As of November 1st, 2021 use of the DCS Field Test requires an active DCS website account. Users who do not have an account must register for continued access. Accounts for users who are not affiliated with an active DCS Group will be restricted to field test use only. To request a field test account, simply double click anywhere within the notice area and complete the DCS account registration form.

A recent update of the DCS website included changes to the DCS Field Test to restrict access to users with a DCS website account. Access to the field test now requires that login credentials be submitted along with query parameters, and will authenticate a user before executing a field test query. Because login credentials for a DCS website account are now requried, requests from automated systems began to fail, and continued to do-so until the necessary changes were made to the automated scripts. While some systems handled the failures in an acceptable manner, others responded by increasing the frequency of the field test query requests, which resulted in denial of service conditions and website outages. When failed requests are handled correctly, automated systems can continue request attempts and not cause website outages triggered by denial of service conditions. The field test and automation help document contains examples, potential pitfalls and best practices to help users create robust automated systems.