A Tasker based OPM Status Monitor

The DC Area's 'Snowday For Adults' Indicator

The DC area just endured another bust of a winter storm. While we hoped and prepared for inches of snow, we got sleet instead.

One indicator for how extreme upcoming weather will be is the Federal Government's Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) status page, opm.gov/status. The directives on this page tell Federal employees when they need to report to the office. At a minimum, it impacts something like 280,000 local residents.

When the OPM status page announces that the government is closed, thousands of people stay home and adults get to bask in the joy of hearing there's a snow day. On a practical level, you can expect many local organizations will follow OPM's lead and be open or closed for the day.

During this last winter-storm event I learned that not only does OPM have a web page and app to check the current status, but they have an API endpoint as well. I wasn't quite sure what I could do with this API, but I couldn't resist doing something with it.

OPM Alerts in Tasker

One easy way to experiment with the API was to leverage Tasker. I used a now familiar pattern to do so.

1. I used the HTTP Request action to invoke the API at https://www.opm.gov/json/operatingstatus.json.
2. I used the JavaScriplet action to parse the JSON response from the API, storing the relevant information in local variables.
3. I used standard Tasker actions to process this parsed data, including: checking to see if the status had changed since I last checked it, using the Say action to read the new status aloud, and using the Notify action to a trigger a notification.
4. I created a profile that runs every two minutes throughout the day to invoke the task described above.

All of this came together surprisingly easily. My plan is to leave the profile that queries OPM off, and turn it on next time we have a storm on the horizon. I should then be notified if and when OPM decides to change their status.

You can grab the code for the OPM Monitor Profile and Task from TaskerNet.

But Does it work?

I should have to wait until the next big snow to know if the OPM Monitor above works. However, last Saturday morning at 12:07am, I was dramatically awoken by my phone making an announcement:

OPM Alert: STATUS: OPEN WITH MAXIMUM TELEWORK FLEXIBILITIES TO ALL CURRENT TELEWORK ELIGIBLE EMPLOYEES, PURSUANT TO DIRECTION FROM AGENCY HEADS

Apparently I had left the profile active, and the OPM site was resetting its status back to 'open.' So yeah, the profile works. Actually, it may work too well. I may need to adjust it so that between certain hours of the day it doesn't make a verbal announcement.