StreetLightOutages.com Blog

Streetlightoutages.com now supports both PUT and POST request methods for new incident requests. The POST request provides the form parameters in standard HTML form format as key and value pairs in the request body.  The PUT request sends the information as a web service call as structured XML data in the request payload. You can find additional details an examples in the integration Help section.

There are 2 different options available in Streetlightoutages.com for embedding content on your website - iframes and ASP.Net code.  The iframes approach is the easiest to implement, and allows you to use a single tag in existing HTML code to access the functionality, such as:

To use ASP.Net embedding, you must update the code on your web server to include calls which access and deliver the dynamic content from Streetlightoutages.com. With this approach, all content delivered to the users web browsers comes from your server. When you implement the ASP.Net approach, the developer is responsible for making sure that none of the local page content conflicts with the content needed for the Streetlightoutages.com code.

You can obtain sample code for either option through the administration pages on Streetlightoutages.com under the "Main" configuration tab.

StreetLightOutages.com allows any number of organizations to establish an electronic agreement called a trust. Once StreetLightOutages.com is configured with the trust, existing asset and incident data from each organization become visible to the other. The visibility means that an asset uploaded by one organization will be visible on the map of a second. The display of the asset, including the mouse-over information, will still include all of the details defined in the source organization. Perhaps an example will help:

1. Two organizations share street light maintenance in a region. One is a city, which we will call SLOVille and the other is a county, known as SLOLand.
2. SLOVille registers with StreeLightOutages.com and uploads a new set of street light assets. This includes a light in the corner of the park which we will call Light A.

   

    

3. SLOLand registers for StreetLightOutages.com and uploads a new set of assets. This set includes a certain light shown below which we'll call Light B.

   

    

4. SLOLand deploys the StreetLightoutages.com portal on its web page using the standard iframe code.
5. When a user navigates into the vicinity of Light A and Light B, they cannot see light B. Even though they are in the right area on the map, the light is owned by SLOVille, while the map is owned by SLOLand, so the data is not shared.
6. SLOVille creates a trust TO SLOLand on the Administration page. (see separate post on creating trusts).
7. Now when a user navigates to the location of Light A and Light B on this map, they can see both assets, even though the map is deployed as SLOLand.

   

    

8. The user can click on either light to report an incident. If the user clicks on Light B, she will see the incident reporting form configured for SLOLand. If the user clicks on Light A, the form for SLOVille is displayed.
9. When the user submits the incident form, the integration rules (email, web services, etc.) of the organization that OWNS the asset is used to process the resulting form. This means that the resulting request is automatically routed to the correct organization, with no specific input from the end user except selecting the correct asset.
10. SLOVille can also create a trust to SLOLand. This will allow light B to show on maps deployed on the SLOVille website. But this is optional – so either one way or two way sharing of data can occur.
11. Both SLOVille and SLOLand save time dealing with reports that do not belong to their organization. The user gets faster service thanks to more accurate data and greater efficiencies and available to both organizations.

The public API for creating and maintain asset locations in the StreetLightOutages.com platform is still under development. We are planning to create an API which will support a bulk replacement of all assets as well as operations to insert, update and delete individual assets in the system. This combination will allow integration with your internal asset systems using either a transactional or batch approach. We will update this post with references to the documentation on this API as it becomes available. We welcome your comments and ideas on this functionality.

Until the API is in place, paying customers of StreetlightOutages.com receive free batch loading of asset files up to once per month. To request an upload, open a support ticket at support.ifactorconsulting.com. The technician will provide information on the accepted file formats and procedures to upload your data.