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Understanding the First Due CADLink Connector

Purpose

  1. To provide an understanding of First Due's CADLink Connector.

Related Article

  1. Live Database View / CAD Mirror

Description

The First Due CADLink Connector is a method of extracting live call data from CAD for the purpose of creating “dispatches” within the First Due platform. The connector is an executable (exe file) using C# on .NET framework requiring version 4.5.2 of .NET. The connector will run on the Windows operating system, with a recommended version of Windows Server 2012 or higher. The .exe file is installed on the computer where the CAD reporting mirror/server runs OR another computer that has remote access to it. The .exe file requires a simple wizard style set-up and can be installed by our team if provided remote access to the machine. Once installed, the executable will poll the reporting server on a preset frequency (typically 15 seconds), extract the necessary data and then send the information to the First Due's SFTP for processing.


Data Attributes 

First Due requires information related to the incident location, type, status, units dispatch and notes/narrative. Below is a guide to the type of information required – note, your data format may be different or not contain all available fields. 

  1. Time Zone for Department (Required)
  2. Time Zone CAD sends Date and Time in (Required)
  3. Incident Date (Required)
  4. Incident ID (Required)
  5. Apparatus / Unit ID (Required)
  6. Agency Identifier
  7. Call Notes / Narrative
  8. Caution Notes
  9. Common Place
  10. Date / Time of Dispatch
  11. Dispatch Type Code
  12. Dispatch Type Description
  13. Dispatch Units Assigned
  14. Incident Date
  15. Incident Number
  16. Initial Street Address
  17. Secondary Address
  18. Cross Streets
  19. City/ County Code
  20. Latitude / Longitude

Process

  1. Provide a list of CAD data views that First Due will be able to access
  2. Confirm the Database Type (MSSQL, PostgreSQL, MySQL etc.)
  3. Provide the schema/configuration for each view and there corresponding columns
  4. Provide a dump of each of the views data (full dump is preferred but at a minimum 1000 records)
  5. Confirm the method in which we can detect if a call is closed or open status (is closed column, date closed, etc.)
  6. First Due builds connector based on static data
  7. Once complete First Due works with your team to install (the initial install will be configured to send data to our stage environement)
  8. Run the connector for a number of days and test the results. If there are any issues we create another build and install. If we have remote access we are able to update the build remotely.
  9. After testing, we will update the configuration to point to Production
  10. There is little maintenance required moving forward