What happens with travellers at the end of the trip? Will they be deleted automatically?

Travel data can be accessed until 30 days after the end of the respective trip, if the respective time frame is selected using the custom range button. Please note that by default, only current travels are displayed.

How long can I see if a traveller was affected by a special alert?

The data is being deleted after 6 months.

Can I do anything to improve data quality?

Over 70% of traveller data we receive is somehow incorrect. Spelling mistakes in names, missing or wrong phone numbers are the biggest challenges. We cannot contact travellers correctly if we do not have their correct emails or phone numbers. What can you do? Make it mandatory that travellers always enter and update their contact data in the platform’s user profile. Also, if travellers are entering their correct name, phone number and email address during a travel booking, this will help significantly. For travellers that are travelling to high risk countries, make sure they use the calendar tracking as an addition. This way, based on a more precise localisation, both preventive and reactive measures will target the traveller more effectively.

Can travellers see the travel monitor?

Users with traveller group permissions are not authorised to access the platform’s travel monitor.

Do travellers and managers receive the same alerts and special alerts?

Alerts and special alerts for managers are different than for travellers. Managers will receive additional information e.g. how many travellers have been affected by the particular incident, what is their respective status (in a special alert) etc.

What do I see and how do I operate it?

• Your company’s valuables – travellers and sites as well as alerts and all the relevant information details on them can be overviewed in the travel monitor.

• The default view for desktop use is the 1:1 view, sharing the screen between the navigation panel on the left and the map on the right. All navigation including list selection will be mirrored in the map and vice-versa. If you select an item in the list, you will not only see the object details in the panel but also the object’s location on the map.

• You can also navigate through the map, zoom in for a more detailed map view and choose between multiple risk and information layers using the layer navigation in the upper-right corner of the map. If you find the map too crowded, you can de-select, for example, sites and alerts to reduce the information and number of icons on the map.

To make it more intuitive for you to find what you need, the platform provides multiple views of the events.

In the list view on the left side of the screen you can see the events (filtered to your needs) in the specific order of your choice – by date or by impact. Switch to the chart view, and the same events are displayed in a risk trend line or risk locator. These charts help you identify overall risk trends and major risk locations. Alternatively, you can navigate through the events using the map and its multiple map layers in the corner of the screen to extract the information you need.

Each country has a list of key recommendations that significantly reduce travel risks, if followed. Much the same counts for medical recommendations. Of particular interest is the section “specific advices” which provides special recommendations and detailed information about a specific risk prevalent in the respective country.

Most importantly, using the app while on a business trip provides a number of functions that improve the monitoring and alerting and thus increase travel safety significantly.

EMERGENCY BUTTON

In critical situations, the traveller can push the emergency button and will be automatically connected with the Operations Centre. To make assistance fast and precise the person can share his/her exact location with EXOP, so they can localise the person and determine appropriate assistance measures.

This feature also serves as silent alarm for travellers that are in a life-threatening situation and not able to speak on the phone. Simply pushing the button "call for assistance" will immediately transmit the traveller’s location to the Operation Centre and trigger subsequent emergency procedures.

CHECK-IN

The check-in feature is the easiest and most accurate way to submit the current position of a traveller to the platform and integrate the person, based on the name, phone number and email address of his user profile, into the monitoring and alerting. The user will be monitored at exactly the geo-coordinates sent by the last check-in. Managers can see the traveller and his position in the travel monitor. After eight hours with no updated position, the monitoring will be terminated.

DISCOVER THE PLATFORM

There are several basic features that are always visible on the top of each page: the navigation bar, the emergency button and, on the main pages, the screen splitter.

EXPAT MANAGEMENT, OVERVIEW AND SUPPORT

The support of expats often differs largely from the usual travel support. "Expat Management" gives you a framework to manage expats according to their needs and integrate them into the X-ASSIST monitoring and alerting.

To register your expats move to Travel Monitor in the menu bar and choose Expat Management.

Select add expat and then select the user.

KEY FEATURES

• Events List - View security events worldwide

The Travel Monitor is the heart of the platform. Travel managers can monitor and overview travellers and their statuses worldwide, trace emergencies and initiate status calls. According to your settings, the Travel Monitor steers and defines alerting, communication and emergency procedures for your company.

How does the Travel Monitor look like?

Setting up the platform takes around 10 minutes, once you have defined all your settings, you will have the system do the job for you.

Gain a better understanding of the security situation in a country. Crime, civil unrest, terrorism, general risks and governance are all key categories to be assessed to provide a basic country risk portfolio. In addition, our experts identify urban risks for each country’s most relevant cities and add new information on a monthly basis, even revealing no-go areas for travellers.

On the page Articles you have access to reports and analyses in the field of crisis management from EXOP and EXOP's partners. Among others you can find our regularly updated COVID-19 factsheet here.

If you subscribe you will be informed each time a new article is being published. With "unsubscribe" you will not receive the email information anymore, but still be able to access articles and reports directly from the platform.

Charts provide smart graphics for analytical users. Risk lines, forecasts, upcoming events and risk categorisers – all these visualisations help you better understand an overall risk trend from recent months to today and to identify key risks for travellers at a glance.

What is the difference between alert and special alert?

Alert: An alert is an email information about an incident that has possible effects on travellers, sites or business activity. Alerts are related to a specific traveller or a company site location. For each incident that triggers an alert, the system sends different emails – one is tailored to the traveller, the other is tailored to the travel manager.

