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Grace Amondi edited this page Apr 24, 2023 · 13 revisions

CAP Editor

The Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) provides an open, non-proprietary digital message format for all types of alerts and notifications. It does not address any particular application or telecommunications method. The CAP format is compatible with emerging techniques, such as Web services, as well as existing formats including the Specific Area Message Encoding (SAME) used for the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio and the Emergency Alert System (EAS)

The CAP xml response follows the structure of the schema provided at http://docs.oasis-open.org/emergency/cap/v1.2/CAP-v1.2-os.html

CAP Editor Features

The CAP editor tool is a solution that provides a range of functionalities to support the NMHS in seamlessly issuing CAP. It has been developed with an aim of increasing the adoption of CAP by NMHS in Africa. Some of the key features of the tool include:

  • Possibility to run as standalone editor or integrate into Wagtail-CMS-based website
  • Search Engine Optimization support to increase visibility and attract targeted traffic to an alert
  • Support for Approval Workflow from composer to approver, including commenting and email notification support
  • Interoperable XML API of Alert List and Detail for integration with CAP Aggregators - Live CAP creation and editing preview
  • Draw / Upload Polygon Functionality for Alert Area/Areas
  • Simple user friendly and mobile friendly CAP alert creation and management
  • Alert to Alert/Alerts Reference Linkage
  • Published python package with version management and changelogs https://github.com/wmo-raf/cap-editor
  • Related Setup/Installation and Usage instructions

Creating a CAP Alert

With capeditor successfully installed, both the Alert Listing page and Alert Detail page will be available on CMS admin interface as child page of the home page.

- AlertList
   |_ Alert 1
   |_ Alert 2

Create an Alert Listing Page by adding it as a child page and specifying the title of the page. This page will host a list of all alerts created.

Alert List Page

Create one or more Alert Page by adding it as a child to the Alert Listing Page. This page contains detailed desription about a CAP Alert that is issued.

Alert Detail Page

Alert Detail Page

Sections in the Alert Page and corresponding XML

The overall Document Object Model of an alert is as below:

Alert DOM

A. Alert Identification

This is the root section of CAP corresponds to:

<alert>
    <!-- ... -->
</alert>

It contains the Message ID (identifier), Sender ID(sender), Sent Dat/Time (sent), Message Status (status), Message Type (msgType), Scope (scope), Restriction (restriction), Addresses (addresses), Note (note), Reference IDs (references) and Incident ids (incidents).

NOTE: Some fields are visible based on selection of different parameters.

Alert Identification

B. Alert Info

This is an optional child section of the Alert Identification Section i.e

<alert>
    <!-- ... -->
    <info></info>
    <info></info>
</alert>

Multiple instances of this section are allowed. It contains the Langauge (langauge), Event Category/Categories (category), Event Type (event), Response Type/Types (responseType), Urgency (urgency), Severity (severity), Certainty (certainty), Audience (audience), Event Code/Codes (eventCode), Effective Date/Time (effective), Onset Date/Time (onset), Expiration Date/Time (expires), Sender Name (senderName), Headline (headline), Event description (description), Instructions (instruction), Information URL (web), Contact Info (contact) and Parameter/Parameters (parameter).

C. Alert Area

This is an optional child section of the Alert Info Section i.e

<alert>
    <!-- ... -->
    <info>
        <area></area>
        <area></area>
    </info>
    <info>
        <area></area>
    </info>
</alert>

Multiple instances of this section are allowed. It contains the Area Description (areaDesc), Area Polygon/Polygons (polygon), Area Circle/Circles (circle), Area Geocode/Geocodes (geocode), Altitude (altitude), Ceiling (ceiling).

Alert Area

D. Alert Resource

This is an optional child section of the Alert Info Section i.e

<alert>
    <!-- ... -->
    <info>
        <resource><resource>
        <resource><resource>
        <area></area>
        <area></area>
    </info>
    <info>
        <resource><resource>
        <area></area>
    </info>
</alert>

Alert Resource

Multiple instances of this section are allowed. It contains the Description (resourceDesc), MIME Type (mimeType), File Size (size), URI (uri), Dereferenced URI (derefUri) and Digest (digest)

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