Avalanche TTX™ is the ultimate tool for running tabletop discussion exercises

It combines a powerful scenario design environment with an immersive scenario presentation engine and sophisticated after-action review capability. And best of all, it’s extremely easy to use, making the design, delivery and review of your tabletop discussion exercises an engaging experience, both for you and your teams.

Overview

This is a great, budget-friendly technology, which is so important at a time where everyone is required to achieve more with less resources.

Tom Ferrentino, Emergency Management Consultant for Federal Agencies and Markets

Avalanche TTX™ – Advanced Tabletop Exercises. Simple

How it works

How Avalanche TTX™ works

  1. Create an exercise using the scenario designer.

    Rapidly design your scenarios by placing events on a timeline using the easy drag-and-drop interface. Add various audio and visual injects or create new media using the user-friendly Avalanche TTX™ design features.

  2. Run your discussion exercise and get people talking.

    Run your discussion exercise by choosing a scenario and pressing start. Control the scenario from the facilitator control panel, or use the optional Remote Control.

    Add an Avalanche TTX™ Server to access advanced features, including multi-site scenarios with integrated audio and video conferencing, and a centralized media and scenario library.

  3. Review the results, listen to what happened and provide feedback.

    After the exercise, you can listen to the discussions and view observation notes, whiteboards and various other details. Avalanche TTX™ makes it simple to revisit and annotate your exercises, making after-action review quick and easy.

  4. Print out or email an after-action debrief report for distribution.

    In a few clicks you can have a debrief report ready for distribution to stakeholders. It's quick and easy, and helps your organization spend less time on administration and more time on being better prepared.

Easy to implement

Single computer

Simply install the software on your laptop or desktop. Each installation will allow you to run tabletop discussion exercises at that location without the advanced multi-site capability.

Internet linked multi-site

Simply install the Avalanche TTX™ Server software on a single computer within your firewall and your existing Avalanche TTX™ installations can talk to each other.

If you have an Avalanche TTX™ Server, you can use either option at any time.

It’s easy to upgrade to multi-site

Unleash the collaborative potential of Avalanche TTX™ multi-site discussion exercises with audio and video conferencing, a centralized location for your scenarios, user accounts and exercise results.

To run multi-site tabletop exercises, simply add an Avalanche TTX™ Server to link your installations together over the Internet.

Unprecedented realism, effectiveness, economy and ease

With features that allow participants to focus on improving processes and decision-making, Avalanche TTX™ software makes your preparedness exercises more engaging, more inclusive and far less expensive, cumbersome and time-consuming.

Features

Bring your exercises to life

  • Compelling Injects

    Liven up your scenarios with immersive phone calls, radio broadcasts, explosions, briefing videos, emails, text messages and more.

  • It Just Works

    No more messing about with projectors not working and videos not playing back in your presentations. Avalanche TTX™ is exceptionally easy to use.

  • Rapid Scenario Creation

    Build your own scenario library in minutes. Drag and drop injects to recreate the stimuli your people would experience in real operational situations, bringing a compelling sense of reality to your discussion exercises.

  • Incredibly User-Friendly

    Despite being very powerful and flexible, you won’t need a degree in computer science and a film crew to create great scenarios in Avalanche TTX™.

Effortless collaboration

  • Bring People Together

    Deliver exercises across multiple sites and record group discussions as if everyone was in the same room.

  • Electronic Whiteboards

    Create an unlimited number of whiteboards. Show them in one location or at multiple sites. Collaborate with other locations on one whiteboard or break-out into groups for brainstorming sessions on separate whiteboards.

  • Multi-Site Presentation*

    You control your presentation from one location, with everyone seeing and hearing the scenario unfold together. Or for more elaborate scenarios, you can send different information to the various groups involved.

  • Sophisticated Facilitator Controls

    Controlling the presentation and group discussion is easy. Avalanche TTX™ manages your time, telling you when you’re running over schedule and letting you know what’s coming up next. Many other great features make complex multi-site group discussions surprisingly easy to manage.

  • iPhone Remote Control

    The Avalanche TTX™ Remote Control puts the advanced facilitation controls available in Avalanche TTX™ into the palm of your hand.

* Multi-site features require Avalanche TTX™ Server

Powerful management tools

  • Build Your Own Scenario Library

    Powerful scenario building capabilities let you create a library of the types of situations your organization faces, so your people can be better prepared for whatever the world throws at them.

  • Rapid Scenario Creation

    The scenario design tools in Avalanche TTX™ help you with every stage of the design process. Create effective and compelling scenarios in minutes.

  • Focused After-Action Review

    Review recordings of group discussions, whiteboards, and other observations. Jump directly to a discussion on a particular topic and play back what was said. Provide feedback in the form of comments, annotations, ideas and lessons learned.

  • Automatic Debrief Reports

    Following an after-action review, print out an automatically generated report containing a summary of the discussion topics, along with any feedback, observations and other commentary provided by reviewers. Distribute these reports to stakeholders as a permanent record of the exercise.

  • Keep It Simple

    Keep your scenario presentations in one place. Share scenarios with your colleagues. Or with Avalanche TTX™ Server, keep all your exercise media in one place for your entire organization.

Other features

  • Simple Exercise Set Up

    Simply plug in a projector, and let Avalanche TTX™ help you to get your tabletop exercise started.

  • AES-128 Security

    Employing industry standard AES-128 encryption on all server communications, Avalanche TTX™ ensures that your confidential information is secure.

How to Buy

How to buy Avalanche TTX™

Avalanche TTX™ can be purchased direct from Avalias as a digital download. Or ask us about our Avalanche TTX™ bundle - Avalanche TTX™ preinstalled and ready to use on a Panasonic Toughbook® computer.

For multi-site tabletop exercises, simply buy Avalanche TTX™ for each location, and add an Avalanche TTX™ Server to link the sites together.

Avalanche TTX packaging

Avalanche TTX™

Scenario design, presentation, facilitation and review in a simple and powerful application for Microsoft Windows.
Take your preparedness exercises to the next level with Avalanche TTX™.

Avalanche TTX Server packaging

Avalanche TTX™ Server

Integrated voice and video conferencing. Central scenario library for your entire organization. Control multi-site scenarios from one location. Show different scenario content to other sites. Put low cost collaboration into your organization’s preparedness toolset.

Get started today

  • Call us

    USA (toll free) +1 (888) 267-7667

    Australia +61 2 9419 4040

  • Ask us to call you

    Fill out our online form, and an Avalias Sales Representative will call you back.

    Please include country code and area code.
    E.g. +61 2 9419 4040.

    If we can't reach you by phone

Related Services

  • Scenario Design

    Avalias can help you with scenario design, ranging from consulting and video production to a complete end-to-end service.

    Please contact us if you would like to discuss your scenario design requirements.

  • Training

    Avalanche TTX™ is incredibly easy to use, but if you require face-to-face instruction, Avalias offer a range of training courses to meet your needs.

    Please contact us to discuss discounts for larger training groups.

  • Hosting

    Please contact us if you’d like Avalias to arrange web hosting for Avalanche TTX™ Server for your organization.

Frequently Asked Questions


About Avalanche TTX

What is Avalanche TTX?
Avalanche TTX is software that enables users to easily design and run tabletop discussion exercises. After an exercise concludes, it allows users to analyze and review the results and then automatically print out debrief reports.
Who uses Avalanche TTX?
Avalanche TTX is used by government and private sector organizations that have a training or exercising requirement to deliver regular, cost effective and repeatable discussion-based exercises. It is equally useful for those that don’t currently have an exercise capability and would like to bring discussion exercises to their organization. It offers great value to emergency management organizations, Police, Ambulance, Fire Brigades along with any commercial organization whose people need to be well prepared for emergencies.
Can Avalanche TTX be run over the Internet?
Avalanche TTX can be run over the Internet, but it can also run as a standalone application without an Internet connection. To run Avalanche TTX over the Internet, you will require an Avalanche TTX Server which will allow multiple computers running Avalanche TTX to connect over the internet. Connecting in this way gives you access to advanced multi-site exercising features like video conferencing.
What computer skills do I need to use Avalanche TTX?
Avalanche TTX has been designed to be extremely simply to use. Exercise facilitators can start a scenario with a couple of mouse clicks. From that point forward, the facilitator control panel helps to keep everyone on track throughout the exercise. For users that design scenarios and perform after-action reviews, some basic computer skills (such as drag-and-drop) are required. The skill level required for using these advanced features is on a par with that required for designing presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint, or Keynote on a Mac.
Can I share scenarios with other people that use Avalanche TTX?
Yes. Scenarios can be saved to a file, and imported by the other person. Your Avalanche TTX scenarios can be imported by another person running Avalanche TTX, if they are using the same software version or newer.
Can I use existing scenario content (e.g. audio, video) in Avalanche TTX?
Yes. If the scenario media is in a format that Avalanche TTX supports (most popular formats are supported) you can easily add any images, audio files, video files and text from your existing scenarios. Avalanche TTX can also help you to easily create and edit new media, like phone calls, two-way radio broadcasts and videos.

