Incident responders often find themselves under pressure to resolve issues quickly and efficiently. Once the alert comes in and the incident resolution starts, the actions taken in the next few minutes can make all the difference. Essential actions involve collaborating with team members and invoking specialized scripts for common issues like disk space shortages or server restarts. Incidents typically fall into critical or non-critical categories, A patch fix is often done to fix critical incidents immediately and later a full fix is rolled out.
Problems At Hand
Context Switching
Switching between Squadcast and various tools for notifications, ticketing, and remediation actions disrupts focus and slows resolution.
Multiple Manual Tasks
Manually notifying teams, creating tickets, and invoking scripts consume valuable time that could be better spent on troubleshooting and analysis.
Squadcast Solution
Squadcast's outgoing webhooks offer a powerful solution to automate - and streamline your Incident Response workflow. They provide the capability to integrate with any tool through a generic framework. Regardless of the chatops tool, scripts, runbooks, ticketing system, or project management tool in use, Squadcast can seamlessly call or invoke them, manually or automatically. This flexibility allows for customization based on your team's specific needs.
Whether you prefer a manual setup or a fully automated Incident Response with predefined workflows, Squadcast's outgoing webhooks offer versatility. If certain incidents have predictable actions, they can be automated within Squadcast using webhooks, reducing manual intervention.
Bridges the gap by allowing you to connect with any external tool or script through customizable API calls.
Offers automated actions where you can define and automatically invoke triggers based on specific incident conditions, eliminating manual intervention.
Integrate within workflows for a comprehensive response strategy, even without human interaction.
Prerequisites: Identify the tool or script you want to integrate with and have its API details ready.
1. Navigate to Settings: In the Squadcast web app, navigate to Settings from the left sidebar.
2. Enable Webhooks: Under Permissions, locate the Webhooks option and ensure the checkbox is enabled.
3. Add Webhook: Click Add Webhook to initiate the configuration process.
4. Webhook Details:some text
Name: Assign a descriptive name for your webhook.
Type: Choose between Manual or Automatic based on your desired trigger method.
Configure Manual Webhook
Configure Automatic Webhook
API URL: Enter the target tool's API endpoint URL.
Headers: Specify any required headers for authentication or authorization (if applicable).
5. Configure Payload:
Select either Standard Squadcast Payload or Custom Payload.
Standard: Use this if your tool accepts the default Squadcast incident data format.
Custom: If your tool requires data in a specific format, you can define the payload structure using provided templates or manual editing. You can modify the payload and validate it before saving the Webhook. You can also test the Webhook by clicking on the Test Webhook on the bottom right.
6. Triggers (Automatic Webhooks only): Define the specific incident conditions that will trigger the webhook automatically. Choose from options like incident creation, acknowledgment, resolution, priority changes, or note additions. Refer here to check more supported events.
7. Filters (Optional): Optionally, set filters to further refine when the webhook fires. Specify services, alert sources, tags, or priorities that should trigger the webhook.
8. Review and Save: Review your configuration and click Save to create the webhook.
Workflow Automation Integration With Outgoing Webhooks
If conditions validate, outgoing webhooks can be automatically triggered, enhancing the overall efficiency of the incident resolution process. Here's a breakdown of how Squadcast integrates workflow automation with outgoing webhooks:
1. Workflow Triggers
Workflow automation allows you to design automated actions based on predefined triggers. Today the workflow can be triggered using Incident states like:
Incident creation
acknowledgement
Reassigned
Resolved
There are filters that can be set in addition to these triggers. For each of the triggers, here are the available filters and their conditions:
Service - is/is-not/contains/does not contain
Alert Source - is/is-not/contains/does not contain
Tags - is/is-not
Priority - is/is-not
Keep in mind that it's essential for all conditions to be satisfied for the actions to be executed.
2. Outgoing Webhook as an Action
Within your workflow automation, you can specify outgoing webhooks as one of the actions to be taken when a trigger is activated. This means that whenever the specified trigger occurs, Squadcast will automatically send a customized API call to the external tool or script you've configured in the webhook settings.
Say, you want to automatically notify your engineering team on a dedicated Slack channel whenever a high-priority incident is created. You can design a workflow with the following:
Trigger: Incident Created (with a priority filter for "High")
Action: Execute an outgoing webhook configured to send a message to your specified Slack channel with incident details.
How Does Outgoing Webhooks Integration With Workflow Automation Help?
It removes the need for manual intervention by automating tasks like:
Sending notifications to diverse chat platforms (Slack, Discord, Teams, etc.)
Creating or updating tickets in helpdesk systems (Freshdesk, Jira, etc.)
Beyond The Basics With Squadcast’s Outgoing Webhook
Configure Multiple Webhooks For Various Actions Within A Single Incident
You can create multiple outgoing webhooks for a single incident. This allows you to perform different actions with various tools depending on the incident's details or your needs.
Choose Manual Invocation For Selective Actions Or Automate Triggers For Repetitive Tasks
You have the flexibility to choose how your webhooks are triggered. Based on your process, if there are incidents that need an engineer to troubleshoot and then decide on the remediation action then you can manually initiate the action from the specific incident.
Automatic webhooks, on the other hand, are triggered based on predefined criteria, like incident priority or specific keywords in the description.
Payload Customization For Specific External Tool Requirements
When configuring your webhooks, you can customize the data sent to the external tool or script. Squadcast allows you to choose either a standard payload containing basic incident details or a custom payload where you can define the specific data points needed by the external tool. This ensures that the tool receives the necessary information to function correctly.
Unlike some solutions limited to specific integrations, Squadcast's webhooks are tool-agnostic. This means they can connect with virtually any external tool or script, regardless of its origin or platform. This flexibility empowers you to utilize the tools you already have or prefer, fostering seamless integration within your existing ecosystem.
Conclusion
The core benefit of outgoing webhooks is efficiency. It eliminates the need for constant context switching – no manual team calls, stakeholder notifications, or project board ticket creations. By reducing manual intervention, integrating seamlessly with diverse tools, and allowing for both manual and automated workflows, Squadcast ensures that incidents are resolved swiftly without compromising on SLAs. So now the question arises – do you want to leverage the potential of outgoing webhooks? If yes, then try free sign up today!
Squadcast is an Incident Management tool that’s purpose-built for SRE. Get rid of unwanted alerts, receive relevant notifications and integrate with popular ChatOps tools. Work in collaboration using virtual incident war rooms and use automation to eliminate toil.
What you should do now
Schedule a demo with Squadcast to learn about the platform, answer your questions, and evaluate if Squadcast is the right fit for you.
Curious about how Squadcast can assist you in implementing SRE best practices? Discover the platform's capabilities through our Interactive Demo.
Incident responders often find themselves under pressure to resolve issues quickly and efficiently. Once the alert comes in and the incident resolution starts, the actions taken in the next few minutes can make all the difference. Essential actions involve collaborating with team members and invoking specialized scripts for common issues like disk space shortages or server restarts. Incidents typically fall into critical or non-critical categories, A patch fix is often done to fix critical incidents immediately and later a full fix is rolled out.
Problems At Hand
Context Switching
Switching between Squadcast and various tools for notifications, ticketing, and remediation actions disrupts focus and slows resolution.
Multiple Manual Tasks
Manually notifying teams, creating tickets, and invoking scripts consume valuable time that could be better spent on troubleshooting and analysis.
Squadcast Solution
Squadcast's outgoing webhooks offer a powerful solution to automate - and streamline your Incident Response workflow. They provide the capability to integrate with any tool through a generic framework. Regardless of the chatops tool, scripts, runbooks, ticketing system, or project management tool in use, Squadcast can seamlessly call or invoke them, manually or automatically. This flexibility allows for customization based on your team's specific needs.
Whether you prefer a manual setup or a fully automated Incident Response with predefined workflows, Squadcast's outgoing webhooks offer versatility. If certain incidents have predictable actions, they can be automated within Squadcast using webhooks, reducing manual intervention.
Bridges the gap by allowing you to connect with any external tool or script through customizable API calls.
Offers automated actions where you can define and automatically invoke triggers based on specific incident conditions, eliminating manual intervention.
Integrate within workflows for a comprehensive response strategy, even without human interaction.
Prerequisites: Identify the tool or script you want to integrate with and have its API details ready.
1. Navigate to Settings: In the Squadcast web app, navigate to Settings from the left sidebar.
2. Enable Webhooks: Under Permissions, locate the Webhooks option and ensure the checkbox is enabled.
3. Add Webhook: Click Add Webhook to initiate the configuration process.
4. Webhook Details:some text
Name: Assign a descriptive name for your webhook.
Type: Choose between Manual or Automatic based on your desired trigger method.
Configure Manual Webhook
Configure Automatic Webhook
API URL: Enter the target tool's API endpoint URL.
Headers: Specify any required headers for authentication or authorization (if applicable).
