installing smoke alarms for those who need them most.
The Challenge
The Illinois Fire Safety Alliance (IFSA) is a non-profit organization in Illinois dedicated to fire safety, burn prevention, and supporting burn survivors. As part of the services they provide, the IFSA has a Smoke Alarm Installation Program which works in cooperation with Fire Departments and the Illinois State Fire Marshall’s office. Fire Departments in Illinois that have a verified smoke detector installation program in their community are eligible to participate.
The program became quite popular and the IFSA was managing all of the functionality in Excel. Because IFSA tracks orders and the actual installation addresses of the detectors, this started to become labor intensive. Activities being done in Excel included:
- All communication being done via emails and attachments
- Constant merging of Excel files from Fire Departments into a Master File
- Required manual intervention to see if a Fire Department had met re-order criteria
- Fulfillment of data requests from Fire Departments
“Reducing the work for Fire Departments and IFSA Staff was critical in automating the ordering and installation data process.”
The Solution
For the IFSA, Plaidypus was able to build out a solution that leveraged Zoho One. Currently, they are using just the CRM and Inventory modules; this leaves them plenty of room to grow into future modules. We designed the Fire Department portal to match the existing ifsa.org website so that the user has a consistent experience when they get handed off.
Now the IFSA is easily able to get an automated dashboard and has control at the Fire Department level to adjust and flex as the needs of a Fire Department change. Orders are auto-fulfilled to the Illinois State Fire Marshall’s Office who warehouses the cases of detectors for distribution. We also maintain a running total of inventory at each Fire Department to drive re-order workflows and checks.
Fire Departments are able to login to the portal now, reducing the amount of redundant data that they have to enter. Furthermore, it allows the Fire Department to see their order and installation history.


