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Features

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Gulfaraz Rahman edited this page Feb 28, 2025 · 8 revisions

This page gives an overview of features in IBF.

Feature overview

Features per disaster type

These are features that are currently implemented for some disaster-types, but not all. The goal is to implement IBF-wide.

# feature flood Flash flood drought typhoon malaria
1 Events v v v v *
2 Lead times v v v v
3 Event areas v
4 Breadcrumbs v v v
5 Duration in timeline v v

Features configurable per country and disaster type

These are IBF-wide features. Some of them are configured to be on or off on country (and disaster-type) level.

# feature configurable per country
6 Early Actions v
7 Community notifications v
8 Email notifications
9 WhatsApp notifications v
10 Trigger log

Feature descriptions

1. Events

Forecast data is grouped into separate events which cover separate parts of the country, and can have different lead times and different severity levels.

* In malaria events are currently used, but not in the way they should. A separate event is uploaded for each pre-defined month/lead time (0-month/1-month/2-month). Each month covers the whole country instead of a relevant subpart only. Events are not uploaded for a calculated lead time, but instead separately for each lead time.

2. Lead times

  • The table above indicates which disaster types have flexible lead times.
  • Whereas IBF started out as giving off forecasts for one or more fixed lead times only (in line with the EAP), it has now largely evolved to flexible lead times. Any forecast within a specified timeframe can lead to a trigger or warning, also if shorter or longer than the EAP-agreed lead time.
  • This feature largely aligns in terms of implementation with Events.

2.1 Undefined lead time

  • A typhoon event can have an associated track which is still too far away from land to retrieve any landfall time and thus a lead time from.
  • There is a specific no-landfall-yet-warning scenario for this. The timeline shows an additional element at the far end saying 'Undetermined landfall'. Also the chat section and the email have specific copy on this.

3. Event areas

In Event view the event area is depicted via one polygon, instead of via all admin-areas (on default admin level) that are part of that event.

  • In flash-floods the event-area is defined as the parent-admin-area.
  • For floods, drought the intention would be to define the polygon in pipeline as the union shape of all event admin-areas (on default admin level).
  • For typhoon an additional complication is that event-areas can overlap geographically.

4. Breadcrumbs

Indicates whether the portal is navigated through breadcrumbs, as indicated by buttons in the top left of the map.

  • The portal opens on National View with an overview of events in map (but also in chat section), identified by a 'National view' breadcrumb in the map.
  • These events are ideally shown in the map as event areas (see feature 3. Event areas), but otherwise as separate admin-areas within each event.
  • Subsequently you can zoom in to event-level either via map or chat, which will result in an event breadcrumb being added.
  • Subsequently you can zoom in to admin-area-level, by selecting one admin-area of the event, resulting in yet another breadcrumb being added.
  • If the specific implementation is multi-admin-level, you can zoom in to even deeper admin-levels, reflected by additional breadcrumbs.
  • If a disaster-type does not have breadcrumbs implemented, instead always all admin-levels of the country will be shown, but only the "active" admin-levels will be be enabled/clickable.
  • NOTE: to implement breadcrumbs for drought/typhoon, first 'event areas' must be implemented. Additionally, because evnets can overlap geographically, it must be made possible to show overlapping event-areas. (Or als alternative: skip National View, and open on 1st event.)

5. Duration in timeline

  • For floods and drought the timeline indicates duration by also visualizing alert data (warning or trigger) for lead times other than the event starting lead time.
  • This is not per se a direction that all disaster types will move to. E.g. typhoon and flash floods already have a different working timeline again, namely we only show one button per day there, even though the lead times are defined per hour. Except again if there are multiple event starting lead times on the same day, then they show as separate timeline elements.

6. Early Actions

  • Early actions can be seen and checked off per area of an event in the portal.
  • Early actions can also be checked off via Kobo-form, if configured
  • Early actions can also be switched off, if configured

7. Community notifications

  • Upload community notifications via Kobo to IBF-portal, including geolocation and photo.
  • See (and dismiss) notifications on map in the portal
  • Can be configured per country
  • See also Community notifications

8. Email notifications

  • Events potentially leads to automatic email notifications, depending on severity (not for some warnings) and leadTime (not for ongoing).
  • Handled via Mailchimp
  • When do we notify the user?
flowchart
A[/pipeline run/] -->|data update| B[update events table with new data]
B -->|for each event with new data| C{is the event ongoing?}
C -->|yes: the event is ongoing| D(fa:fa-bell inform the user)
C -->|no: the event is upcoming| D
B -->|find open events with no new data| E[/events table/]
E --> F[close open events with no new data]
F --> G{is the event ongoing?}
G -->|yes: the event has ended| D
G -->|no: the event is below threshold| D
Loading

9. WhatsApp notifications

10. Trigger log

  • Table overview of all past trigger events
  • Can be accessed for specific country and disaster-type from the IBF-portal
  • Or for all countries and disaster-type, from admin-menu in IBF-portal
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