1. SDWIS: API Proof of Concept and Demo
Andrew Yuen and Michelle Ibarra
EPA/Office of Environmental Information Digital Services Division

2. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Who we are
We work in EPA’s IT Shop, the Office of Environmental Information.
Provide IT consulting (recommendations and insight) to EPA IT Development teams.
Host EPA’s Developers’ Guild, a monthly webinar available to EPA, State and Tribe Partner Developers, IT Professionals, and Project Managers.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

3. What we are going to share today
Why REST APIs were used
What was developed: REST API proof of concept
What issues we ran into
Suggestions for reuse
Looking Ahead
Contact MI
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

4. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Why REST APIs were used
Flexibility
REST API can handle multiple data calls.
Return data in different formats.
Developers are familiar with REST APIs.
Most modern languages have tooling to support REST APIs.
Conclusion: Satisfy the need for Primacy Agencies to easily submit data to the EPA. AY
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

5. What was developed: API Proof of Concept
The user interface was developed to:
Make various GET request to an endpoint to make it easy to look up identifiers such as Water System ID, Facility ID, Sample Point ID, and Lab ID.
Make a POST request to send data of a Negative Coliform Test Sample.
Demo Assumptions
PHP and Bootstrap were used to develop the API and UI.
Mock basic authentication.
Not all Primacy Agencies have Sampling Point ID or Lab IDs.
Estimated time to develop the UI: 1 Developer part-time, 3-4 weeks MI
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

6. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Demo: API Proof of concept - Failed Submission - total coliform negative sample submission - Seeing Submission in SDWIS Database AY
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

7. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Issues Encountered
The APIs for the get requests that we used to populate the typeaheads were returning additional information that we did not need.
The API by default was returning data in XML and not JSON format.
The API was expecting dates in ISO-8601 format which meant we had to convert to that format. AY
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

8. Recommendations Moving Forward
Proof of Concept
Implement OAuth authentication
Community Code Reuse and Maintenance
User testing MI
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

9. Recommendations: Proof of Concept
This proof of concept was developed to demonstrate how to quickly set up a UI with the current SDWIS PRIME APIs.
Any part of the code developed from this proof of concept can be reused by Primacy Agencies at their discretion and coordinated with the SDWIS Prime team. MI
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

10. Recommendations: Implement OAuth
There is a lot of work that needs to be done in order to implement a REST based API model for submitting data to SDWIS PRIME.
In order to be able to use these APIs in production, the API must be secured and proper OAuth authentication must be implemented.
Coordinate with EPA’s SDWIS Prime team, EPA’s CDX team, Cybersecurity Specialist, etc. AY
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

11. Recommendation: Code Reuse
Where possible, the Primacy Agency’s should consider developing common code based on the SDWIS APIs for reuse.
With limited resources, this approach will help establish a community of developers to collectively maintain, improve, and reuse code. MI
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

12. Recommendations: Usability Testing
Extensive user testing involving SDWIS Prime team and the Primacy Agencies to design and implement the API and any UIs that are developed as examples.
Validate your submission workflows.
Draw mock wireframes before spending funds on development.
Test with real users.
Improve the UI will real feedback.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

13. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Looking Ahead
OpenAPI Specifications
API description format for REST APIs.
Standardization to this modern approach increases usability and consumption of REST APIs.
API Gateway
Code reuse
Where possible, create open source code to increase the ability for developers to work together, foster collaborative development, share and maintain code together. AY
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

14. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Thank you!
Contacts
Resources
API Proof of Concept
Andrew Yuen
Michelle Ibarra
SDWIS Prime Contacts
Kristen Gastner
Elinor Keith
Code Repository:
Developer Central: MI
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency