Step 2: Assess Current Services

Action Item: Integrated CAP Diagram

With a clear picture of your current alerting process in mind, assess how to best integrate the drafting and publishing of CAP alerts to a CAP alert news feed. You may already be using tools that are capable of issuing CAP alerts. You may need a software development effort to update your current alerting tool. Or you may need a new or separate alert publishing tool (such as the one hosted at https://cap.alert-hub.org or available as part of the CAP Tools open-source effort at https://github.com/CAPTools). Yours and your IT staff's understanding of CAP becomes important in assessing your technical resource needs.

Action Item: Integrated CAP Diagram

Using the diagram of your current alerting processes as the basis, modify it to integrate CAP-related tools and processes. Review the diagram with key IT and operational staff.

Example Diagrams

Here's a high level overview depicting the sources, paths, and outputs of alert messages as part of the comprehensive warning systems managed by the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). CAP-enabled messages are authored and then distributed throughout various aggregators and publication systems, including weather radio and an emergency alerting system. 

Here's another diagram depicting parts of the FEMA IPAWS system: