Learning out Loud in Milwaukee, WI

YOMYOFFICECLOSED, A Yo App

Note: Zero guarantees this app still works. I haven’t used Yo! in a while and don’t live in DC anymore anyway.

This week marked not only Thanksgiving week but also the first winter storm of the year. The first time GSA emailed me about the possibility of the government closing or forcing telework due to inclement conditions. The Office of Personnel Managment (OPM) has great apps for AndroidBlackBerryWindows and iOS that you can download to get push notified about government closures, but should you have to download and enable notifications on another app just to get alerted about occasional snow days? No, I thought, why not use one of the apps I already have that can send me push notifications on demand?

Thus was born YOMYOFFICECLOSED, a little Yo integration that will simply “Yo” at you every morning that OPM has a status of “Closed.” It’s not in the index yet, but hopefully it will be soon. In the mean time, just click the + button and add the user YOMYOFFICECLOSED.

How does it work? Both Yo and the OPM have public APIs that this integration relies on. The script is a Python script scheduled with Heroku Scheduler. It uses requests to check the current operating status by querying OPMs API. There are several different statuses that OPM calls
“Closed”
so I check if the current status has the “Closed” icon and send you a YO if it does. Check out the code below and write your own Yo integration. It’s super easy.