External Services

External modules are modules that have been integrated with Macula, including these, which have been designed to work with Macula - license plate and face recognition engines. They operate either independently or based on streams received from Macula server, and Macula server can receive event metadata from these modules and then use these events for Event & Action configuration, as well as provide the opportunity to view these events in both live and investigation mode in the Macula Monitor application.

All the external modules can be connected using the same logic, the main important steps being as follows:

1. Prepare channels to be used for the target external module

2. Install the target external module

3. Connect to the Macula server from the external module and enable HTTP notifications in it, if such an option is explicitly available - this will make the external service automatically appear in Macula Console

4. Create a group for external services in Macula Console and add your external service to the group

5. External service will now be available for E&A configuration and its events will be visible in Macula Monitor

Important notice for Macula Enterprise systems: prior to Macula version 1.15.0, external services only operate via central management server.

Starting with 1.15.0, you can link external services directly to recording servers (Macula Recording Server instances). Note, however, that this functionality will not be covered for failover servers in case the target Macula Recording Server goes offline. When your external service is linked to Macula Enterprise, streaming will automatically switch from/to failover.

This works for all kinds of external services, except for Camio, which is integrated in a slightly different way

This administrator's manual will cover an example on how to connect an LPR (License Plate Recognition) module. All the other modules are added in a similar way, the only difference being the external module interface.

Install External Module

Start LPR installation by double-clicking the installation package, and go through the wizard's steps. Activate LPR using your purchased LPR license and run the software with empty configuration

Set Up External Module

In the LPR module, add a new server connection and enter your Macula server connection details. Make sure that the target HTTP port is reachable and that the user account has the Login via HTTP permission granted.

Then, add your desired channels for LPR analysis and set up license plate recognition as usual. For details on the setup, please refer to the LPR user manual.

Add External Service

In Macula Console, go to the Configuration section and choose External Services from the left-hand-side menu. On the upper panel, press the + New external service group button; in the dialog box, enter a group name and click OK to save. The newly created group will appear in the item list.

After you have set up LPR to send VMS notifications, as described above, the target service should automatically appear in the External Services list. Double-click it to bring up the service settings:

• Title: you can either keep the default (auto generated) name, or change it

• Server: target server for the external service to connect to (must match server address in the external service configuration)

• Group: add it to the group you have just created

Click OK to save and close the dialog box.

In the additional tabs - Events and actions, Related resources - you will see some relevant data, all in one place. Events and actions will display actions linked to the target service events, while Related resources will reflect the list of channels used by target service (in this case, LPR).

From now on, your configured external service will become available in the Event & Action Configurator, and its event streams will also become available for investigation in the Macula Monitor application. Please refer to the Macula Monitor and LPR user guide for details on the investigation mode.