Setting up the Spillman Flex Data Exchange Integration
Licensing
Before setting up the integration for a customer, Active911 must obtain Motorola's approval. The process can take up to two-four weeks. When an agency contacts us about Spillman Flex connecting with Active911, we submit a form to Motorola on behalf of your agency. Once the integration is approved, the customer can proceed with using the Spillman Flex connector.
The active911-connector application
The active911-connector is a Windows application that connects to your Spillman Flex Data Exchange’s HTTP Rest endpoint, pulls alerts from that connection, and sends them to Active911 via SNPP.
Obtaining the installer
Currently the Spillman Flex Data Exchange Integration is still in beta. Please have one of your agency admins call us at 541-223-7992 or email support@active911.com if your agency would like to join the beta testing, and we will send you the installer for the application.
Setting up the application
When you receive the installer (a .exe file), double click on the file to install it onto your Windows machine.
Once it is installed, open the application and you you will see the Set Up page where you will configure the application to connect to your HTTP Rest endpoint and connect your FlexDex agency identifier to an ActiveAlert agency alerting email.
HTTP Rest Endpoint
The first section is to input your credentials and URL for your HTTP Rest endpoint.
1. Put your HTTP Rest endpoint URL into the first box.
2. Put your username for the endpoint into the second box.
3. Put your password for the endpoint into the third box.
4. Click the VERIFY CONNECTION TO “FLEX DATA EXCHANGE” button and double check that all fields are highlighted in green and that the button changes to say CONNECTION VERIFIED before continuing. Any invalid entries will be highlighted in red and will require you to fix them before continuing.
Changes to any of the three fields will require you to verify the connection again.
Active911 Connection Options
The Active911 Connection Options currently has the following options:
“Connect to Active911 using”
The connection to Active911 uses SNPP via port 444 and this is not currently configurable.
“Send alerts every…”
By default the app queries the DataExchange every 20 seconds. This can be customized with any value between 5 and 1800 seconds.
Check for updates to alerts created within…
By default the app will limit the query to only pull Calls from the last 60 minutes. This can be customized to include any value for minutes.
Cad# Source
In order to identify the call a field needs to be chosen which then maps to the Cad Code on the generated Active911 Alert. By default the app uses Record Number but the Incident Number can be selected as an alternative option.
Windows Service
Clicking install will create a windows service that performs the DataExchange query and forwarding to Active911. This will prompt the user for Admin permissions. After installing the windows service the app will no longer be able to be updated unless you first uninstall the windows-service, update the app, and then reinstall the windows-service.
Configure Agencies
The last step is the Configure Agencies section.
Select your FlexDex agency identifier from the drop down titled Internal Agency Identifier (which will be filled with the available options for your endpoint).
2. Copy and paste your ActiveAlert Agency alerting email into the ActiveAlert Agency Email/Endpoint field.
Note: We recommend calling in to our support while sending the first alerts through the connection. This way we can confirm settings are the way you want them to be from the Active911 side and work with your dispatch.
If you need assistance please contact our support team via 541-223-7992 or support@active911.com.
The email can be found by logging into the web console and going to the Agency tab. Directly underneath the pie chart is your agency’s alerting email address (titled Alert email), which should end in @alert.active911.com. Copy and paste the full email address into the ActiveAlert Agency Email/Endpoint field in the active911-connector application.
If your agency is using pagegroups, you can target the specific pagegroup by adding a prefix to the alert email. If you want to know more about this feature, please refer toPagegroups.
3. You can add as many connections as you’d like by clicking the + ADD ANOTHER CONNECTION button, and remove excess ones by clicking the trash can.
4. When you’re done adding connections and all fields are filled, click the VERIFY CONNECTION(S) TO ACTIVE911 button. All valid email fields will be highlighted in green and any that are invalid will be highlighted in red. Once all fields are verified, the button will change to say CONNECTION VERIFIED and you can continue.
Changes to any of the fields will require you to verify the connection again.
Begin sending alerts
Once all fields are valid, the START ACTIVE911 CONNECTION button will be enabled.
Clicking the button will close the Set Up page, bringing up the main view, and you can start receiving alerts. You can go back to the configuration page by clicking the SETTINGS button.
The table will show the last 50 alerts sent to Active911. The first column is the Message ID from Flex Data Exchange, the second is the status of the alert, and the third is the time it was sent to Active911. Messages that fail to send will be retried up to three times.
There is also a status indicator at the top of the page displaying whether or not the application is actively connected to the HTTP Rest endpoint. The two options are Disconnected and Connected. No action is needed to reconnect, the application automatically attempts to reconnect while disconnected.
Above the SETTINGS button will be a periodic message that runs when the application is actively looking for new alerts in the Flex database, which runs every 3 seconds.
To reconfigure the application, click the SETTINGS button which will bring up the same options from the Set Up page. Change your settings as desired, and they will be applied once you click the SAVE button.
