Notification API and Notification Engine 2.6

Release Description

This version of the Notification API and Notification Engine 2.6 delivers on SST’s commitment to making ShotSpotter easily accessible to external systems such as video surveillance (CCTV) systems.  The release supports new functionality for Reviewed Alerts customers, a suite of new and more robust message packets, support for recent Microsoft Windows server environments, and a number of support and compatibility upgrades.

New Functionality

New upgrades to the ShotSpotter Notification API and Notification Engine 2.6 are substantial:

• The upgrades permit client applications such as video management systems, Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD), Records Management Systems (RMS), video analytics, automated license plate number readers, camera management systems, crime analysis and statistics packages (including COMPSTAT software), and common operating picture (COP) software to receive accurate, timely, and detailed information about ShotSpotter gunfire alerts, including precise latitude and longitude (geolocation), GPS-synchronized timestamps, incident audio, and situational context provided by the 24x7x365 SST Incident Review Center™.
• This version of the Notification API is the first in the industry to enable subscribers to receive updates about gunfire alerts throughout a multi-stage, possibly multi-site incident review process, thus permitting sophisticated, responses involving multiple resources to be coordinated in near real-time.
• The release delivers new functionality critical to technically-focused security and systems integrators through its support of fourteen (14) different notification packet types, each available in as XML, query string, or pure ASCII stream format, via HTTP, TCP/IP socket connection, directly to a Google Earth overlay, or to a custom-developed plugin. 
• Version 2.6 can calculate the direction, range, and elevation angle from many different points of view towards a single gunfire incident and transmits appropriately-calculated pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) slewing (aiming) data to each respective endpoint. 
• The release supports the industry’s first variable content multi-media notification scheme, which permits incident audio and other incident-specific information to be shared with systems subscribing to incidents. 
• This new version also permits customers to specify two different levels of geospatial boundaries (or “geofences”) which permit incidents to be grouped and reported, for example, by patrol beats or command districts.

Support for Incident Review Workflow (Unreviewed/Raw Incidents and Reviewed Alerts)

For customers of SST’s ShotSpotter FlexSM subscription based service, raw incident data are reported directly to the SST Incident Review CenterTM (IRC) where our Reviewed Alerts ServiceSM provides immediate assessment and qualification of gunshot alerts by a highly trained team of SST gunfire and acoustics experts, 24x7x365.  For customers of SST’s ShotSpotter OnSite (capital equipment) products, the Reviewed Alert Service is available as an option, or customers can choose to review all the raw incidents themselves.  Over time, most SST customers have chosen to avoid the expense and effort of training their own 24x7x365 staff and now rely on SST’s Reviewed Alerts Service. SST incident reviewers have quite literally heard more gunfire incidents, from a wider variety of distances and acoustic environments, than anyone else in the world.  After review and subsequent customer alert, many customers seek to have ShotSpotter data automatically transmitted (notified) to external systems which had not been previously notified of the raw (unreviewed) alert.

Thus there are two types of notifications:

1. Instantaneous notification of raw (unreviewed) alerts is appropriate for “low cost to respond” assets, such as PTZ cameras, for which the cost of turning in the direction of a sound is negligible.

1. By contrast, “high cost to respond” assets, such as police officers, or the creation of a CAD (Computer-Aided Dispatch) record, or the triggering of a Common Operating Picture (COP) system, are typically notified only of reviewed alerts.

There are several other differences between the two classes of notifications:

 

Unreviewed (“Raw”)

Reviewed

Classification

Machine only

Machine + Reviewer

Other Situational Context

None

Provided when available

Timing

< 1 second after location

SLA 90% within 60 seconds of receipt of data; average < 20 seconds

Notification Appropriate for

Relatively low cost to respond, fast response (< 10 seconds) actions:

·   PTZ Cameras

·   DVR timestamp/tagging

·   UAV look-at-target (camera slew)

·   Other Sensor triggering

Relatively high cost to respond, slower response (> 10 seconds) actions:

·   Officer or first responder dispatch

·   CAD record creation

·   Air (helicopter) asset mission

·   UAV fly-to-target

Typical Daily Volumes

Hundreds

Tens

Peak Volumes (holidays)

Thousands

Hundreds

Updates Sent by ShotSpotter

Review

None

Supported in Notification Engine version

2.0+

2.6+

 

The ShotSpotter Notification APITM can report new incidents or updated information about incidents previously reported.   As its name suggests, the design of the Notification API focuses heavily on notification of new (or recently updated) incidents and not on making historical data available for analysis.  Reviewed and unreviewed (raw) alerts follow slightly different notification workflows, as depicted in the following diagram. 