Special alert: In the event of a special alert, it cannot be ruled out that a traveller is directly affected by a security incident that can pose a threat to life and health. The platform directly contacts affected travellers via phone call in order to detect their status. In addition, the traveller receives the incident information via email, including behavioural guidelines to reduce the risk in the vicinity of the event. For each incident that triggers a special alert, the system sends different emails – one is tailored to the traveller, the other is tailored to the manager and includes continuous status updates.

Why does traveller A receive a special alert status call, while traveller B right next to him receives only an alert email?

There can be different reasons for a situation like that, for example:

Scenario 1: Assuming traveller A and B are at a conference together, but the location confidence of both travellers is different. While the platform only received PNR data with the arrival airport of traveller A, traveller B used the calendar tracking feature and added the exact location of the conference venue. As a result, the platform has more precise travel data for traveller B than for traveller A and hence, determines a larger incident radius for traveller A. While the system can exclude traveller B to be inside the impact radius of the incident that triggered the alerting, it has less precise information for traveller A and thus, in order to find out, if he needs help, triggers the automated status calls

Scenario 2: Traveller A and B are again at a conference together, but work for different companies, both using the platform. It is highly likely that the alerting settings of both companies vary largely. Company A may be risk-averse, while company B is more prepared to take risks. That means the alerting settings of company A allow for a large number of special alerts, also including incidents with rather moderate severity. Company B on the other hand, prefer to trigger the status detection process and have their travellers called only in the event of critical incidents. These two scenarios shall explain that several parameters determine the incident radius. Among the strongest parameters shaping the radius are the incident impact, the incident category and the traveller location confidence. If you are uncertain about your settings or just curious, how the platform works, you can check and see in the section called “incident radius preview” in the alerting settings of the travel monitor.

How can I see the alerts and special alerts in the travel monitor?

Special alerts are visualised as icons with a red frame. Alerts are visualised as icon with a yellow frame. You also can use the filter to find a specific alert or special alert.

I have 200 travellers in Shanghai. If a critical security incident occurs, how long does it take until I know the status of my travellers?

As soon as the platform detects the incident and it has been verified by the analyst (generally, the verification takes 1-2 min.), the platform will immediately start calling your travellers. If you defined in the call settings that your travellers would be called ONCE, you would receive a final status of all 200 travellers within 1-2 minutes. However, usually, it is preferred to have more call attempts as most of the time your travellers will not answer at the first call.

How do country information help risk prevention?

Country information provide a first overview about the risk profile of a country. Reading the information will give you a first indication if travelling to the place is dangerous for your travellers or not. It also recommends the implementation of specific risk mitigation measures to reduce the risks for your travellers and fulfil your duty of care.

Where do the data come from?

Country and city risk layers as well as incidents are the outcome of the EXOP team’s work. All the security information is peer-reviewed by analysts. Business and corruption layers are derived from publicly available sources (e.g. World Bank etc.). The foreign ministry digest is calculated by an average of the respective country risk ratings by key foreign ministries incl. UK, US, Germany, Australia, France etc.

Is the country information up to date?

Our aim is to provide updates in real time. All content is updated automatically and in all languages as soon as key information e.g. security risk levels have been verified and changed by EXOP’s analysts. We have no editors writing all these texts.

Can I control what content my travellers can see?

Users with administrator permissions can define the content each user group (traveller, manager, admin) has access to, in the admin panel. Usually, travellers have no access to duty of care recommendations, business risks and liability recommendations.

How can I change the language?

The platform’s content including all communication (email and phone calls) is available in several languages, among them French, German, English and many more depending on your company set up. Users can select their own language: They just need to go to their user profile and select the language they prefer.

What is the difference between the various email notifications about security events?

Security-related incidents are the basis for alerts and special alerts, which always result from a potential impact on travellers or sites calculated by the system. If you have set up favorites on the Global Events or Country Risks pages, security-related incidents also trigger an email information about the incident (security information).

• Security information are sent individually for each user, regardless of your location or Travel Monitor settings.

• Security information based on favourites do not trigger any emergency measures or calls.

What is the Risk Map?

The Risk Map is the heart of the platform’s dynamic country information. See tutorial:

Zooming into the map reveals the EXOP risk ratings even below country level. It shows the risk of governorates and provinces, down to cities and even city districts. Having a closer look at important cities will show violet-marked areas of higher risk for travellers. You can select to display different information, map types and layers.

Using events selection and event visualisation, you can generate a professional risk profile of a region based on the security incidents in the risk categories of your interest and in a certain time frame.

HEAT MAP

At one glance, the heat map shows you hot spots of risk. Defined by your filters, it shows you which areas are to be avoided and which areas require higher security measures. A threat that was acute three years ago does not necessarily have to be present today, which is why using the time filter is imperative to get a clear answer to your questions.

Any event or incident with relevance for security and travel that has been identified over the past years is listed on the global events page.

The events listed provide structured and comparable information such as risk category, date and time, impact and exact location of incidents, added by a direct link to news sources. That way you get an insight to what happened on the ground and consider if security or medical prevention measures have to be adjusted.

In addition, you and your travellers will be alerted by announcements of future events so you can minimise the risk and prepare your staff in advance.

Of course, you need to find out about specific places, topics and times: You want to know if your travellers face a risk of violent demonstrations when staying in the capital, or if there are any clashes in the hinterland where your project site is located, or in what seasons do hurricanes bring flooding and destruction to a specific travel destination? Target your search according to your specific questions using and combining the multiple filter options.

