Focus on digital collaboration and security

In today's digital world, the security and federative collaboration of communication applications is of crucial importance, especially for association organizations with a large number of members, such as the German Red Cross, THW or fire departments and police organizations.

Secure digital communication in such complex organizations is important both to protect confidential information and to maintain the trust of members, partners and external parties in the organization. This is especially true at a time when digital communication is becoming more and more important and the number of cyber attacks is constantly increasing. A permanent security strategy that is regularly reviewed and adapted is therefore essential.

Communication solution in crisis situations

In a future where communication between the fire department, police, DRK and THW is fully interoperable, these organizations can coordinate their work even better. Thanks to the use of modern and reliable messenger services such as stashcat, communication can take place in real time and it is possible to react even faster and more efficiently in crisis situations.

Many of these aid organizations have decided to use the messenger service stashcat as their digital communication solution. This solution is one of the most up-to-date and secure in the field of digital communication and makes it possible to act more effectively and pass on the right information to the right people.

Communication between the different hierarchical levels of an organization poses an additional challenge. This became particularly clear in crisis situations such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, flooding in the Ahr valley or national and international rescue and recovery operations. In times like these, it is crucial to be able to act quickly and effectively and communicate the right information to the right people. A reliable, robust and modern digital communication solution is essential for this.

In order to communicate effectively and securely, it is no longer enough to rely solely on conventional communication channels. For example, communication via radio channels and control centers can be supplemented by a messenger with visual information such as images or video recordings.
Private messenger services are often used in such situations, but they carry a high risk of data misuse, hacker attacks and legal violations. A lack of compatibility between messenger services also makes it difficult to ensure a continuously moderated flow of information.

The key to effective and secure communication

If a messenger is interoperable, it is compatible with other messaging services. This in turn enables a connection between different platforms and facilitates collaboration between units and organizations during an emergency situation. This is because they do not necessarily have to use the same platform, but can still communicate with each other and remain networked.

The topic of federated communication has become increasingly important, which is why the demand for interoperable messengers from authorities and organizations has risen massively in recent years. It is particularly important to find solutions that are both secure and effective while still ensuring simple communication.

Seamless integration of external applications into the messenger platform

stashcat is a federated business messenger app that enables privacy-compliant, secure and modern digital communication between all stakeholders inside and outside such organizations.

One of the most important features of stashcat in future will be the matrix protocol standard. It not only enables networking with stashcat servers, but also with all other Matrix-based messenger services.

The federated structure ensures that different organizations can communicate both internally and with each other. This makes communication and cooperation between organizations much easier in an emergency or crisis situation.

As technical tools are constantly evolving, stashcat has decided to open up its platform to external applications. This creates great advantages for organizations, as they are now able to integrate almost any system into the platform via an interface and thus optimally adapt it to their own needs. Thanks to the well-documented API, organizations also have the opportunity to develop their own applications.

A "Marketplace" will be set up for this purpose, in which both external applications and stashcat's own developments will be made available. The seamless integration of these applications expands the functionality of the messenger.

This opens up many possibilities for organizations that need specific tools to effectively support their work. In the long term, this option in the "Marketplace" offers the opportunity to offer and use applications with interfaces to frequently used and industry-specific tools.

For example, a chat bot could be used in crisis situations to give employees quick and easy access to important information. The chat bot could be integrated into the existing FAQ database and accessed via the stashcat mobile app. The chat bot could receive a question with a command and then output the corresponding answer from the FAQ database. This makes work easier and ensures that automatic and effective support can be provided. This makes communication and cooperation between organizations much easier in an emergency or crisis situation. 60,000 messages per day: how the THW uses its messenger successfully in crisis situations.

The THW also uses the stashcat communication solution successfully, for example in crisis and emergency situations. One example of this is the flood disaster in the Ahr valley, where the THW was able to efficiently organize and strategically deploy all emergency personnel with the help of the specially branded stashcat offshoot Hermine@THW - this was the THW's largest deployment to date. By using Hermine@THW, up to 60,000 messages could be sent daily during the operation. Users exchanged information about the operation in numerous group chats and asked which volunteers were ready and available. This type of communication enabled the THW to act quickly and efficiently and make the right decisions.