Weekly status and mapping for a community eruv
One button tells the whole community whether the eruv is up this week, plus a planning system for maintaining and extending the boundary, and the maps.
- 4channels: SMS, email, web, phone
- 13 yearsin use
The client
The committee that maintains the eruv (a symbolic boundary around a neighbourhood, inside which observant Jews may carry on the Sabbath) for a large Jewish community in the north of England.
The challenge
Every week, before the Sabbath, a whole community needs to know whether the eruv is intact. The answer has to reach everyone reliably, whether they check a website, read a text or pick up the phone. Behind that, a boundary many miles long, made of walls, fences, wires and poles, has to be inspected, repaired and, as the community grows, extended.
The weekly status
One button sends "up" or "down" to subscribers by text and email, updates the website and feeds an automated phone line, with a history of every change and room for a custom message.
Planning and maintaining the boundary
A map-based planning system for the committee and its maintenance team:
- The boundary drawn as routes and sections, each with its material, condition and how often it must be inspected, colour-coded on the map
- Proposed extensions drawn as draft or alternative routes, and tracked through planning: being considered, ready to apply, application submitted and accepted
- Every pole and lamp post recorded with its planning and council references, the work needed, due dates, lead times and progress
- Outstanding questions for the rabbis recorded against the place they relate to
- Survey photos, videos and documents dropped straight onto the map
- Once a route is agreed, the public map is regenerated from it in one step
Maps for the community
- An interactive map with an "am I inside the eruv?" address search
- The official printed map, generated from GPS survey data over Ordnance Survey mapping, with the newly added areas highlighted against the old boundary
Supporting the charity
Subscriber and donor records, standing orders, Gift Aid declarations and donation links sit alongside the status system, together with sign-ups for petitions supporting planning applications.
Technical details
ASP.NET Web Forms in VB.NET on SQL Server. The planning editor is a Google Maps control storing routes as segments of points, with segment types, materials, conditions and inspection intervals, route status (main, alternative, backup, draft) and planning stages; a SQL step stitches the agreed segments into the published boundary. The address check geocodes the address and tests it against the boundary polygons.
The printed map is a separate desktop tool that converts GPS survey points to Ordnance Survey grid references, stitches OS OpenMap Local tiles, draws old and new boundaries, works out the newly added areas, and exports print-ready PNG and SVG.
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