Site Overview

Click the sites button in the travel monitor menu to display a list of the sites and office locations of your company, if you integrated them. Use the search bar to find a specific site. You can search for the name of a site or search by country/ countries to display multiple sites located in those countries.

Click on a site icon on the map or on a site in the list to display the details available: the site address and the exact site location coordinates.

Site Management - How can I integrate company sites?

If you click the travel monitor icon in the navigation bar, choose site management to access the editing panel.

If you had already some company locations integrated, you can edit or delete them easily if you click the arrow on the right side of the list entry for the site you want to edit.

You can add a new office location or project site if you click the + add site button. Use the search bar in the map to locate your relevant site and use the marker to set the exact location. Name the site and press the green save button. A green message “site added successfully” will appear.

Set your site emergency contacts

You can add your site emergency contacts by editing the site and adding the site emergency contact. Site emergency contacts will receive emails in case the site is impacted by an security incident.

You get the full overview of your travellers with one click on the traveller icon. On the travel monitor start page at one glance you can see:

• the current traveller status overview, showing travellers’ statuses of the past 72 hours

• the number of travellers located in low, elevated, high, extreme risk countries

By default, the system shows you the information for current travels. If you need to know about past or future travels, use the custom range button and make your time frame selection. At any time, you can use the red button to initiate an automated status request for selected travellers to find out about their current status. That way, for example, you can have a daily status update on your travellers to high-risk countries.

Click on a traveller icon or on a traveller in the list to display the details available: the contact details and the traveller locations that are registered with the system. At first glance, you can see which travellers have no registered phone number or email address. Behind the name of the traveller, the corresponding icon will be displayed.

Traveller locations disclose information on the different stops and stays of the traveller over time, including

• the duration of each stop

• the location (coordinates and position on the map) of the stop

• the latest status call information, if applicable

The summary provides an overview of past and future security incidents in the country. You can directly screen the four latest incidents, get a picture of the incident frequency over the past months and see the most important incident categories for that country.

This will help you better understand security developments on the ground and the biggest threats to your travellers. With the help of the “take care of” section, you can immediately see which topics need to be considered before and during a trip.

X-ASSIST is also available as browser-based web application and as native mobile app, providing you with all the powerful features of the desktop version:

• Emergency call and location sharing - If you are in danger, you can reach EXOP Operations Centre 24/7

• Check-in and active location alerting - You can increase your travel safety providing precise information on your whereabouts

• Status call - If a security incident occurs nearby, you will receive calls to check if you need help

• Alerting - You will receive e-mails informing you about the latest security developments and incidents onground

• Travel security information - You can access all relevant information of your travel destination at any time

Browser-based Web App

The browser-based web app is the preferred option for companies that generally restrict the installation of apps on company devices. Without downloading the app from the stores, users can use all platform functionalities via the browser, including sharing of geolocation and the emergency button.

Native App

The X-ASSIST App for IOS and Android ( or ) offers the same functionalities as the desktop platform.

App Activation

To activate the native app, please do as follows:

1. Log into the platform as you usually do and open your user profile. Click „Mobile App“ on the left side of the screen.

2. Install and start the app on your mobile device. The app welcome screen shows an 8-letter authorisation code.

3. Enter the code in the field „Authorisation code…“ in your user profile click „Authorise“.

Please note that EXOP has been renamed Crisis24 GmbH. You still find EXOP letterings in screenshots and videos for a certain period.

INTRODUCTORY VIDEO

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

X-ASSIST is a mobility risk management platform that identifies security incidents worldwide 24/7, matches the location of the incidents with travel booking data of your company and automatically calls your travellers if they are within a certain impact radius of an incident.

Within only 2 minutes X-ASSIST is able to tell you if all of your travellers are ok or need help. The platform also allows emergency calls, location sharing (if permitted) in case of emergencies and status requests.

KEY FEATURES

To summarise, X-ASSIST:

• Identifies and minimises travel risks

• Integrates travel data and maps the location of travellers and sites

• Finds relevant security incidents rapidly with the help of artificial intelligence

• Matches the location of travellers and sites with current security incidents in seconds

INTENTION OF THIS GUIDE

The following guide intends to describe key functions and features of X-ASSIST, the mobility risk management platform. After each section, you will find FAQs which might directly answer your questions.

If you are an administrator of the platform you have additional rights. You can view, edit, delete, add and invite users to the platform.

USERS - ADD OR INVITE USERS

It is easy to add or invite users. To add a user just click “Add User” and type in all the details and most importantly select the user group. In most cases you will add users to the Traveller group. Please keep in mind that users in the Admin and Manager group will be able to access the Travel Monitor and see personal data. With this option you will need to communicate username and password to the user.

If you click “Invite Users” the platform will send out an email to all given recipients with an invite to register themselves. This option enables you to add multiple users at once.

GROUPS

In this section you can view the available groups. Newly registered users via SSO are automatically added to the default group (usually the Traveller group). Only one group can be the default group in each organisation.

Security Information

Announcement

Medical precautions must begin long before the trip. The platform lists latest medical events and relevant vaccinable and non-vaccinable diseases, so you and your travellers, together with a physician, can decide how to prepare for the journey well in advance. For those who prefer to work with their own medical sources, all medical information can be deactivated. Activation or deactivation refers to medical risk overview, medical advisory and medical map content.

How can I follow-up on the country information my travellers receive before the trip begins?

