Some people asked me about how to receive notifications when new changesets match a filter we have setup in OSMCha. So I decided to write a tutorial with some options of how to receive updates from your OSMCha filters.

We can set a filter in OSMCha and save it to later use. If you have never saved a filter, see the documentation.

Each saved filter has an unique ID and a RSS feed. The RSS makes it very easy to receive notifications. After you saved a filter, you can get your RSS feed link at the right side of your filter name, on the top of the page.

RSS Reader

The easiest thing you can do is to subscribe to the feed with some RSS Reader. There are plenty of options, both web based or to install on your computer. Nowadays the most popular web based option is Feedly.

IFTTT + Telegram

If you prefer, you can setup an applet with IFTTT.com and receive the notifications on Telegram. Click on this link to open the applet, then click on Get Started, make your login and finally paste the RSS feed link on the feed URL field of the IFTTT applet. Each 5 minutes, the IFTTT will send you the new changesets that match your filter.

The telegram integration is useful to filters that don’t return a large number of results, but need a fast response. You can add more than one applet and get results from multiple filters.

Zapier + Email

With Zapier.com, we can receive an email containing a daily digest of new changesets on one or more OSMCha saved filters. Here is the link to the zap: https://zapier.com/app/editor/template/14135?create=true. It’s a bit more complicated to setup and it will return only the last 50 changesets gathered by each filter.

Huginn

Vitor George has setup an integration between OSMCha RSS feed and telegram using Hugin Feed Agent (code / service). Huginn is very powerful and customizable, although I found it very complex to make the setup.

API

We have many API endpoints on OSMCha. If you want to build some other integration, you’re invited to do it and make the process of validate OpenStreetMap edits easier. Check the API documentation to learn more.

If you have some question or have done some interesting use of our API and RSS feeds, please tell us!