5. Configure Payload:
Select either Standard Squadcast Payload or Custom Payload.
Standard: Use this if your tool accepts the default Squadcast incident data format.
Custom: If your tool requires data in a specific format, you can define the payload structure using provided templates or manual editing. You can modify the payload and validate it before saving the Webhook. You can also test the Webhook by clicking on the Test Webhook on the bottom right.
6. Triggers (Automatic Webhooks only): Define the specific incident conditions that will trigger the webhook automatically. Choose from options like incident creation, acknowledgment, resolution, priority changes, or note additions. Refer here to check more supported events.
7. Filters (Optional): Optionally, set filters to further refine when the webhook fires. Specify services, alert sources, tags, or priorities that should trigger the webhook.
8. Review and Save: Review your configuration and click Save to create the webhook.
Workflow Automation Integration With Outgoing Webhooks
If conditions validate, outgoing webhooks can be automatically triggered, enhancing the overall efficiency of the incident resolution process. Here's a breakdown of how Squadcast integrates workflow automation with outgoing webhooks:
1. Workflow Triggers
Workflow automation allows you to design automated actions based on predefined triggers. Today the workflow can be triggered using Incident states like:
Incident creation
acknowledgement
Reassigned
Resolved
There are filters that can be set in addition to these triggers. For each of the triggers, here are the available filters and their conditions:
Service - is/is-not/contains/does not contain
Alert Source - is/is-not/contains/does not contain
Tags - is/is-not
Priority - is/is-not
Keep in mind that it's essential for all conditions to be satisfied for the actions to be executed.
2. Outgoing Webhook as an Action
Within your workflow automation, you can specify outgoing webhooks as one of the actions to be taken when a trigger is activated. This means that whenever the specified trigger occurs, Squadcast will automatically send a customized API call to the external tool or script you've configured in the webhook settings.
Say, you want to automatically notify your engineering team on a dedicated Slack channel whenever a high-priority incident is created. You can design a workflow with the following:
Trigger: Incident Created (with a priority filter for "High")
Action: Execute an outgoing webhook configured to send a message to your specified Slack channel with incident details.
How Does Outgoing Webhooks Integration With Workflow Automation Help?
It removes the need for manual intervention by automating tasks like:
Sending notifications to diverse chat platforms (Slack, Discord, Teams, etc.)
Creating or updating tickets in helpdesk systems (Freshdesk, Jira, etc.)
Beyond The Basics With Squadcast’s Outgoing Webhook
Configure Multiple Webhooks For Various Actions Within A Single Incident
You can create multiple outgoing webhooks for a single incident. This allows you to perform different actions with various tools depending on the incident's details or your needs.
Choose Manual Invocation For Selective Actions Or Automate Triggers For Repetitive Tasks
You have the flexibility to choose how your webhooks are triggered. Based on your process, if there are incidents that need an engineer to troubleshoot and then decide on the remediation action then you can manually initiate the action from the specific incident.
Automatic webhooks, on the other hand, are triggered based on predefined criteria, like incident priority or specific keywords in the description.
Payload Customization For Specific External Tool Requirements
When configuring your webhooks, you can customize the data sent to the external tool or script. Squadcast allows you to choose either a standard payload containing basic incident details or a custom payload where you can define the specific data points needed by the external tool. This ensures that the tool receives the necessary information to function correctly.
Unlike some solutions limited to specific integrations, Squadcast's webhooks are tool-agnostic. This means they can connect with virtually any external tool or script, regardless of its origin or platform. This flexibility empowers you to utilize the tools you already have or prefer, fostering seamless integration within your existing ecosystem.
Conclusion
The core benefit of outgoing webhooks is efficiency. It eliminates the need for constant context switching – no manual team calls, stakeholder notifications, or project board ticket creations. By reducing manual intervention, integrating seamlessly with diverse tools, and allowing for both manual and automated workflows, Squadcast ensures that incidents are resolved swiftly without compromising on SLAs. So now the question arises – do you want to leverage the potential of outgoing webhooks? If yes, then try free sign up today!
Squadcast is an Incident Management tool that’s purpose-built for SRE. Get rid of unwanted alerts, receive relevant notifications and integrate with popular ChatOps tools. Work in collaboration using virtual incident war rooms and use automation to eliminate toil.
What you should do now
Schedule a demo with Squadcast to learn about the platform, answer your questions, and evaluate if Squadcast is the right fit for you.
Curious about how Squadcast can assist you in implementing SRE best practices? Discover the platform's capabilities through our Interactive Demo.
