Webhooks

Overview

Organizations might find it hard to keep track of the various processes in progress or errors that might occur. Email notifications for when a process is complete are currently provided as an in-built feature but might not be sufficient to keep track of errors, or start, and finish a process. Also receiving notifications within the server of the company or any communication channel such as Slack can be extremely beneficial to the users to keep track of all events. It is also essential for the user to be notified about the three most important stages of an activity:

When the Job is started
When the Job is completed
When there is an error

Webhooks notification system solves these issues for the users and makes the process of keeping track of the various events much easier.

Setting up of Webhooks

To set up webhooks:

Login to DBSync Cloud Replication instance
Select the desired profile for which you want to activate the Webhooks notification system
From the Top Navigation toolbar Click on 'Notifications'

Select 'Webhooks' as the channel type and the settings will appear on the screen as seen in the below image:

Configure Webhooks Notifications Settings

Receive Notifications Click the checkbox next to the desired event options. 3 main event options can be configured are shown in the image below:

- Process
- Started- Click the checkbox next to the icon 'Started' if you wish to be notified when a process is started. For eg: If you enable this option you will be notified when a process such as 'Clean Copy', 'DB to Source', etc starts running.
- Completed- Click the checkbox next to the icon 'Completed' if you wish to be notified when a process is completed. For eg: If you enable this option you will be notified when a process such as 'Clean Copy', 'DB to Source', etc completes.
- Errored- Click the check-box next to the icon 'Errored' if you wish to be notified when errors arrears in the process or the process fails. For eg: If you enable this option you will be notified when a process such as 'Clean Copy', 'DB to Source', etc encounters errors or fails.
Methods of Configuration Notifications

There are 2 methods you can use to configure Webhooks:- CHANGE SCREEN (DUE TO NOTIFICATION SCREEN CHANGE)

GET method:

This method is used if you want to use your API to get notified using webhooks
From the URL drop-down menu choose the GET method option.
URL (supporting variable injection) - notification. webhook.URL
This method allows parameters in the URL
Example of a URL for the Get method:

You can format your calls for multiple parameters.
The above example: The user required details such as:

Computer name, date, time, profile details, error count, and number of records processed

There is a specific list of supported expressions that have to be followed for writing the various required parameters in the URL while running the GET method.
These can be found listed under “Supported Expressions”. Various conditions for these parameters can also be listed.
Once you enter all parameters Click SAVE

b. POST method: CHANGE SCREEN (DUE TO NOTIFICATION SCREEN CHANGE)-CROP

This method is used if the user wants to define the payload.
From the URL drop-down menu choose the POST method option.
Fill in all the details: URL, HEADERS, CONTENT TYPE, and PAYLOAD

For example:

Let us consider that a user wants to get notified in SLACK.

Enter details as follows:

URL:

Slack

POST

URL: https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Content-Type:

Content-type:

Content type: application/JSON

Payload:

Payload: (Freeform)

{

“text” : ” event=$event$ date=$date; format =”yyyy-MM-dd’T’hh:mm:ss”$ ”

}

The screen will appear as below:

You can format your calls for multiple parameters.
The above example: The user required details such as:

date, time, profile, and error.

There is a specific list of supported expressions that have to be followed for writing the various required parameters in the URL while running the GET method.
These can be found listed under “Supported Expressions”. Various conditions for these parameters can also be listed.
Once you enter all parameters Click SAVE
Click Test Connection and verify the same.

In this manner, the user can define their Payload and provide the parameters in the standard expressions format with/without conditions to receive the respective POST notifications in their communication channel such as in this case SLACK.

In both methods if the user has check-boxes to receive a notification when STARTED, immediately when the connection is SAVED and TESTED a notification will be sent to the SERVER or the communication channel such as SLACK that the process has STARTED.
To get the URL for the POST method for a communication channel such as SLACK please refer to the following link https://api.slack.com/messaging/webhooks.