Web Feeds - Web Publishing Setup

• Introduction
• Creating or editing a Web Feed
• Viewing and Managing Web Feed Documents
• Sending a web feed as part of a notification
  • Updating a web feed via a template
• Sending a custom activation of the web feed

Introduction

Web publishing is a tool within SafeZone Command which allows operators to create web pages which host RSS, CAPS EDXL (Common Alert Protocol), JSON or XML feeds. These feeds can be updated as part of the sending of a Notification Template or Custom Message.

Third parties can then poll the feed to pass on notifications through their own systems. Common examples include:

• Polling an RSS feed to integrate with another app
• Digital Signage Providers ingesting the EDXL (CAP) feed
• Other messaging software providers (Teams / Slack / etc.) polling the RSS feed
• Social media consumers polling the web feed.

Creating or editing a Web Feed

1. Go to Admin - Notifications - Web Feeds 

2. Click on "Create New Feed" button at the top right of the page 

3. Enter a Name and Description for your feed then, if you are ready to immediately start publishing select "Enabled" otherwise you can leave it switched off for now
4. Click "Save" to continue or "Cancel" to go a back to the Web Feeds page without creating a feed.

5. To select the feed format, go back into the feed you created and select from the drop list under "Feed URL" (JSON, XML, RSS, EDXL {CAP})

6. The URL will then be updated to match your requirements. You can copy this to the clipboard using the symbol, or open the URL in a new tab using the symbol.

7. Click "Save" to confirm changes

   Note: To change the destination URL, you can press the "Regenerate Token" button at the bottom left of the pop-up window, before pressing "Save"

Viewing and Managing Web Feed Documents

You can view Web Feed documents (web feed updates) which have been sent from Command in the Web Feed Documents section. Here you can filter results by:

• When the feed was created
• Whether it is expired or active
• Web Feed Name

Clicking on a specific web feed allows you to manually mark it as expired.

Sending a web feed as part of a notification

Once the Web feed has been configured, the SafeZone Notify menu can be used to send data into the feed to be picked up by 3rd party systems. This can either be via a Template or a Custom, ad hoc, activation.

Updating a web feed via a template

Sending a web feed via a template is much the same as sending any other templated notification via Command which is defined in the guide here: Sending a templated notification

To configure the template itself to include the Web feed needs the following steps:

1. Ensure you have a web feed setup as per above
2. Go to Admin - Notifications - Templates
3. If amending an existing template click the template you would like to amend and go to step 4, if creating a new template, click on "Create New Template" and skip to step 5
4. When editing an existing template scroll down to the bottom of that template and click "Edit"
5. Check the recipients are correct 
   Note that if just creating a web feed template a User Group is not required and the "Specified later (Workflows/Escalations/Desktop/Web Publishing/Subscription Groups)" radial button should be selected
6. Add information to any of the other communication channels as required (e.g. push, SMS, etc...)
7. In the "Web Publishing" section first enable the channel through the check box
8. Insert a Title for the Feed entry into the "Published Title" field
9. Add relevant descriptive text into the "Published Text" field  (Note you can include Substitution tags using the symbol below the text box
10. Select one or more web feeds to update (for example a web feed in RSS format which is monitored by Teams and a separate feed for CAPs consumers like Digital Signage)

11. Set an expiry date by Selecting the "Document expires on" radial button and adding a date and time, or if the feed is to persist, select "Document does not expire"
    NOTE depending on how you filter web feeds an expiry may be useful to ensure messages are not resent when no longer valid.
     

12. Click "Save Changes" to confirm or "Discard Changes" to cancel

Sending a custom activation of the web feed

If you want to send a non-templated update of a web feed, you need permission to Send a Custom "Blank" Notification

1. Got to Notify in Command and Click on New Blank Message.

2. In User Recipients, Select the "Specified later (Workflows/Escalations/Desktop/Web Publishing/Subscription Groups)" radial button
   Note: if sending a message via multiple channels, such as SMS, or Push, ensure user groups or "All Users" are selected instead - this will not impact the Web feed audience as this is set in the web publishing section.
3. If sending multiple channels, complete those sections and the scroll down to "Web Publishing"
4. In the "Web Publishing" section first enable the channel through the check box
5. Insert a Title for the Feed entry into the "Published Title" field
6. Add relevant descriptive text into the "Published Text" field  (Note you can include Substitution tags using the symbol below the text box
7. Select one or more web feeds to update (for example a web feed in RSS format which is monitored by Teams and a separate feed for CAPs consumers like Digital Signage)
8. Set an expiry date by Selecting the "Document expires on" radial button and adding a date and time, or if the feed is to persist, select "Document does not expire"
   NOTE depending on how you filter web feeds an expiry may be useful to ensure messages are not resent when no longer valid.
9. Click "Next" to proceed to the confirmation page
10. Review the Content then press "Send" to confirm or "Cancel" to go back