For tools that aren’t supported using standard approaches, BigPanda can build custom integrations to support a wider range of monitoring tools and capabilities. Custom integrations may be needed for complex tools with advanced logic requirements.

Custom vs. Standard Integrations

Standard integrations include any of the tools on our Standard Named Integration list, or tools that can be integrated using the Open Integration Manager or Email Parser.

If you don’t see the name of your integration in the Standard Named Integrations list, see Determine the Integration Approach to establish whether a custom integration is necessary. If you have questions or need assistance, contact BigPanda Support or your onboarding team.

Best Practices

• Standard integrations are preferred over custom - BigPanda standard integrations offer simple approaches to integrate your monitoring stack into the event pipeline. While custom integrations can offer additional flexibility, changes to the integration must be made by the BigPanda team, which reduces visibility and makes ongoing updates a challenge.
• Leverage push, not pull approaches - Push approaches from monitoring tools are the most efficient way for BigPanda to ingest events. Pull solutions rely on a recur, which adds additional time until an event can be viewed and actioned. Pull solutions have increased maintenance and security costs over time as they are inflexible for updates and changes.
• Focus on actionable events - BigPanda is designed to cut through the noise and highlight high priority issues from your monitoring tools. Reducing volumes is best done as early as possible in the pipeline. If there’s no value to be had from an event in BigPanda, don’t send it.
• Enable event resolution - Monitoring tools can trigger notifications when a problem has been resolved, saving you time by allowing you to focus on current issues. BigPanda can automatically move the alert to a resolved state once received.

Determine the Integration Approach

Standard inbound integrations are usually email or webhook based. If your integration does not send automatic outbound webhook or email event notifications or transforming those notifications exceeds the capabilities of the Open Integration Manager or Standard Email Parser, a custom integration is required.

Webhook-Based Integrations

To determine if a webhook-based integration is standard or custom, ask the following questions:

• Can the payload headers and body be customized?
• Can the header support bearer token authentication?
• Can the payload body be formatted in JSON?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, it is a standard integration. If the answer to any one of these questions is no, a custom integration is needed.

Email-Based Integrations

To determine if an email-based integration is standard or custom, ask the following questions:

• Can the email recipients be set to send to a BigPanda email address?
• Can the email body be formatted in text or HTML?
• Can the email templates remain consistent between event types?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, it is a standard integration. If the answer to any one of these questions is no, a custom integration is needed.

Next Steps

View a list of BigPanda's Standard Integrations

Learn how to Integrate with Big Panda

Find your way around the Integrations Tab