Crisis Response

Crisis Response is a tool for planning, approving, and sharing a crisis communication protocol - a structured response plan you build in HIVE, get signed off by a final approver, and share with the people who need it. It lives on the Risk & Reputation screen, below the monitoring alerts.

Available to everyone - no add-on needed

Crisis Response is a standard feature, available to every company. It does not require the Risk & Reputation add-on, even though it sits on the same screen - you can use it whether or not monitoring is switched on for your company. Any team member can view crisis protocols; an Editor can create, send, and manage them.

Something you start deliberately

Crisis Response is user-triggered - you open it yourself when you need it. There’s no automatic trigger: a monitoring alert never launches a crisis response on its own, and the two aren’t linked, so starting a protocol doesn’t pull in an alert’s details. You begin with a blank, structured plan and fill it in.

Starting one

On the Risk & Reputation screen, scroll to the Crisis Management panel - “Take quick action with pre-set crisis communication workflows.” - and choose Start Crisis Response.

The Crisis Response Workflow opens in place, replacing the screen. Exit (top right) returns you to the Risk & Reputation screen at any time.

The guided workflow

The workflow walks you through seven steps, shown on a numbered progress rail across the top:

1. Define Situation - capture what happened, when it started, what triggered it, and whether it’s ongoing. On screen: Define the Situation - “Create a single source of truth for the crisis.”
2. Classify Crisis - tag the crisis category: Reputation, Legal / Regulatory, Product / Service, People / Culture, or External event.
3. Stakeholder Mapping - pick the groups affected: Customers, Media, Employees, Regulators, Investors, Partners.
4. Response Strategy - choose your overall approach.
5. Messaging - set your key message, what you can say now, what you can’t say yet, and the tone.
6. Channel Planning - choose the channels to respond on (Social media, Press release, Website statement, Direct Email, Internal comms) and draft a note, owner, and timing for each.
7. Approval - on screen, Approval & Responsibility: assign the Final Approver (required), and optionally a Decision Owner and Spokesperson, plus any Additional Information the team or approver should know.

Nothing is required until you send

You can fill the steps in any order, leave fields blank, and stop whenever you like - Save as draft keeps your progress so you can pick it up later. The one field HIVE insists on is the Final Approver, and only when you actually send the protocol for sign-off (“Required. Receives the approval request when the protocol is sent.”).

The lifecycle: draft → active → approved

A protocol moves through three states:

State	Where you see it	What it means
Draft	The Drafts list (with Resume / Delete)	Still being edited. Saved and resumable; not yet sent.
Active	An Active badge in Response Protocols	Sent for approval - awaiting the Final Approver’s sign-off. The row reads “Awaiting approval from [name]”.
Approved	An Approved badge in Response Protocols	Signed off by the Final Approver and locked (read-only). The row reads “Approved by [name] on [date]”.

A protocol ends at Approved - there’s no separate close, resolve, or archive step. To change an approved protocol you make a revision, which starts a fresh draft (covered below).

Sending it for approval

Once a draft is ready, you send it to your Final Approver for sign-off - this is what moves it from Draft to Active.

1. On the final screen - Preview, “Review the protocol below, then pick recipients and send.” - check the protocol laid out in full, then move to the Send to card: “The Final Approver is included automatically. Pick any additional employees to copy in.”

2. The Final Approver you chose in step 7 is included automatically. Add any Cc recipients to keep informed - optional, and as many as you like.

3. Choose Finish and send. A short Send protocol? dialog confirms who it’s going to and notes “Emails are sent now and the protocol moves to Active status.” Confirm with Send.

HIVE then emails each recipient their own link and the protocol moves to Active, with the row reading “Awaiting approval from [name]”. You can’t send without a Final Approver - HIVE blocks it until one is set.

About the emails

The approver and any cc recipients are emailed as you send, and the protocol goes Active straight away. Delivery is best-effort - sending doesn’t wait on, or guarantee, each individual email. If one doesn’t go out, the protocol is still Active and you can re-send it (see Adding recipients later below). The emails go through HIVE’s own email service; optionally an admin can send from your company’s own domain, set up under Settings → Email.

Who gets it: the approver and cc recipients

There are two kinds of recipient, and the difference matters:

• Final Approver - one person, and the only one who can approve the protocol. Always included when you send.
• Cc recipients - optional, any number of people kept informed. They get the protocol to read but can’t approve it - their copy is view-only.

Everyone who receives a protocol gets their own private link to it.

The recipient’s link and approval page

Each recipient is emailed a private link, just for them, that opens the protocol on a public page - no HIVE login needed, so recipients can be people outside your company.

Each link is personal

A recipient’s link is tied to that one person, so it shouldn’t be forwarded. To give someone else access, add them as a recipient (see below) so they get their own link - don’t pass yours on.

The page shows the protocol under the heading Crisis Response Protocol, marked “Shared via HIVE”. What the recipient can do depends on their role:

• The Final Approver sees an action bar: “You are the Final Approver.” - “Review the protocol above, then approve.” - with an I approve button. Choosing it opens a Confirm approval step (“This is final and recorded for audit. Once you approve, the protocol is locked from further edits.”); confirming records the approval.
• Cc recipients see the same protocol view-only - no approve action.

If a link is opened without its personal part, the page shows “Incomplete link” (“Please open the link from your email.”); a link that’s been replaced or is no longer valid shows “Invalid or expired link” (“Please request a fresh link from the sender.”).

When the approver approves

When the Final Approver approves from their link, the protocol becomes Approved and locks - no further edits. Back in HIVE, its row reads “Approved by [name] on [date]”, and the approval is kept on record for audit.

Adding recipients later

You can copy more people in after sending - on an Active or Approved protocol, use the Share action in the Response Protocols list.

The Add recipients dialog explains it: “The Final Approver was already notified when this protocol was sent. Pick additional employees to copy in.” Pick the people and choose Send to [n] people - each new recipient is emailed their own link, and you’ll see “Sent to N recipients” (with a per-person breakdown if any email didn’t go out). You’re adding cc recipients only here - the Final Approver is set when you first send and can’t be swapped from this dialog.

Revising an approved protocol

An approved protocol is locked, so to change one you make a revision. In the Response Protocols list an approved row shows a lock - “Approved - read-only. Use New revision to make changes.” - and a New revision action.

Choosing it asks “Create new revision?” (“This makes a fresh draft you can edit. The current approved protocol stays untouched.”); confirm with Create revision. HIVE copies the protocol into a fresh draft for you to edit and send anew, while the original approved version stays exactly as it was.

Note

A revision doesn’t carry over the recipients - it starts as a clean draft with no one attached. When you send the revision, you pick the Final Approver and any cc recipients again.

AI “Suggest actions”

Suggest actions is an AI helper that proposes next steps for a protocol. It opens a Suggested next actions dialog: “One-off AI suggestions based on the current state of this protocol. Not saved.”

It’s assistive only - it doesn’t gate or change anything, it isn’t part of sending or approval, and nothing it produces is stored on the protocol. It’s available once the protocol has been saved, and it’s lightly rate-limited, so a burst of repeated requests may briefly pause before you can ask again.

Who can do what

Who can do what

• Editor - create protocols, send them (Finish and send), share them (add recipients), and revise them.
• Any team member - view protocols.
• Recipients (the Final Approver and cc) - act through their own private link with no HIVE account. Only the Final Approver can approve; cc recipients are view-only.