Flinks

Learn more about Flinks (FlytBase Links) and how you can leverage them to integrate third-party apps and sensors with FlytBase to automate your enterprise drone workflows.

What are Flinks?

Flinks, short for FlytBase Links, facilitate the connection and automation of workflows between FlytBase and other third-party applications and sensors. These integrations enable the setup of Flinks within FlytBase to accept external triggers and permit the activation of your drone fleet in response to these triggers. This process effectively establishes a streamlined and automated workflow.

Setting up a Flink

Create a New Custom Flink

• Open the Navigation Drawer and scroll down to the Integrations section.

Navigate to Flinks

• Click on the Flinks tab to open the Flinks Manager window.
• Click on the Custom Flink tab to start creating a new Flink.

Create a new Flink

To use the DroneDeploy Flink for post-processing of your data, please contact [e-mail] for further information.

• In the dialog box that appears, select the Category for your new Flink.

Select a Category for your Custom Flink

Currently, only Alarm Custom Flink is available on the FlytBase dashboard.

• Another dialog box will prompt you to provide a name and description for the Flink. Here, you can also choose a custom icon for better visibility. Click on Add to finalize and create your new Flink.

Flink description

• Once a new Flink is created, you will be able to see a custom Flink card with a brief description inside the Flink Manager window and on the sidebar of the Dashboard.

Custom Flink

Flink Properties

To configure an existing Custom Flink:

• Click on the Flink card inside the Flink Manager window.

Flink Properties from Flink cards

• OR Click on the Flink icon located on the sidebar and then click on View All.

Flink Properties from Side Bar

This action will direct you to the Flink Properties window, where you can:

• Assign a specific icon for Alarms

• Edit Flink details

• Add and manage sources of Alarms

• Access Alarm logs

Flink Properties Window

Configuration

Configuration

In the Configuration tab, you can easily perform the following operations for Flinks :

• Reviewing Details:

  • Check the name and description associated with the Flink.

• Editing Details:

  • To edit, click on the located at the top right of the page.

  

  Edit Flink Description
• Deleting a Flink:

  • Click on theto delete the Flink.
  • A pop-up will ask you to confirm the deletion.

  • Press the Delete button to remove the Flink and all its associated settings.

  

  Delete a Flink

• After configuring the name and general description for a Flink, navigate to the Alarm Sources tab to add Alarm sources and integrate them with your sensors.

Alarm Sources

Alarm Sources

All alarm sources associated with a Flink can be created and managed here.

Adding an Alarm Source

1. Start the Process:

   • Click Add Source to begin adding a new alarm source.

   

   Add an Alarm Source
2. Provide Details:

   • Enter a Name and Description for the alarm.

   

   Enter Name & Description for the Alarm Source

   • Click Generate URL to proceed.

   

   Click on Generate URL
3. Copy URLs and Payload:

   • A follow-up window will display Source Details, which include:

     • A System Info Webhook URL with an associated JSON Payload to provide details of the alarm when triggered.

     

     System Info Webhook URL
   • A Heartbeat URL to monitor and reflect the status of the alarm source on the FlytBase Dashboard. A Green status indicator in front of the alarm indicates an active alarm source.

   

   Heartbeat Webhook URL

These Webhook URLs can be used to integrate third-party sensors with FlytBase.

The System Info Payload (JSON) for the Alarm Source contains the following information:

//A sample JSON Payload
{
  "timestamp": 1708502346278, //Epoch time elapsed since Jan 1, 1970
  "severity": 2,              //Integer value in the range 1-3, unknown is 0
  "description": "High temperature!", //User-defined string in double-quotes
  "latitude": 37.7749,        //Source Latitude in decimal format
  "longitude": -122.4194,     //Source Longitude in decimal format
  "altitude_msl": 100,        //Altitude at which the drone hovers over the source
                              //Value should be +ve, and relative to mean sea level
  "metadata": {
    "sensor_id": "TempSensor12A", //User-defined additional data for the alarm
    "temperature": 50.2,          //Variable names in "", integers without quotes
    "battery_level": 80           //Strings in ""
  }
}

4. Access URLs Later:

   • To retrieve these URLs, click on the Source Details button for the specific alarm source you want to integrate.

   

   Accessing Webhook URLs

Editing and Deleting an Alarm Source

1. Edit:

   • To modify an alarm source, tick the checkbox next to the specific alarm.

   

   Select an Alarm Source

   • Click the button located next to the Add Source button to update the name and description.

   

   Edit Alarm Source details

2. Delete:

   • To remove one or more alarm sources, check the boxes next to the desired alarms.

   

   Select an Alarm Source

   • Click the button to delete the selected Alarm source/s.

After creating Alarm sources, you can navigate to the Alarm Logs tab to view a history of all alarm sources that have been triggered.

Alarm Logs

Alarm Logs

• All alarms triggered for the selected Flink are recorded here. You can filter these logs by Alarm Source or by the date they were raised.

Alarm logs tab

• A summary of the Alarm logs is also available in the Integrations Panel; simply click on the relevant alarm to view it.

Alarm logs inside Integrations Panel

• After setting up a Flink and alarm sources within it, you will be able to see notifications on the sidebar of the Dashboard whenever an alarm source is triggered.

• Moving forward, you need to create an automation workflow to configure response action for the alarm sources from your drone fleet. To learn more about creating such automation workflows, refer to the documentation on Automation.