Pre-trip information (PTI) provide an overview of the risk situation in a country of destination, including key recommendations. More specifically, there is a PTI for each country the traveller visits during a trip, including departure and transit countries.

PTI are delivered via email, before departure. According to your company needs, you can determine the following PTI and email dispatch settings.

Selecting the alert overview will directly lead you to the alerts/special alerts your travellers have received. To reduce the list of incidents displayed you can choose to show either alerts or special alerts, define a certain time frame or select a specific country using the search bar.

The information you get in the list is mirrored on the map. Selecting an incident will provide key information on the incident such as:

• Country of incident & headline

• Incident category/subcategory

You and your employees cannot only find information on the risk profile of their destinations when planning a business trip, but also check for current visa requirements for the planned trip. In the main menu under Country Risks you will find the item Visa Requirements. The feature is reserved for Advanced contract clients.

Fill out the form according to your individual specifications and you will immediately receive an overview of the current entry and visa regulations.

How can users get an account?

There are different ways depending on the login procedure:

1. If the user registers via email token or SAML, the platform will automatically create a new user (in the standard group) as soon as the respective user clicks on the link. Please note that the email domain must be white-listed for using email token.

LOGIN OPTIONS – Choose your login procedure

The platform makes the login process easy for your employees. Depending on the product you use, the platform offers various options. With a BASIC access, the administrator can invite new users to the platform, or simply add new users directly out of the admin area. The default login for all products is via username and password.

The ADVANCED platform version offers you two additional interfaces for integrating new users and logins.

How can I manage my personal account?

The user profile of the platform is an important element. Here, users can manage their personal account. They can set their name, email and phone number that serve as main contact details for the platform in case of emergencies and any other information.

Who oversees which tasks?

You designate the persons or entities that serve as points of contact for different tasks and roles. You can add as many persons or entities as you wish. Contacts can easily be moved up and down or deleted. All changes must be saved in order to be activated. The different roles are listed below. It might be useful to designate multiple roles to the same contact.

How can I integrate my own 24/7 emergency assistance provider?

Go to the assistance settings and select “Customer” instead of EXOP. Provide respective emergency contact details and your preferred provider will automatically be contacted in an assistance case.

Can my travellers call the 24/7 emergency number without receiving a special alert?

This depends on your assistance provider. It is highly recommended to have a professional 24/7 assistance setup. If you choose EXOP as your provider, the EXOP Operation Centre will be there for you and your travellers 24/7.

Can I write an email directly to my travellers out of the travel monitor or make a direct call?

Yes, select the traveller you want to contact using the filter. Click/touch on the phone or email icon in the traveller contact details, starting your phone or email client. This way, you can call or write an email instantly.

How can I see my travellers and sites in the travel monitor?

Click/touch the icon for travellers and the traveller list will be displayed. Click/touch the icon for site and you will have your sites listed.

Can I see details of a trip?

Yes, if you select a traveller from the list or in the map, the following trip details will be displayed, ordered by stops of the trip: the registered traveller location (e.g. hotel), the country, the coordinates and the duration of the respective stop. Please note that travel data from different sources (PNR interface, calendar or manual registration) cannot be merged yet. That is a feature to come soon.

What happens if the assistance provider calls the company’s internal emergency contacts and no one picks up the phone?

This depends on the service provider you are using. If you choose EXOP, the Operation Centre will continue to try to contact the internal emergency contacts. In any case, if there is an immediate threat to the life of travellers, and no internal contact can be reached, EXOP will nevertheless support in order to save lives.

In which time zone is the contact time (call to travellers) displayed?

Each user selects the time zone himself in the user profile. That is the time zone displayed in your account.

Do we have to expect additional costs?

There are no hidden costs. Any costs that may arise in addition to the monthly fee, will be made transparent and must be authorised by the client. Please determine your authorising personnel, who are eligible to order fee-based services in the assistance settings section of the travel monitor. Please check your X-ASSIST contract for case fees.

Can I use my own medical provider?

Yes, you provide details on your medical service provider with the X-ASSIST contract and EXOP will integrate your provider into the assistance procedures. If you choose a different provider for security assistance than the EXOP, you will have to coordinate the integration of your medical assistance provider with them.

Please note that EXOP has been renamed Crisis24 GmbH. You still find EXOP letterings in text, screenshots and videos for a certain period.

Who do you want to handle 24/7 assistance for you?

When your travellers need assistance, they need ONE contact point, ONE phone number they can call for help. In this section you select the first emergency contact point for your company. It will be this number that supports your staff 24/7 and worldwide.

The platform leaves you two options detailed below:

1. Operation Center

2. Your Own Emergency Setup

1. C24 OPERATION CENTER

The Operation Center will handle 24/7 emergency assistance for you.

• Travellers who reply with “help” to the automated status call will be forwarded to the our Operation Centre.

• The phone number of the Operation Centre (here EXOP) is displayed as emergency phone number in all email communication related to travel security and assistance.

2. YOUR OWN EMERGENCY SETUP

You can also choose to provide your own emergency setup.

• Travellers who reply with “help” to the automated status call will be forwarded to the individual phone number you provide.

• The first emergency contact’s phone number is displayed as emergency phone number in all email communication related to travel security and assistance.

3. SELECT YOUR OWN MEDICAL SERVICE PROVIDER

In this section, you can enter your dedicated medical provider to whom medical cases should be forwarded and specify their details. Remember: all changes must be saved to be activated.

