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Use an IBM Instana Generic webhook alert channel to send Instana issues, incidents, and changes to Flashduty On-call. Each Instana issue or incident maps to one Flashduty alert: the alert triggers when the issue opens and recovers when the issue closes.

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In Flashduty On-call

You can obtain an integration push URL in either of the following ways.

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Use a dedicated integration

  1. In the Flashduty console, select Channel and open a channel
  2. Select Configuration → Integrations → Private integration, then click Add an integration
  3. Select Instana, then click Save
  4. Open the generated integration card and copy the Push URL

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Use a shared integration

  1. In the Flashduty console, select Integration Center → Alert Events
  2. Select Instana and enter an integration name
  3. Configure the default route and select a channel; after creation, add more rules under Route if needed
  4. Click Save and copy the generated Push URL

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Configure Instana

You need permission to configure alert channels and alerts in Instana. First create an alert channel that points to Flashduty, then select that channel in your alert configurations.
1

Create a Generic webhook alert channel

  1. In Instana, click Settings → Global settings, then select Alert channels under Events & alerts. In some versions the path is Settings → Team settings → Alert channels
  2. Click Add alert channel, select Generic webhook in the dialog, then click Add alert channel at the bottom of the dialog
  3. Enter a Name, for example Flashduty
  4. Paste the full Flashduty push URL into Webhook URLs. The URL must include integration_key
  5. Leave HTTP request headers and OAuth empty. Flashduty authenticates the request by the integration_key in the URL
  6. Click Test channel to check that Instana can reach Flashduty. Instana shows Test Successful when it can. The test notification does not create an alert in Flashduty
  7. Click Create
2

Select the channel in an alert configuration

  1. Click Settings → Alerts → New alert and enter an alert name
  2. In the Events drop-down, select Alert on event type(s), then turn on the event types to send:
Changes and online/offline events are frequent and do not recover automatically. In most cases, turning on Incidents, Critical issues, and Warning issues is enough.
  1. Under Scope, choose the required Apply on range: an application perspective, a Dynamic Focus query (Selected entities only), or All available entities
  2. Under Alerting, click Add alert channels and select the channel you created in the previous step
  3. (Optional) Under Custom payloads, add key-value pairs. They arrive in Flashduty as labels
  4. Click Create
Smart Alerts for applications, websites, and synthetic tests select their alert channels in their own alert configuration. Select the same channel there.
3

Verify

  1. Trigger an Instana issue and confirm that Flashduty receives an active alert. On a host running the Instana agent, you can send a critical event with a duration through the agent’s Event SDK:
  1. Wait for the issue to close in Instana (after 5 minutes in this example) and confirm that the alert recovers
An issue raised right after you save the alert configuration may not be delivered. Wait a few minutes after saving before you trigger one.

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Alert Key

Flashduty uses the Instana issue ID (issue.id) as the Alert Key. An issue or incident carries the same issue.id when it opens and when it closes, so the close notification recovers the alert created when it opened. Changes to the issue title, severity, start time, or tags do not change the Alert Key. Requests without issue.id are rejected.

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Status and severity

Flashduty sets the alert severity from the issue’s severity (issue.severity): issue.state sets the status: Any other state value is rejected with a parameter error.

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Labels

Instana fills fields that do not apply with not available. Those fields do not become labels.

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Troubleshooting

  • Test channel reports that the domain is not allowed: Instana SaaS may restrict the domains alert channels can send to. Contact IBM Instana support to allow the domain of the Flashduty push URL
  • Flashduty returns a parameter error: Make sure the URL is complete and includes integration_key
  • The alert does not recover: Make sure the alert configuration sends issues or incidents, which carry a state. Changes and online/offline events do not recover automatically
  • Real issues are not delivered: Check the event types and scope of the alert configuration, and make sure the alert is linked to the channel
For field details, see Instana Webhook alert channel.