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Create Custom Alerts Using Webhooks and Zapier

With the recent launch of the Webhook integrations on Dead Man's Snitch it's now easier to hook our alerts into your systems and operations workflow. Webhooks give you the ability to receive critical notifications about your snitches at custom URLs. Zapiermakes it easy to take our Webhook alerts and route them to a large and ever growing list of other systems and services.

In this example, we are going to use Zapier to create an alert log in Google Sheets.

The first step is to log into Zapier and create a new Zap with "Catch Hook" as the trigger.

Next, copy the example JSON payload, paste into the "Pick off a Child Key" text field, and then press "Continue". Feel free to only include the information you would like to receive in the payload. You can check out the documentation on Dead Man's Snitch for more setup options.

{
  "type": "snitch.reporting",
  "timestamp": "2016-07-15T14:13:32.013Z",
  "data": {
    "snitch": {
      "token": "c2354d53d2",
      "name": "Critical System Reports",
      "notes": "Useful notes for dealing with the situation",
      "tags": [ "critical", "reports" ],
      "status": "healthy",
      "previous_status": "missing"
    }
  }
}

Once you are on the test step, copy the webhook URL.

Now, add a webhooks integration on Dead Man's Snitch using the copied URL.

After the integration is created, press the "Sent Test" button to send a test payload to the endpoint.

Back on the Zapier page press the "Ok, I did this" button and wait for Zapier to receive your webhook.

Now, set up the action by searching for Google Sheets. Set the action to create a new row in a specific spreadsheet.

After you've connected your Google account and selected a spreadsheet, create headers for all the information in the payload.

Populate all the columns with the sample JSON information from the payload.

Make sure to save your Zap and give it a creative name! Now when Dead Man's Snitch alerts on a failed or missing job, it will automatically update your spreadsheet with the information you customized.

Is there another webhook integration you would like us to look into? Let us know!

Happy Snitching!


Introducing Webhook Integrations for Dead Man’s Snitch

Webhook Alerts

We have added a new integration for receiving alerts via HTTP POST, making it easier to incorporate Dead Man’s Snitch into your own tools and systems. Now you can build tools to better control how and when you get alerted beyond our support for Slack and PagerDuty.

Get started by reading up on our documentation before adding a new integration to your account. Webhooks are available for users on the Private Eye plan or higher. If you’re on the Lone Snitch or Little Birdy plan, head on over to Plans & Billing to upgrade today.

Snitcher (Ruby) 0.4.0 Released

The 0.4.0 release includes a new API client that makes integrating with the Dead Man’s Snitch API a lot easier. This release should make it easier to manage your Snitches with Chef or other custom tools.

Extensive documentation and examples can be found on GitHub.

If there’s anything else you would like to see us add for Dead Man’s Snitch in the future, drop us a line here.

Happy Snitching!