4. SELECT YOUR OWN TRAVEL SERVICE PROVIDER

In this section, you can enter all information of your dedicated business travel agency. If your travellers have inquiries about their travel bookings, they will be automatically forwarded to the number of the responsible travel service provider. Remember: all changes must be saved to be activated.

5. Data Retention

This setting controls how long X-Assist keeps old status requests, alerts, travel data, and geo-tracking data. After this period, the data will be permanently deleted. Note that some of this data is also used for reporting purposes. For example, if you want an annual report on your organization's travel activity, then the data must be kept for at least one year.

If you are interested in specific countries, you can save them as favourites. See tutorial:

What are the advantages?

• You can access them directly from the country information page by selecting it from the list of favourites, which is displayed when you click/touch in the search bar on the left of the page.

• More importantly, you can receive country information alerts if anything happens in the country. Just select “send me an alert”, then choose from which impact level on you wish to receive alerts and “save”.

• You can also receive risk level change alerts in case the overall country risk level changes, called Risk Level Change Alert.

• You can receive information alert digests for your favourite countries. Let’s say you want to receive once a week at 9:00am and overview of all events that occurred in the country over the past 7 days. Just go to “Alert digest”, define your individual settings and “save/ update” your favourite.

On the travel monitor map we use the following icons.

The traveller icons have different colours, depending on their status within the past 72 hours:

The “Airlines” cube contains information about the airlines of the which X-Assist ingests.

Measures

The “Airlines” cube has no measures.

TRAVEL DATA INTERFACE

The extensive automation of the platform is of no use if no trips can be registered and thus monitored. Therefore, we make travel data integration as easy as possible and offer several options of travel data transfer into the platform. Depending on your company technical and travel booking setups, you can choose the option that fits best.

Automated transfer of travel data (PNR Tracking/PNR Traveller Tracking) – Integrate the platform into your travel booking process

Travel data can automatically be pushed into the platform when integrated into your existing travel data process. Once it is integrated, no additional manual effort is necessary. All bookings and changes will be automatically transferred to the platform, including cancellations. There are two possibilities to achieve that:

1. Standing interfaces to the platform. With this solution, you can directly connect your travel management systems to the platform via XML or REST.

2. Interfaces from your travel management system or travel agency. We can connect to all travel management providers and systems, as well as travel agencies via individually programmed interfaces.

What is the „Alerting“?

Alerting here, is a collective term for alerts and special alerts and their follow-up communication procedures. There are two types of alerting:

1. Alert: an email information about an incident that has possible effects on travellers, sites or business activities.

How can I reset my login credentials?

This depends on the login mechanism you use. If you use username and password just click “Forgot your password?” on the login page and follow the instructions. If you use SAML or email token, you don’t have login credentials. For email token login just start the process again to receive an email token link. Please note that your email domain in your company email address must be white-listed for using email token. You also need access to your company email address. In case of SAML, just click on the link provided by your company. For this to work you must have a valid company account and be connected to your company’s infrastructure.

The “Country Stays” cube contains information about the countries that people visit.

A stay in a country is defined as the time interval between entering and exiting the country. Stays which last less than 8 hours (e.g. by people who commute daily between countries) are ignored to reduce noise.

Ongoing stays have an indeterminate length, since their end date is not known yet.

“Country Stays” is a that allows change tracking over time by applying a filter to “Country stays – Valid on” or selecting it as a time dimension.

Measures

The “Alerts” cube contains information about the automatic travel alerts created by X-Assist.

Measures

Count

The “People” cube contains information about the people that X-Assist knows about. This includes travellers, expats and regular users.

The following Venn diagram shows the logical relation between the sets of people, travellers, expats and users:

“People” is a that allows change tracking over time by applying a filter to “People – Valid on” or selecting it as a time dimension.

Measures

The “Organizations” cube contains information about the organization hierarchy in X-Assist.

Measures

The “Airports” cube contains information about the airports of the which X-Assist ingests.

Measures

The “Airports” cube has no measures.

The “Status Requests” cube contains information about the status requests that are performed by X-Assist.

Measures

Count

The number of distinct status requests in the result set.

Number of calls

The total number of calls made for the status requests in the result set.

Dimensions

Created at

The UTC timestamp at which the status request has been created.

Trigger

The type of action/event that triggered the status request.

Possible values:

• Manual (manual): The status request was manually triggered by a user from the Travel Monitor page.

• Special alert (special_alert): The status request was triggered by a special alert.

• Emergency call (emergency_call): Deprecated, scheduled for removal in October 2022.

Result

The final status determined by the status request.

Possible values:

• Pending (pending): The status request is still in progress.

• OK (ok): X-Assist received a positive response from the asset, indicating that everything is OK.

• Not OK (not_ok): X-Assist received a negative response from the asset, indicating that assistance is required.

Status unknown cause

The reason why the asset state is “Unknown”. This value is not present for other asset states.

Possible values:

• Call attempts exhausted (call_attempts_exhausted): The asset's status is unknown because it could not be reached via phone.

• Call error (call_error): The asset's status is unknown because it could not be called due to a technical problem.

• No phone number (no_phone_number

Join compatibility

Status requests can be joined with:

X-Assist allows you to share your dashboards with other members of your team.

To do so, navigate to the dashboard list and click the “Add user” button. This will open the share dialogue. From there, you can manage the list of users you want to share the dashboard with and their permissions. Every user you invite to your dashboard receives a notification via email.

The following table lists the capabilities of the viewer and manager roles.

