Webhook url question

[Ron_McGraw]

Willy Weather has a webhook notification system. while setting up, it asks for a url for the notification to be sent to. what url would I provide?

[Justin_Leonard]

Depends on what you want to do with it. If, for example, you want to trigger a Rule Machine rule with the notification, you would
(1) create a new rule in Sharptools rule machine
(2) Add a new trigger
(3) Select Event Trigger
(4) Select HTTP Trigger
(5) Use the URL that shows up as the trigger URL

[josh]

Justin has you pointed in the right direction. You can find the documentation on HTTP Triggers for the Rule Engine here:

How to trigger SharpTools rules using HTTP - SharpTools Knowledge Base

[Ron_McGraw]

Thanks Justin! I have that URL now. The service says that it sends my selected alerts to that URL, when I look through the actions in flow, I dont see anything that refers to sharptools tiles… Would I have to create a virtual switch in smartthings and reference to that in the action section of the rule in order to manipulate a sharptools tile to correspond with the different alerts sent?

[Ron_McGraw]

Thanks Josh! That helped clear up some of my confusion. Im an old man trying to learn new tricks…haha. I have requested notification of multiple alerts from willy weather. they all use the same URL that I was just taught how to create. do I have to make a different rule for each different alert (with different “get” URL’s?

[josh]

@Ron_McGraw

do I have to make a different rule for each different alert (with different “get” URL’s?

I’m not familiar with how Willy Weather has implemented their webhook notification system, but generally no you don’t need to create multiple webhook URLs (eg. rules / http triggers). A normal approach would be for the payload of the webhook to change based on what they are trying to communicate.

If you want to share a link to the documentation for Willy Weather’s Webhook notification system (phew, what a mouthful!), perhaps that would provide some insights into what they are sending over.

So back to the concept of the payload changing, that would mean you point your Willy Weather Webhook to a single SharpTools Rule and then you could use context variables to react to the different data that they send over and choose what you want to do. The documentation linked above describes this in the ‘How to pass data to a rule’ section.

[Ron_McGraw]

Im not sure what the link would be, I did grab a screenshot of the inspection page, if that provides any useful information to you? I did send them an email asking where the documentation for their webhook system could be found.

[Ron_McGraw]

would I have to reference a virtual switch, (thing), in the action part of the rule in order for the rule to manipulate a tile on the dashboard?

[josh]

Can you clarify what you mean by ‘manipulate a tile on the dashboard’?

@Ron_McGraw

grab a screenshot of the inspection page, if that provides any useful information

Thanks, but no, that’s not helpful. Documentation or details on what’s included with their webhook payload is what we’re looking for.

[Ron_McGraw]

ok, Ill wait for their response to my request and then send you the link. regarding the “manipulate a tile” question, I think you forced me to answer my own question by asking for clarification! I assume that I would create a “rule” tile and chose the rule were speaking of? If so, is there any way to not have an icon? I would like to have it transparent until active, (alert sent to the url), then the tile become a chosen color, along with any data that might have been sent,
when active?

[josh]

There’s a variety of different options depending on what you are trying to do.

It sounds like you want to be able to receive data from Willy Weather and conditionally display that in a dashboard. I would probably store the response from Willy Weather into a SharpTools Variable within your webhook rule.

Then you could add that variable directly to your dashboard and customize the style of the variable tile accordingly to ‘hide’ or ‘show’ the content in whatever color you desire. Alternatively, if you wanted even more control over the positioning and content within the tile, you could use a Super Tile.

[Ron_McGraw]

@josh

I would probably store the response from Willy Weather into a SharpTools Variable within your webhook rule.

Then you could add that variable directly to your dashboard and customize the style of the variable tile accordingly to ‘hide’ or ‘show’ the content in whatever color you desire

Thats a little over my head at this point in my sharptools ability…haha. Ill keep reading up and see if I can grasp that process.

[Ron_McGraw]

@josh

If you want to share a link to the documentation for Willy Weather’s Webhook notification system (phew, what a mouthful!), perhaps that would provide some insights into what they are sending over.

Hi Josh, Heres the link to the documentation: API Reference

[josh]

There seems to be some nuance missing here.

• The docs you linked to appear to be an API that you would query/poll.
• The original discussion was about a webhook and your screenshot showed a “Webhook: Register a URL that we will notify…”

It’s possible that the webhook uses the same ‘Warning’ response format from their API documentation, but it’s still not clear how that’s formatted in the webhook.

You could try to figure it out through trial-and-error. Create a rule with an HTTP Trigger and register that as the webhook in Willy Weather. In the flow of the rule, just have it log the whole response into a variable so you can get an idea of what it’s sending across the wire.

I just poked around their site and the Weather Webhook seems to be a paid feature, right? Are you already paying for it or just researching at this point?

[Ron_McGraw]

@josh

You could try to figure it out through trial-and-error. Create a rule with an HTTP Trigger and register that as the webhook in Willy Weather

I experimented a little. I used the url that sharptools assigned in the http trigger function. I havent been able to luck out and hit the right combination yet… thats when I decided to ask you.

@josh

In the flow of the rule, just have it log the whole response into a variable so you can get an idea of what it’s sending across the wire.

I didn’t think of the log recording, I will mess around some more and record that.

@josh

I just poked around their site and the Weather Webhook seems to be a paid feature, right? Are you already paying for it or just researching at this point?

yes, its a paid service. I did sign up for the service, its pretty cheap. I thought it would be a “no brainer” using the http trigger idea…If I cant make it work, I will cancel the subscription. I do have an account with openweather one call 3.0, the pay over 1000 call subscription, and I do have your custom tile for openweather. it works great except the measurements are a little off from my location. I have been trying to register my weather station with them so the coordinates I input would be to my weather station and be more accurate for me, but, so far, that seems to be an adventure for someone more experienced in coding than I am! I did email them and ask them if they had any sort of an “alert” system but havent heard back from them.

[Ron_McGraw]

@josh

There seems to be some nuance missing here.

• The docs you linked to appear to be an API that you would query/poll.
• The original discussion was about a webhook and your screenshot showed a “Webhook: Register a URL that we will notify…”

It’s possible that the webhook uses the same ‘Warning’ response format from their API documentation, but it’s still not clear how that’s formatted in the webhook.

Finally heard back from willy weather. this is what they told me, hopefully they get it sooner than later and I will send you the link.

“Hi Ron
Apparently the Webhook documentation is still in progress. We are hoping to have it ready in the next month. Sorry for the delay and any inconvenience.
best regards
Greg
WillyWeather Support”

[Ron_McGraw]

Hi Josh,

@Ron_McGraw

I have been trying to register my weather station with them so the coordinates I input would be to my weather station and be more accurate for me

I finally got my weather station registered with openweather… whew… anyway, if you ever decide to add some functionality to your custom openweather tile for using the data from openweather personal weather stations, Id love to be your “guinea pig”. openweather has assigned me a station ID that is tied to my API key.