Functions of the EAL

Functions of the External Application Link

The External Application Link provides the following functions:

The external application software may submit messages directly to QTRACS for transmission to vehicles, dispatchers or other users. This means that your application software, through the use of the OMCRTMSG API, can cause QTRACS to send a message to a vehicle, a dispatcher, or to any other user or users of your system.
The QTRACS Router receives message completion status information for every forward message submitted to the NMC (every message that will be transmitted over-the-air). This information is reflected in the QTRACS message database as well as routed to the external application software depending on the origination point of the forward message.
The macro template designer may cause data that is contained in return macro messages to be routed to the external application software by the QTRACS Router. This feature is built into the macro template definition process. Return macro messages must be delivered to the mailbox of at least one user and/or external application(s). Return macros have the following routing attributes:

Vehicle Coverage	This attribute provides the means to enable or disable the routing of the return macro message to the vehicle coverage of the vehicle that originated the message.
Macro Coverage	This attribute provides the means to assign a separate coverage to the macro template. This means that a message from a vehicle that uses the macro template will be routed to the macro coverage regardless of the vehicle coverage attribute. This feature allows you to cause messages to be routed by macro type. You can configure a macro template so that a pre-defined set of users will get a copy of all return messages that use the macro template regardless of which vehicle originated the message.
External Application	This attribute provides the means to optionally specify an external application that is to receive the data from the return macro message. Up to three external applications may be defined for a return macro for QTRACS/400 versions 6.2 and 7.0. Up to nine external applications may be defined for a return macro for QTRACS/400 version 7.1.

The external application software may receive location information from the router. When the external application is set up to receive the position stream the router will send a copy of every vehicle position report to the specified external application input queue.