Regardless of the role a user has for a particular dashboard, they can only see data for organizations which they can access in the Travel Monitor. This is because you are only sharing the definition of the dashboard and its panels, but not the actual data.

What is an announcement, a security information, an alert and a special alert?

ANNOUNCEMENT

An announcement is a security-related incident that can be expected in the future, such as strikes and demonstrations.

SECURITY INFORMATION

A security information is an incident information you receive via email when setting a favourite on the global events page or for a specific country on the country risks page. Once the system detects an incident that matches your favourite, you will receive an email with the incident information.

Additionally, you can schedule a periodic alert digest of all events which match this favourite.

ALERT

An alert is an email information about an incident that has possible effects on travellers, sites or business activity. Alerts are related to a specific traveller or a company site location. For each incident that triggers an alert, the system sends different emails – one is tailored to the traveller, the other is tailored to the manager.

SPECIAL ALERT

In the event of a special alert, it cannot be ruled out that a traveller is directly affected by a security incident that can pose a threat to life and health. The platform directly contacts affected travellers via phone call in order to detect their status. In addition, the traveller receives the incident information via email, including behavioural guidelines to reduce the risk in the vicinity of the event. For each incident that triggers a special alert, the system sends different emails – one is tailored to the traveller, the other is tailored to the manager and includes continuous status updates.

Filters can not only be set for individual panels, but also for an entire dashboard. This feature is mainly used to change the time range or the selected organizations with just a few clicks.

The global time range can be changed using the date range picker at the top of the dashboard. All other global filters can be managed from the sidebar that appears when you click the “Filter” button:

The global time range and filters are saved as part of the dashboard and are available to all users with access to the dashboard.

Note that the global time range does not apply to all panels:

• Panels which do not specify a time dimension ignore the global time range. This is indicated by an orange clock icon next to the panel's title.

• Panels can explicitly override the global time range with a custom one. This is indicated by a blue clock icon next to the panel's title.

The “Countries” cube contains information about the countries that are supported by X-Assist.

“Countries” is a that allows change tracking over time by applying a filter to “Countries – Valid on” or selecting it as a time dimension.

Measures

X-Assist has a powerful analytics feature that allows you to visualize your organization's data and build custom dashboards.

Head over to the tutorial to learn how to build your first dashboard.

Data lifecycle

The analytics page is powered by a separate , where data from various sources is consolidated, transformed and prepared for analytical processing ().

The “Bookings” cube contains information about the bookings and trip segments processed by X-Assist.

“Bookings” is a Type 2 SCD that allows change tracking over time by applying a filter to “Bookings – Valid on” or selecting it as a time dimension.

Measures

Count

The number of distinct bookings in the result set.

Segment count

The number of distinct segments in the result set.

Dimensions

Booking reference

The unique ID of the booking from the upstream system. Also known as “file key”, “PNR ID” or “record locator”.

Delivered by

The human-readable name of the organization () that delivered the booking to X-Assist. This value is optional and will not be present for manual and calendar trip registrations.

Created at

The UTC timestamp at which the booking has been created in X-Assist.

Segment start date

The UTC timestamp at which the segment started.

Segment end date

The UTC timestamp at which the segment ended.

Booking type

The type of the booking.

Possible values:

• PNR (pnr): The booking was delivered to X-Assist by a .

• Manual Trip Registration (manual_trip_registration): The booking was created through the manual trip registration in X-Assist.

• Calendar Trip Registration (calendar_trip_registration

Segment type

The type of the booking segment.

Possible values:

• Air (air): Flight booking

• Calendar (calendar): Calendar trip registration

• Expat (expat): Expat registration

Flight number

The numeric part of the flight number, without the airline code (“1234” instead of “LH1234”).

For , this will be the flight number of the operating carrier.

Valid on

The UTC period during which the record was valid (i.e. the time from creation to deletion of the record).

Join compatibility

Bookings can be joined with:

SOLUTIONS FOR CORRECT TRAVEL DATA

Many times, your travellers cannot be monitored properly because you don’t know where they are? Why not? Incomplete booking data, spelling mistakes in names, missing or wrong phone numbers and email addresses make tracking and contacting your travellers difficult. We provide three options to solve this problem:

1. a direct check-in feature

When you add a new panel to a dashboard, X-Assist will open the panel editor.

From here, you can set the title of your new panel (along with an optional, detailed description), define the query parameters and preview the resulting panel.

Query Editor

In the query editor, you select the measure and dimensions that you want to visualize, together with any other filters you might need.

Measures and Dimensions

Each panel requires you to select exactly one measure. Dimensions and filters are optional, but meaningful queries typically require dimensions and filters as well.

The selected measure is the numeric quantity that you want to visualize, while the selected dimensions split/group the measure by certain attributes.

For example, you could select “Events – Count” as the measure to get the total number of Events in X-Assist as a single value. If you also add the “Events – Category” dimension to the query, the events will be grouped by category and the result will contain six values (one for each category) instead.

Not all combinations of measures and dimensions make sense, and some of them will result in an invalid query. Refer to the for more information.

The Time Dimension

Most of the time, you do not want to visualize all data, but rather only data in a certain time range. On top of that, you typically also want to group your data by a unit of time (e.g. by month or by week).

To achieve this, you can add a time dimension to your query.

The selected time dimension is the primary attribute that you want to use to filter by time (you can also add additional time constraints under “Other filters”). If you visualize the data as a line or bar chart, the time dimension becomes the x-axis of the chart.

