Guidance

Using keywords: guidance for professional users of the get flood warnings service

Updated 17 March 2026

Applies to England

1. Overview

You should use this guide if you have a professional (organisation) login for the Get flood warnings service. You are likely to be an administrator for your organisation’s Get flood warnings account.

Administrators for an organisation can add locations of interest and then link contacts to these. This allows organisations to tailor which flood alerts and flood warnings each of their contacts receive 

You must link contacts to locations they need messages for. They will not receive any flood alerts and flood warnings until this is done. Keywords allow a contact to be added to multiple locations at once.

This document explains how to:

• add keywords to locations and contacts
• edit existing keywords
• delete keywords

Separate guides are available explaining how to:

• add contacts
• add locations
• link contacts to locations

2. Keywords

You can assign keywords to locations and contacts. Keywords can be used to:

• group locations or contacts together
• link a contact to multiple locations at once
• search and filter your contacts and locations in their respective tabs

Keywords can only be added to one contact or location at a time.

3. Adding contact keywords

Step 1: Select the ‘Users’ tab.

Step 2: Select a user from the table by clicking on their name.

Step 3: To add keywords select ‘Add keywords’. You can then add one or more keywords to your user, selecting ‘Add keyword’ and ‘Continue’ when finished. For a user who has existing keywords, in their ‘User details’ page select ‘Change’ next to their keywords to add additional keywords, selecting ‘Add keyword’ and ‘Continue’ when finished.

Image 1: User details tab with options to add user keywords. Image courtesy of the Environment Agency.

Step 4: Uncheck the box next to any keywords to remove it as a keyword for this user and then select ‘Continue’. This will not remove this keyword from other users

Image 2: User keyword page with options to remove and add. Image courtesy of the Environment Agency.

Keywords:

• can be used to refer to a team or role – for example, Duty Officer or South Team
• can be comprised of single or multiple words – for example ‘South’ or ‘South West’
• are limited to 50 keywords per user

4. Adding location keywords

Step 1: Select the ‘Locations’ tab.

Step 2: Select a location from the table by clicking on its name.

Step 3: To add a keyword select ‘Add keywords’. You can then add one or more keywords to your location, selecting ‘Add keyword’ and ‘Continue’ when finished. For a location with existing keywords, in the ‘Location details’ page select ‘Change’ next to the keywords to add additional keywords, selecting ‘Add keyword’ and ‘Continue’ when finished.

Image 3: Location details page showings add keywords. Image courtesy of the Environment Agency

Step 4: Uncheck the box next to any keywords to remove it as a keyword for this location and then select ‘Continue’. This will not remove this keyword from other locations.

Image 4: Location keyword page with options to remove and add. Image courtesy of the Environment Agency

Keywords:

• can be used to refer to a team area, or an asset type – for example, South West or infrastructure types
• can be comprised of each single or multiple words – for example, ‘South’ or ‘South West’
• are limited to 50 keywords per location

5. Managing keywords

You can view and edit your organisation’s keywords from the ‘Locations’ or ‘Users’ tab, select ‘Edit or delete keywords’.

Image 5: Your locations page with option to edit or delete keywords. Image courtesy of the Environment Agency.

Keywords for locations and contacts are stored in two separate lists within the ‘Edit or delete keywords’ page.

Depending on which list of keywords you would like to manage you can select:

• locations keywords tab
• user keywords tab

You can use the search box to look for a particular keyword, or a full list will be displayed underneath.

Image 6: Keywords page with options to add, change or delete. Image courtesy of the Environment Agency.

Select ‘Change’ to update a keyword. This will edit the keyword for all locations or contacts associated with it at once.

Select ‘I want to add a new keyword’ to add.

Select ‘Delete’ to remove a keyword from the list. This will remove it from all locations or contacts it is associated with.

You can select multiple keywords and then select ‘Delete selected keywords’ to remove them from your account in bulk.

6. Find out more

You can also watch this YouTube tutorial to find out:

• what a keywords is
• how to add keywords
• how to manage keywords
• how to link keywords