Incident-by-incident notification is performed by the ShotSpotter Notification Engine.  The Notification Engine runs on most modern Microsoft Windows operating systems and:

1. polls for new ShotSpotter incidents
2. filters new incidents by type (gunfire, firework, etc.) and workflow stage (unreviewed, reviewed)
3. notifies multiple subscribers of multiple types by sending one or more message packets
4. receives confirmation of receipt if desired and retries if configured to do so

Version 2.6 delivers substantial upgrades over previous versions:

Incident Workflow Status

Unreviewed Alerts, Reviewed Alerts, Reviewed Updates to Unreviewed Alerts

Incident Types

Single Gunfire, Multiple Gunfire, Possible Gunfire, Firecracker/Fireworks, Backfires, Others

Packet Types

9 Generation I Packets
5 Generation II (Advanced) Packets

Geospatial Boundary Awareness
(“geofences”)

Two-levels of customizable geographic boundaries reported for each incident

Street Address Lookup (Reverse Geocoding)

Parcel map, address point, or Bing maps web service

Operating System Support

32-bit Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, 2008

64-bit Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012 (beta)

ShotSpotter Product Support

ShotSpotter OnSite
ShotSpotter Flex
ShotSpotter SpecialOps
ShotSpotter CIKR

Transport Channels

HTTP POST (XML payload)
HTTP GET (query string)

Socket
Google Earth .KML
Plugin (.dll)

Payload Encoding

ASCII stream
HTTP query string (key=value)
XML

 

Generation II Message Packets

With Version 2.6 of the ShotSpotter Notification API and Notification Engine, SST has introduced a new family of message packets designed for both the ShotSpotter OnSite (capital equipment) and ShotSpotter Flex (subscription) products and business models.  We refer to this new family of message packets as Generation II message packets.  Message packets supported by earlier API versions are referred to as Generation I message packets.

 

 

Generation II
(Fully Supported)

Generation I
(Deprecated)

Simple Alert

IALRT01

INCAUPD

Extended Alert

IALRT02

INCAUPE
INDAUPE

Extended Alert with Multimedia (audio) URLs

IALRT03

n/a

Incident Update

IUPDT02
IUPDT03

INCIUPD

Response Packet

scheduled for future release

INCARSP

 

The Generation II packet formats provide incident notification (alert) via the IALRT0x group of packets, three of which are introduced with API Version 2.6.  To accommodate Incident Review Center (or customer-premises) incident review workflow, a new IUPDT0x group of packets is introduced to permit subsequent update to incident information after initial (raw) alert.  Developers have often asked for API-level access to ShotSpotter sensor audio (e.g. an .mp3 recording of the gunfire incident as heard at each sensor, plus one to two seconds of audio before and after).  The new Generation II packet IALRT03 and IUPDT03 provide audio URLs to all available sensor audio and are structured to provide support in the future for other multimedia types, including for example aerial imagery of the incident location showing a “dot on the map.”  The packet types available are:

Purpose

Message Packet Prefix
(Opcode)

Generation I
Equivalent

Purpose

Simple Alert

IALRT01

INCAUPD

“Basic” alert with minimal information to pan-tilt-zoom devices, can accept a geo-referenced endpoint and will calculate relative range/bearing/elevation.

Extended Alert

IALRT02

INCAUPE
INDAUPE

“Detailed” alert packet with detailed information regarding the incident, can accept a geo-referenced endpoint and will calculate relative range/bearing/elevation.

Extended Alert with Multimedia (audio) URLs

IALRT03

n/a

Extended “detailed” alert packet with detailed information regarding the incident and provides a variable number of associated URLs for incident audio, etc.

Incident Update

IUPDT02

INCIUPD

Update packet supporting Reviewed Alerts and other after-detection updates (classification change, etc.).  Issued to subscribers of IALRT02 messages.

IUPDT03

n/a

Update packet supporting Reviewed Alerts and other after-detection updates (classification change, etc.).  Issued to subscribers of IALRT03 messages.

Documentation

Documentation for the ShotSpotter Notification API and Notification Engine 2.6 have been fully updated and revised.  Developers, data scientists, and third-party software integrators should request copies of the following documents from their SST points of contact or from SST Customer Support: 

• Notification API Reference, version 2.6
• Notification Engine User’s Manual, version 2.6

Availability

Due to patent licensing restrictions, the software cannot be made available for free download.  However, Version 2.6 of the Notification Engine software is available as a no-cost upgrade to all customers and integrators with current Integration API licenses.  Furthermore, integrators, software developers, and technology partners can receive special development copies of the software free of charge by contacting ShotSpotter Product Management or Sales Operations:

Product Management

Sales Operations

James G. Beldock
SVP Products & Marketing
jbeldock@shotspotter.com
+1 (510) 794-3117

Scott Beisner
Manager, Sales Operations
sbeisner@shotspotter.com
+1 (510)  794-3110

 

Support

SST Customer Support is available to all customers with valid ShotSpotter Flex Support contracts.  You may contact SST Customer Support:

Via Live Chat:

From either the ShotSpotter Flex Alert Console or the ShotSpotter Flex Incident & Reports Portal, look for the chat links:

or by following this link in any web browser:
 

https://chat.shotspotter.com/chatrequest

 

Via Phone:

Phone support is available Monday-Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm Pacific Standard Time. Please contact our support team during these hours at: +1 (888) 274–6877, then dial option 4.
 

Via Email:

Email support@shotspotter.com.  Please include as much detail as possible so we may better serve you quickly.