Adding a time dimension to the query has two effects:

1. The data gets filtered by the selected time range.

2. The data gets grouped by the selected unit of time (unless “Without grouping” is selected).

By default, the panel will use the dashboard's global time range, but panels can opt out of this behaviour and specify a custom time range by enabling the “Override global time range” check box.

Organization Filter

If your X-Assist tenant contains multiple organizations, you can use the organization filter to restrict the query to certain organizations.

If you do not select any organization, the query will be executed across all organizations that you have access to.

Other Filters

If filtering the data by time range is not enough, you can add additional filter for any measure and dimension under “Other filters”.

Depending on the selected attribute, you can choose from one of the following operators.

“Equals” / “does not equal”

These operators select records where the selected attribute equals / does not equal any of the given value(s).

“Is set” / “is not set”

These operators select records that have / do not have a value for the selected attribute. Unlike all other operators, no value needs to be specified.

“Contains” / “does not contain”

These operators select records where the selected attribute contains / does not contain any of the given values.

“Less than” / “less than or equal to” / “greater than” / “greater than or equal to”

These operators select records where the selected attribute is less than / less than or equal to / greater than / greater than or equal to the given numeric value.

“In date range” / “not in date range”

These operators select records where the selected attribute is inside / not inside the given date range. The date comparison uses UTC as the time zone, and both the upper and lower bound of the range are inclusive.

“Before date” / “after date”

These operators select records where the selected attribute is before / after the given reference date. The date comparison uses UTC as the time zone, and the given reference date is always exclusive.

Filter by Measures

Filters can not only be applied to dimensions, but to measures as well.

However, unlike filters for dimensions, which are applied before the results are grouped and aggregated, filters for measures are applied afterwards (if you are familiar with SQL, this is the HAVING clause).

The order of operations is then as follows:

1. Filter the records by the selected date range of the time dimension (if any).

2. Apply any other filters for dimensions to the result set.

3. Group the result set by selected unit of time of the time dimension (if any).

4. Group the result set by the values of the selected dimensions.

This may sound complicated, but it is an incredibly powerful and useful too. For example, the following query lists all flight segments departing in the next seven days that have more than ten people booked on a single flight:

Visualizations

X-Assist supports the following visualization types. Note that not every kind of visualization fits every query.

Bar Chart

A regular stacked bar chart, which is suitable to visualize categorical data along the time axis. Special colouring rules are automatically applied if the query contains certain dimensions, such as a risk level.

Line Chart

Line charts are suitable for visualizing arbitrary data along the time axis. Special colouring rules are automatically applied if the query contains certain dimensions, such as a risk level.

Pie Chart

Pie charts are suitable to visualize the ratios in a categorical dataset. Special colouring rules are automatically applied if the query contains certain dimensions, such as a risk level.

Radar Chart

Radar charts are suitable to visualize multivariate categorical data.

Table

You can use a table if you prefer to view the raw results rather than a visualization. If you want to fetch individual records without grouping and aggregation, include a dimension that only contains unique values (e.g. the person ID) in your query.

Number

Use a number panel if you only want to visualize a grand total.

Note that the number panel will always show the measure of the first row in the result set, and all other rows are ignored. You can check if your query returns multiple result rows by temporarily changing the visualization type to a table.

This section contains a short description of each cube and its attributes.

Welcome to the tutorial for X-Assist's analytics feature. On this page, you will learn how to create a dashboard with multiple panels, and how to query, visualize and export data.

Create a New Dashboard

First, create a new dashboard and — since dashboards are empty by default — a new panel by clicking the “Add dashboard” button followed by “Add panel”:

The “Events” cube contains information about the events detected by X-Assist.

Measures

Count

The number of distinct events in the result set.

Dimensions

Event ID

The human-readable unique identifier of the event.

Coordinates

The point on the Earth's surface at which the event occurred.

The value is a comma separated tuple of latitude and longitude in the .

Is countrywide

A flag that indicates if the event is countrywide or not.

Possible values:

• True (true): The event has a countrywide impact.

• False (false): The event has only a local impact.

Is announcement

A flag that indicates if the event is an announcement or not.

Possible values:

• True (true): The event is an announcement, e.g. for national holidays, strikes, etc.

• False (false): No announcement, just a regular event.

Impact level

The impact level of the event.

Possible values:

• Low (1): The event has a low impact.

• Elevated (2): The event has an elevated impact.

• High (3): The event has a high impact.

Date

The UTC timestamp at which the event occurred.

Reported at

The UTC timestamp at which the event was reported in X-Assist.

Last updated at

The UTC timestamp at which the event was last updated/changed.

Category

The top-level category of the event.

Possible values:

• Terrorism / Armed Conflict (01000000)

• Civil Unrest (02000000)

• Crime (03000000)

Subcategory

The subcategory of the event.

Possible values:

• Terrorism / Armed Conflict (01000000)

• IED Attack / ED Attack (01001000)

• Bomb Attack (01001001)

Join compatibility

Events can be joined with:

Overview

X-Assist allows integration with 3rd party software through its GraphQL API. It provides access to all features and data available in X-Assist.

The GraphQL API is served from a single endpoint:

Getting started

For first time users, we recommend using the interactive query tool available at . The tool offers a query editor with autocompletion and a documentation browser which allows you to explore the GraphQL schema of X-Assist.

For example, to retrieve the three most recent events, you would perform the following query:

The API then responds with a JSON object that looks like this:

Authentication

The X-Assist API uses to authenticate requests.

