RTA Overview
Last Modified on 10/01/2019 3:06 pm EDT
An RTA (Regulated Time to Act) is an alert that determines the amount of time a dispatcher has to react to and modify the status of a dispatch when it’s reached a certain status (e.g. New, Unassigned, Assigned, On Route, On Scene, Cleared), priority, and/or location.
For example, if you created an RTA that requires a dispatcher change the status from New to Assigned within ten minutes for high priority dispatches, once a high priority dispatch has been created, the dispatcher will see a green timer on the Dispatches panel that will count down from 0:10:00. 
The RTA settings.
RTA Colors
RTAs appear in the following colors:
- A green RTA timer indicates there is time left to take the appropriate action and displays the amount of time left to do so.
A yellow RTA timer indicates that there is only a minimal amount of time left to take action and displays the amount of time left to do so.
A red RTA timer indicates time has run out. The timer will start counting the amount of time that has passed since the RTA expired. 
The Dispatches panel displaying RTAs at various stages.
Evaluation Rules
You can create multiple RTAs for the same status, but only one RTA will be displayed based on the order of the criteria below (known as evaluation rules).
- Indoor location.
- Location.
- Priority.
- Shortest duration.
For example, you created four RTAs for New to Assigned with the following criteria:
- Time Allowed: 10 minutes; Priority: High.
- Time Allowed: 15 minutes; By Location: Company Office; Priority: Low.
- Time Allowed: 12 minutes; By Location: Company Office > Back staircase; Priority: Medium.
- Time Allowed: 8 minutes; Priority: Low.
Based on the evaluation rules, the RTAs you created for New to Assigned would take precedence as follows:
- RTA C would take precedence over A, B, and D because it has an indoor location point.
- RTA B would take precedence over A and D because it has a location.
- RTA A would take precedence over D because it has a higher priority.
If there are no criteria added for location or priority, the RTA with the shortest time allowed will take precedence.
In order for an RTA to take precedence over any other alerts (based on the evaluation rules), the priority and/or location information in a dispatch must exactly match the priority and/or location criteria (including any indoor location points) specified in that RTA.
The RTA settings.
