Government support program notices collected three times a day and delivered by keyword

Background

Government and public institutions keep publishing support program notices. The problem is that they are not gathered in one place. Each institution posts on its own site, and deadlines are usually short.

So people who are interested visit institution sites one by one. A site checked yesterday gets checked again today. Skip one round, and a notice posted in between is only learned about after its deadline has passed.

The problem we defined

The problem was removing the need to go looking.

A well-collected list is not enough. Even when collected, someone still has to open it, and on a day nobody opens it, it is as good as nonexistent. It has to be the kind that goes out and notifies, not one that asks people to come and look.

What we built

• Collects from four sources — it uses the public APIs and RSS feeds that public institutions provide. It receives notices through the channels institutions offer, not by scraping pages
• Three times a day — it automatically collects at 09:00, 15:00, and 21:00. Once a day would mean a notice posted in the morning is learned about the next day. Intervals that do not bunch up are, in the end, the way to collect everything without missing any
• Filters by keyword — it does not send everything. Only notices matching registered keywords are picked out and sent. Send everything and people stop reading; stop reading and it is as good as nonexistent
• Standardizes deadlines — each institution writes dates in its own way. They must be converted into one format so 「how many days are left」 can be worked out
• Checks notifications every 30 minutes — collection and sending are separated. Even if collection runs late, sending runs on its own schedule

Result

Without visiting institution sites, notices matching your registered keywords arrive by email.

Our other products, built and operated directly by us, are gathered under In-house products.