Technical Requirements for Sending Dispatches to FlowMSP

How should you send notifications?

FlowMSP can receive dispatches using multiple methods.

• API: FlowMSP will send messages via HTTPS Post protocol so you can send the dispatch information securely
• Email / SMTP: FlowMSP will give you an email address to send dispatches to, typically, sent via a CAD “paging module”
• SMS: FlowMSP will give you a phone number to send dispatches to.

What notifications should you send?

Send all notifications for Fire and EMS calls, including all agencies you dispatch for. This allows us to provide mutual aid calls, and ensures future set-ups will be smoother and faster. If an Incident ID is available, please send all draft/update notifications for calls with additional narrative details or other changes.

What information should you include in notifications?

The simple answer is “all of it.” Please try to include Address (with city and state), Lat/Lon, Incident ID, Incident Type, Units, Narrative, and Time Stamps. We encourage you to provide as much detail as you can and Flow will customize the feed based on the customer’s needs.

What other information does Flow need?

FlowMSP provides dispatch notifications to users based on unit (or agency ID if units are not available). Please provide a spreadsheet of units per fire department, as well as agency IDs (exactly as they will appear in CAD messages).

API Method

FlowMSP has an API endpoint you can use to send the dispatch information.
We require you to have an existing system in place, or to set up a system that automatically pushes the dispatch information to the API.
FlowMSP can provide a Windows Service that monitors a directory for new files and sends them to FlowMSP using the API.
Instructions on how to install the Windows Service can be found here.

“Pushed” to FlowMSP

• The API requires a UID parameter, which we will provide.
• The following URL can be used by the customer to POST messages to our API. https://dispatches.flowmsp.com/message?id=[UID parameter we provide]
• The body of the request will contain the message being sent (usually in XML format)

“Pulled” to FlowMSP

• Only possible if the department’s CAD software has a directory where new dispatches are placed that can be monitored.
• If it is not possible for the dispatches to be pushed to us, we can provide a Windows Service.
  This service would monitor the directory and push the messages to us via API. 
• The Windows Service will be calling our API, which requires a UID parameter that we provide.

Email / SMTP Method

This option requires you to send dispatch messages to an email address we provide.  It would be helpful if the messages have some sort of tag before each item.
For Example:
Address: 123 Main Street, Incident Id: 20220720338, Units: A1, E2, L4, etc.
If this is not possible, then any kind of delimiter, like a comma or hyphen, is very helpful.
We can parse email messages with the dispatch information as text in the body or as an attachment.

Text / SMS Method

This option requires you to send dispatch messages to a phone number we provide.
With the understanding that there is a character limit, it would be helpful if the messages have a delimiter between each item. If space permits, a tag as described above would be helpful.

Questions?

Contact Support and we will be happy to answer any questions you may have.