Developer Guide
Sky Ledge is the world's simplest API for displaying insights (or anything) on a map.
You can do this in as little as three steps:
Create a Control Room
Create assets
Get those things on a map
Before we start building, we highly recommend you skim through the previous section, to get familiar with basic concepts.
What do I need to develop with Sky Ledge?
An account
To build on top of Sky Ledge, you simply need a Sky Ledge account. Learn how to create an account here: Create a Sky Ledge Account
An API Key
What’s an API Key?
API keys give developers special access to interact and use Sky Ledge APIs. API Keys should be kept away from prying eyes as they give you very high levels of access (e.g. deleting stuff).
Getting your API Key
Retrieving your Sky Ledge API Key is simple once you've created your account. Learn how you can retrieve it here: Retrieve your Sky Ledge API Key
Getting started - HP Inc. (Hero Potions Inc.)
Hero Potions
Ok, so you’ve got an account and you’ve got your API key. Let’s brief you on your first client project: Hero Potions Inc (HP Inc).
HP Inc manufacture potions to give users special powers. They received government approval to produce and sell three potions: Hero Flight, Hero Speed and Hero Memory. Each of these gives users incredibly special super powers: the ability to fly, run at the speed of light and remember absolutely everything for a year.
There has been massive customer interest in these potions. Their business is growing quickly and HP Inc need to be across their legal obligations, keep their costs down to continue making profit. They also want to ensure HP Inc employees work in a safe environment so they don’t come into contact with chemicals that could cause severe health side effects!
They need Sky Ledge to help.
Understanding Customer Pains and Opportunities
The first step to harnessing is to get clear on the business problems our customer needs addressed. This ensures we build a solution that genuinely meets their needs.
In the case of HP Inc, they have a few business challenges Sky Ledge could help with:
Customer visibility: HP Inc customer care team need to know where shipments are so they can let customers know where their shipments are and when they’ll likely arrive. Some resellers want their own real-time dashboard with information about their delivery location and status
Legal compliance: HP Inc’s potions are tightly regulated and they need to notify the Hero Regulator Authority each time they ship potions to pharmacies
Reducing production cost: Potions need to be produced using special manufacturing processes with very little room for error, waste is very expensive as they use extremely rare ingredients
Safety outcomes: Accidentally touching raw chemicals poses horrible safety risks. Heroes Potions want to predict and prevent the risk of their employees coming into contact with dangerous equipment or materials
Supply Chain Quality Assurance: When shipping HP Inc customers, temperature needs to be within a very specific range (6-8 degrees). Customers returning spoiled potions is very costly. So we need to be certain that returns are actually our fault, and not those of our customers
Approaching Client Problems
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
HP Inc is super excited that Sky Ledge can help on all of these fronts (and more). They’ve asked us to go after quick wins to help them deliver value quickly, fall in love and take it from there.
It turns out there’s a really simple pain point they have:
The flight potion is not sold directly to consumers. It can only be administered by specialists at HP Inc certified pharmacies. When pharmacies administer the potions, two things can happen to the consumer:
Nothing - this happens to customers with rare genes. HP believe these customers would be valuable research subjects
They fly - as expected, the flying potion gives users the ability to fly for an entire 30 minutes
Both the pharmacy and HP Inc need to record:
Which patients don’t respond to the potion, and when
Which patients took the potion successfully
HP Inc needs to do this for compliance purposes as the aviation authority needs to know how many flying humans could clog up airspace. They also need to know this for medical and market research purposes to understand why the drug might not have worked and where it’s being consumed
Getting clear on terminologies and stakeholders
As part of any project, it’s a good habbit to understand our customer’s world and get clear on what different things mean and what different stakeholders do. Let’s get some terminologies and stakeholder references straight to help with the rest of our journey:
HP Inc - Hero Potions Inc, our customer
Flying Potion - one of the potions produced and sold by HP Inc
Pharmacy - HP Inc sells their potions (including the Flying Potion) to Pharmacies who administer potions to consumers
Heroes - Consumers who take HP’s potions
Zeros - Harsh term, but these are consumers who don’t have any luck with HP Inc’s potions
Hero Regulator - A Government body that needs to track who consumes potions, when and where
Airspace Regulator - A Government body that makes sure airspace doesn’t get too crowded with Flying Heroes so planes and heroes co-exist safely
What we'll cover in this guide
If you get stuck along the way, be sure to join our Slack Community and ask all the questions your heart desires!
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