Requirements

What are the system requirements for Avalanche TTX?
The Avalanche TTX Software requires a PC running Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional SP2 or Microsoft® Windows® 7. Your computer should have at least 2GB of RAM. Approximately 250MB of disk space is required to install the application, and an additional 10GB of disk space is recommended for data. Your computer will need dual display capability with a minimum display resolution on both the main and external display of 1024 x 768. You will also need a data projector (or equivalent) with a minimum display resolution of 1024 x 768. For audio playback and recording you will need a full duplex sound card, with a microphone and speakers. If you have the optional Avalanche TTX Server, an Internet connection or LAN is required to connect. For single-site exercises Avalanche TTX can run in offline mode and a server connection is not required.
How long does it take to deploy Avalanche TTX in an organization?
Avalanche TTX is very quick and easy to deploy. It arrives as a Windows installation package that automatically configures your system to run Avalanche TTX. The Avalanche TTX Server application can be installed on a standard PC (e.g. a desktop or laptop computer) or on a server machine in a corporate network. Depending on your IT department requirements, the quicker and simpler option may be to install on one of the computers that is running Avalanche TTX.
How long does it take to be trained to use Avalanche TTX?
An introductory training course for Avalanche TTX runs for 2 days, however with a basic level of computer skills many users can run scenarios, and start designing their own scenarios without any training. For those that want to improve their scenario design skills, and make better user of the software, a range of more advanced training courses are available.

Purchasing

What license options are available for Avalanche TTX?
Avalanche TTX can be purchased as a software license with a maintenance agreement (support and upgrades) or as a yearly subscription.
Can I evaluate Avalanche TTX free of charge?
At the moment there isn’t a generally available free trial of Avalanche TTX. Under special circumstances, Avalias can provide free trials of Avalanche TTX to customers that need to evaluate the software prior to purchase. Contact us if you’d like to arrange an Avalanche TTX trial.
What are the differences between Avalanche TTX and Avalanche ST?
Avalanche TTX provides features for running tabletop discussion exercises (TTX) as a facilitated presentation to a group of people. Avalanche ST on the other hand provides features for running functional style exercises where the participants actually interact in real-time with a simulated work environment.
Is Public Sector pricing available for Avalanche TTX?
Yes. If you are a small municipality or county government, Avalias has created a licensing program that provides significant savings for smaller regions based on population size. Speak to an Avalias sales representative for more information.

Avalanche TTX Server

What is Avalanche TTX Server?
Avalanche TTX Server is software that runs in the background on your computer and allows people with Avalanche TTX to connect together, participate in multi-site exercises, and share their scenarios and exercise results.
What are the differences between Avalanche TTX and Avalanche TTX Server?
Avalanche TTX is software that allows you to design and run discussion exercises. Avalanche TTX Server runs in the background and allows you to connect to multi-site exercises over a network connection (for example the Internet). Connecting to an Avalanche TTX Server unlocks the advanced multi-site features of Avalanche TTX.
What are the system requirements for Avalanche TTX Server?
To run Avalanche TTX™ Server you will need a PC running Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional SP2, Microsoft® Windows® 7 or Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003. Your computer should have at least 2GB of RAM. Avalanche TTX™ Server requires approximately 100MB of disk space to install the application, and an additional 300GB of disk space is recommended for data. An Internet connection or LAN is also required, and depending on your security settings a port may need to be opened on your firewall.
Is Avalanche TTX™ Server secure when it runs over the internet?
All network traffic between Avalanche TTX™ and the Avalanche TTX™ Server is encrypted using AES encryption ensuring that the integrity of all data on the network is well protected. Avalanche TTX™ Server can be configured in a number of ways, depending on the level of security you require. Many organizations prefer to have the system exist entirely on its own internal network – i.e. the client machines and the server all exist on an isolated network, to ensure that there is no way anyone can interfere with the communications. If you require Avalanche TTX to connect over the Internet, there are other options, such as connecting over either a new or existing Virtual Private Network (VPN).
How scalable is Avalanche TTX™ Server?
Avalanche TTX Server can support unlimited user accounts, however the quantity of concurrent exercises it can support is directly dependent on the power of the computer it is running on. Typical basic servers support multi-site exercises with up to 5 sites per exercise, or 5 concurrent single-site exercises. If you are running Avalanche TTX Server on a powerful server, this number can be considerably higher. Multiple Avalanche TTX Servers can also be connected to provide greater scalability to meet your need. Contact us to discuss your requirements.

Support

What additional support is available?
There are premium support options available for when your team needs services like around-the-clock coverage, faster response times, and telephone support. Avalias can also assist with services such as scenario design, training and server hosting. Speak to an Avalias sales representative for more information.
What are the benefits of a maintenance agreement?
Maintenance agreements and subscriptions are optional, so it is up to you to decide on the option that best suits your budget. However by taking up either a maintenance agreement or subscription, you will enjoy the benefit of access to email support, and point release upgrades. Subscriptions provide all the benefits of a maintenance agreement PLUS all software version upgrades during the lifetime of the subscription.
What happens if I have an issue and need support?
Contact our support help desk through our online form, and a support technician will answer your questions. If your organization has premium support, you will have other contact options.
How does Avalanche TTX get updated?
Avalanche TTX updates and upgrades are available to users with either a current maintenance agreement or subscription, in the form of a digital download. You simply run the installer, and your installation of Avalanche TTX will be updated with new features. The installer program will also update your scenarios to work with the latest version of the software.
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