Creating and Issuing Alerts

To create a CAP Alert access the CAP composing interface from the explorer menu as below and add a new cap alert page:

WMO CAP Composer Alert Page

How to compose a CAP Alert

A CAP Alert is composed of the following sections:

  • Alert Identification

  • Alert Information

  • Alert Area

  • Alert Resource

  • Additional CAP Inputs

  • Incidents

Alert Identification

It contains the following entities required for a valid CAP message:

  • 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).

The alert identifier is generated automatically and is not editable.

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

WMO CAP Composer Alert Identification

Alert Information

Corresponds to the info element in the CAP message. The info entity specifies the alert’s details. At least one info block is required for an alert.

Each info block contains the following elements:

  • Language (language)

  • Event Type (event)

  • Response Type/Types (responseType)

  • Urgency (urgency)

  • Severity (severity)

  • Certainty (certainty)

  • Audience (audience)

  • Effective Date/Time (effective)

  • Onset Date/Time (onset)

  • Expiration Date/Time (expires)

  • Sender Name (senderName)

  • Headline(headline)

  • Event description (description)

  • Instructions (instruction)

  • Contact Info (contact)

  • Parameter/Parameters(parameter)

WMO CAP Composer Alert Information

Alert Area

Information Entity that defines the geographic area to be notified. Multiple areas can be defined in the alert. Each area contains the following elements:

  • Area Description (areaDesc)

  • Area Polygon/Polygons (polygon)

  • Area Circle/Circles (circle)

  • Predefined Area (predefined)

  • Altitude (altitude)

  • Ceiling (ceiling)

  • Geocode (geocode)

WMO CAP Composer Alert Area Section

The Alert area input has 4 selector options:

  • Admin Boundary (area is picked from predefined boundaries). To use this option, ensure that admin boundaries are initially loaded. Refer to [Setting up boundaries](./Setting-Boundaries.md) section.

WMO CAP Composer Administrative Boundary

  • Polygon (drawing a polygon).

WMO CAP Composer Alert Area Polygon

  • Circle (drawing a circle which specifies the latitude, longitude and radius)

WMO CAP Composer Alert Area Circle

  • Predefined Area (assuming it was configured in the CAP Base Settings)

WMO CAP Composer Alert Area Predefined Area

Alert Resource

Entity that defines supplemental information related to an info object Multiple instances of this section are allowed. It contains:

  • Description (resourceDesc), MIME Type (mimeType), File Size (size), URI (uri), Dereferenced URI (derefUri) and Digest (digest)

The Alert resource input has 2 selector options:

  • File resource (takes in a file and description)

  • External resource

WMO CAP Composer Alert Resource Section

Additional CAP Inputs

Addition alert information elements include parameters and event codes

Incidents

This defines the reference incident to the current alert, if any.

WMO CAP Composer Alert Incidents Section

Review and Approval

After drafting the alert, it should be reviewed by an approver before it is published. The approver should ensure that the alert is accurate and complete before approving it for publication.