the patio (weather permitting), three-course dinner, dessert & coffee. At the end of the night, hang out on the patio by fire pits (weather permitting)
- 9:30 pm – Board bus; return to The Golden Hotel
Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023 (Conference Day 2)
Location: Golden Hotel
- 7:45-9 am – Breakfast Buffet at Golden Hotel
- 9:15 am – Bus leaves for Locution headquarters
- 9:30 am – Arrive Locution Headquarters
Location: L-HQ (4th Floor Conference Area)
Common Track: For all
- 9:45 – 10 am – Welcome, what’s in store for the day
- 10-10:50 am – Locution Innovations – Glenn Neal
Continuing where we left off with yesterday morning’s Locution Advancements session, we will talk about some future innovation plans. This class will not be insignificant – do not miss this one! - 11-11:55 am – Locution Responder Suite followed by First Arriving Dashboard Integration – Nick Romanyshyn, Matt Crabtree, and Ross Hopkins of First Arriving.
Responder Suite: We’ll be showing our extremely versatile Responder Mobile app, including its ability to cleanly tie into your Apple Watch. Additionally, we’ll be touching on Responder Station, a strong economical ‘Map / Dispatch Info / Street View’ application for each station.
Dashboard: For those who want to expand and have a significant degree of additional information at each station, including potential ties into the Chief’s facebook announcements, graphs of how the different shifts are doing, temperature, as well as numerous other displays of information about your area, Locution’s integration into First Arriving’s Dashboard is the answer.
Did you know that with your purchase of a Locution FSA system, you have already paid for an advanced, fast direct interface between CAD and Locution. When this interface is tied into First Arriving’s Dashboard, it not only supplies fast data (not multi-layered data through email which can quite often delay timing of the information), but also unit status, meaning you have the ability to observe where each unit is on active dispatches.
Location: L-HQ (2nd Floor Training Area)
Lunch Time
- 12:05- 1 pm – Lunch Buffet at Locution – All Group – 2nd Floor
Location: Track A: 2nd Floor Training Room; Track B: 4th Floor Conference Room
Track A: For all interested (zoning subjects)
- 1:15-2:15 pm – Zoning Demonstration Class 2 – Darrell Montano
The four Locution types of zoning are discussed. To assure all users have the chance to observe Locution zoning, two separate sessions, one each day, are provided for this demonstration (each class can seat up to 32 individuals). This is the second day’s class which is identical to the first day’s class.
Track B: On the Deeper or More Advanced Side
- 1:15-2:15 pm – Advanced Voice Configuration (commonly referred to as ‘AVA Config’ or ‘dbConfig’) – Glenn Neal
The AVA Config (also referred to as dbconfig) language that Locution uses to define how to transform the incoming CAD input into the announcement the customer wants to hear, is a very extensive language.
This class will cover five significant points of this language:
- How to have customer defined preambles announced before each field of an incoming message (e.g. before streets, before radio channels, etc).
- How to have special pronunciation of items within any field of an incoming message (e.g. how to specify how to announce numbers within streets, or the number associated with a unit, or how to say phonetics rather than a,b,c for apartments etc).
- How to have special ordering of a message.
- Where do I find the list of special algorithms, algorithms that perform very unique announcements of fields, that though written for particular agencies, are available to all.
- How to understand the T,U,V,W communication flags that have the Audio Database (ADB) communicating with this language configuration and rules.
Location: 4th Floor Conference Area
Common Track: For all
- 2:30-3:15 pm – Customer Success Dept and Hardware EOSL (End of Service Life) – Customer Success Team, Glenn Neal and Kristi McQueen
Customer Success (CS) department will present a brief discussion on how their department operates and assists our customers. We will then go into a discussion on hardware EOSL (End of Service Life). Locution will discuss our plan for a smooth transition from systems that are at their hardware end of life to a new hardware beginning (noting for all up to date on annual support, Locution software is always kept up to date).
Note, as many already know, the Locution Customer Success department are your main contacts for all Locution FSA post-go-live items excluding support, audio database, and standard maintenance. Areas they specifically deal with include add-on projects, End of Service Life questions, upgrades, and mini-projects. - 3:30 pm – Bus leaves for Station Tour
- 3:45-4:30 – Station Tour – this year we’ll focus on ‘smaller’ station FSA operation
- 4:30 pm – Bus leaves for Golden Hotel
- 5 pm – Free Evening for Attendees
Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023 (Departure Day)
Location: Golden Hotel
- 7:45-9 am – Farewell Breakfast Buffet in Golden Vista Room
Note: instructors and class curriculum are subject to change up to the day of user group conference. Please refer to Locution website for up-to-date details on any potential changes.