HumX – Humanitarian Data Exchange

1. Agree on the service contract
HumX defines a common request and response structure for each service operation.

2. Connect each organisation's system
Partners configure their systems, endpoints, credentials, and supported operations.

3. Map local data
The Mapping Studio converts local payloads into the common HumX format and back into the destination system's format.

4. Route and validate
HumX identifies the sender and recipient, checks permissions, validates the payload, and selects the correct destination implementation.

5. Deliver and track
The request is delivered synchronously or through the queue, with retries, diagnostics, idempotency, and transaction history.

6. Monitor the network
Operational dashboards show volumes, success rates, failures, latency, queue health, and provider availability over daily, weekly, and monthly periods.

HumX is designed for real interoperability problems, not only for ideal API environments. It can support workflows such as:

• Referring a household from one organisation to another and checking the referral status later.
• Discovering which providers currently offer a service in a given location.
• Listening to a passive database or table (such as Kobo, AppSheet, or Spreadsheet) for newly approved records and marking them as sent after HumX accepts them.
• Exchanging service availability, eligibility, verification, or deduplication information between partner systems.
• Connecting low-code tools and custom applications without forcing either side to adopt the other system's data model.
• Providing administrators and auditors with a single transaction history across multiple partner integrations.

HumX treats interoperability as a controlled exchange between trusted organisations, not as an open data pipe. Security controls are built into the routing and transaction model.

Authenticated access: Inbound clients authenticate to HumX and are granted only the operations they are allowed to use.

Organisation-level permissions: Service participation and operation permissions determine who can send and receive each type of exchange.

Protected credentials: Outbound API credentials are referenced through safely stored certificates and can be backed by environment variables, protected files, or external secret stores.

Encrypted diagnostics: Sensitive payloads can be stored using authenticated encryption with versioned keys and retention policies.

Auditable access: Decrypted diagnostic access can be permission-controlled and recorded for audit purposes.

HumX is useful wherever several organisations need to cooperate digitally but cannot standardise on one application. It is particularly suited to:

• Humanitarian and civil society organisations or service providers operating referral pathways.
• Consortia and coordination platforms connecting multiple organisations.
• Organisations that need to connect case management, low-code, mobile data collection, or custom web applications.
• Programmes that need stronger auditability, routing control, and operational monitoring than direct point-to-point integrations provide.
• Technical teams that want to reuse one interoperability layer instead of building a new bespoke integration for every partner pair.