These tokens are issued by the module, which implements a standards-compliant OAuth 2.0 authorization server and OpenID Connect provider. You can access its configuration data at .

Server-side applications should use the to request an access token from the IAM's token endpoint.

Request an OAuth access token from the IAM

POST https://accounts.exop-group.com/oauth/token

Request Body

Accessing the GraphQL endpoint

To query the GraphQL endpoint, the request must include an access token in the HTTP Authorization header (preferred) or the access_token query parameter.

GraphQL query

POST https://x-assist.exop-group.com/graphql

Headers

Request Body

Here is a full example showing how to retrieve the three most recent events from X-Assist:

Date and time

Timestamps and other time-related objects are crucial concepts in the X-Assist API, and it is critical that API clients handle them in the right way.

Timestamps

Fields with the scalar type DateTime are the most basic ones. A DateTime value is an that represents an instant on the global timeline. DateTime values in API responses are usually in UTC (indicated by a trailing Z), but API clients must be able to handle values with other offsets as well. Unqualified DateTime inputs (with an unspecified offset) are assumed to be in UTC.

A DateTime field on an object is frequently accompanied by a timeZone field that contains an that API clients can use to convert the UTC value back into local time. The time zone field can be on the same object as the timestamp itself (as is the case with HotelSegment objects, for example), or within a nested object (e.g. FlightLeg objects do not have timeZone fields, but the associated airports do).

Time intervals

DateRange objects combine two DateTime fields to represent the time interval between the two points in time. The lower bound of the date range is always inclusive, while the upper bound is always exclusive.

Durations

Durations that do not refer to a fixed point in time are represented either as integers or as values of the type Duration. For integers, the value is given in seconds. Duration fields use .

ISO 8601 formatted durations can also be used in the DateTimeOrDuration scalar, which is commonly used in the DateFilter type. Here, durations are interpreted relative to the current time and negative values are permitted. For example, a date filter that covers the last 24 hours looks like this:

Geographical data

The X-Assist GraphQL schema uses the following types to represent geographical data:

• GeoPoint / GeoPointInput

• GeoJSON

These types always use / as spatial reference system.

Internationalization (I18n)

The content of X-Assist is available in the following languages:

• Chinese

• English

• French

• German

The HTTP Accept-Language header determines the language in which the content of an API response is returned. Additionally, some fields in the GraphQL schema support a language argument that allows API clients to explicitly request content in a specific language.

For example, clients may wish to retrieve the original English headline of an event in addition to machine translated headline:

Pagination

Collections of objects are exposed in the X-Assist API in two different ways. Collections with only a few items are exposed as plain lists (i.e. arrays) for simplicity:

Large collections use , a cursor-based pagination mechanism and the de-facto standard used by many GraphQL APIs.

Let's re-visit the earlier example query that retrieves the three most recent events:

The events field in this query is a connection of type EventConnectionWithTotalCount. Every connection has the fields pageInfo, nodes and edges, and some connections (including the event connection) also provide additional fields such as totalCount.

To support pagination, the query must be changed and some fields from the PageInfo object must be added to the selections:

The new query result now contains a cursor that can be used to fetch the next page:

If there are more items in the connection (i.e. hasNextPage is true), the next three events can be fetched by passing the cursor value in the after argument:

This process is repeated until hasNextPage is false and the entire collection has been traversed.

Object identification

Some types in X-Assist's GraphQL schema implement the Node interface which allows API clients to retrieve one or more objects by ID. Refer to the chapter in the GraphQL documentation for further information.

All applications must treat object IDs as opaque strings and make no assumptions about their content or length.

The encoding scheme of these IDs may also change over time. These changes are backwards compatible (X-Assist will continue to accept IDs in previous formats), but applications that store references to X-Assist objects are encouraged to include the id field in each query and update the IDs in their own data stores when a change is detected.

Optimistic Concurrency Control

Many mutations use optimistic locking to prevent lost updates when multiple users make changes to existing data concurrently. The input objects for these mutations have a mandatory version field.

When performing a mutation, pass the expected version of the object as input and add the version field to your selections to get the new version of the object after the update. As an example, the mutation to update a site looks as follows:

The response contains the new version of the site:

If a version mismatch occurs, you will receive an error instead:

API clients can handle such errors by re-fetching the object (see ) to get the current version, and then retrying the mutation.

Data consistency

The X-Assist API provides different data consistency guarantees for different kinds of operations.

Mutations

GraphQL mutation payloads provide strong consistency. When you perform a mutation, all fields in the response are guaranteed to return the most recent data and reflect your changes.

However, this does not apply to changes caused indirectly by a mutation. For instance, when you register a new trip in X-Assist, the trip itself will be visible immediately, but the person's itinerary stops (expected locations) will only be updated after a delay because they are re-computed by an asynchronous background job.

Subscriptions

GraphQL subscriptions offer the same guarantees as mutations.

Queries

Unlike mutations, regular GraphQL queries only offer eventual consistency. This means that changes may not immediately visible to all clients, and that a query can return stale data.

Rate limiting

Regular users and OAuth applications can make up to 1000 requests per hour, with a maximum number of 25 + 1 burst requests in rapid succession. This limit can be raised once your solution/integration has been validated by EXOP.

The HTTP response headers will show your current rate limit status:

We loosely follow the for rate limiting headers, but we do not use fixed-length time windows.

When a request is blocked due to rate limiting, X-Assist will respond with HTTP status 429 ("Too Many Requests"):