Streamline Incident Resolution with Squadcast’s Outgoing Webhooks

Originally published on Squadcast.com.

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.

Squadcast’s Outgoing Webhooks

• 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.

How To Configure Outgoing Webhooks In Squadcast?

Here's a step-by-step guide on setting them up:

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.

1. Configure Manual Webhook

2. 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 hereto 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.

For a detailed description of configuration steps check outgoing webhook documentation.

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 filtersthat 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 APIcall 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:

1. Sending notifications to diverse chat platforms (Slack, Discord, Teams, etc.)
2. Creating or updating tickets in helpdesk systems (Freshdesk, Jira, etc.)
3. Initiating remediation processes (executing scripts, restarting servers, etc.)

Use Cases & Benefits

• Notifications: Send alerts to your preferred chat channels like Discord, Telegram, or Slack, keeping everyone informed.
• Ticketing: Automatically create tickets in platforms like Freshdesk, JIRA, or BMC Remedy for efficient issue tracking.
• Remediation: Trigger custom scripts or runbooks to automate repetitive tasks like server restarts, configuration changes, or service deployments.
• Reduced MTTR: Automate manual tasks and streamline communication, leading to faster incident resolution and improved Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

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.

Squadcast’s Outgoing Webhooks Transcend Tool-Specific Limitations

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!