How to Set Up ControlUp Alerts to Post into a Google Chat Space

A user is asking for help setting up ControlUp alerts to post into a Google Chat Space using webhooks. The issue seems to be on Google’s side, as the alerts successfully trigger when tested on an external site. Suggestions for workaround or solutions are given, such as using ControlUp Workflows. Examples and instructions on how to format the HTTP POST within a ControlUp Workflow are provided. The user is able to successfully get it working with Workflows, but is still investigating what type of variables are supported to make the message more meaningful.

Read the entire ‘How to Set Up ControlUp Alerts to Post into a Google Chat Space’ thread below:

Has anyone successfully set up ControlUp alerts (from Synthetic Monitoring or Desktop Alerts) to post into a Google Chat Space?

I’ve created a webhook and verified that it works—I’m able to send test messages to the Chat Space using Python from my own laptop. However, it doesn’t work when triggered from ControlUp.

Just wondering if any other customers have run into this or found a working solution. Appreciate any tips or examples.

You might want to think about using ControlUp Workflows, although we currently don’t have a Google Chat integration, but possibly could use the HTTP workflow node action for that

As to your question: ControlUp for Desktops webhooks can’t be modified, and your Google incoming webhook possibly needs a specific header and payload?

Similarly for Synthetic you might need to adjust header/payload (which is possible to customize unlike CU4D)

https://www.controlup.com/resources/blog/step-up-your-automation-and-improve-it-team-operations-with-controlup-workflows/

Thanks for the suggestion and the article. I’ll look into workflows. The Google instructions for creating a webhook are pretty straightforward and don’t mention any additional authentication requirements. That’s why I asked here, in case you’ve had customers try this before. I’d rather not go down this path if it’s something that simply isn’t possible right now.

Do the alerts trigger? e.g. in CU4Desktops, do you see the alerts in the system events?

Yes, alerts are triggering as expected for synthetics, desktops, and Citrix (via the thick client). Both email and SMTP notifications are working.

Can you test with https://webhook.site/ to see if the issue is on the google side or our side?

You can just use the unique URL from that and you will see the webhook calls coming in in real-time

As I suspected, the issue seems to be on Google’s side. I tested using an HTTP POST request to a URL from https://webhook.site/ and it worked as expected.

However, when using the Google Chat webhook URL, I get a 400 error.

That’s why I’m asking—has any customer successfully used Google Chat with ControlUp alerts?

I’ll keep searching, as I suspect others have run into this outside of ControlUp. I’m confident I’ll come across something useful.

Quick update: I wrote a small PowerShell script to test basic POST functionality. I ran it on a personal device to rule out any authentication assumptions, since my work machine is already signed in to Google. Sure enough, the POST worked.

The remaining question is how to properly format the HTTP POST within a ControlUp Workflow so it works the same way.

Here is the PowerShell script:

“`$uri = ""

$body = @{ text = "Hello from ControlUp" } | ConvertTo-Json

Invoke-RestMethod -Uri $uri -Method Post -ContentType "application/json; charset=UTF-8" -Body $body“`

The only thing to consider is that the test button replaces variables with empty strings. So if your payload uses ControlUp variables,

like this

“`{

"text": "$(ListOfColumns:"The column:$(Column) has changed from $(ColumnValueBefore) to $(ColumnValueAfter)")",

}“`

The test button might not generate valid JSON. But the trigger will.

For example a simple machine trigger with

name is monitor

AND CPU is greater than or equal to 0

Awesome, thanks! It worked for me from the Real-Time DX Console as well. Now I just need to get it working from the Web Console—for Desktop Alerts, Synthetic Monitoring Alerts, and Workflow alerts.

I didn’t know how to configure the template before. Now I do.

Desktops might be hard, as Joel said the payload can’t be changed. So I don’t think that would work unless you use a intermediate hop.

CU4Desktops sends it to the intermediate server, server processes the CU4Desktops format into a format that GChat expects.

But you should be able to see that if you point it to webhook.site like Joel mentions

It’s disappointing it can’t work there. I’ll make a note of it as we continue the PoC and will also inform our pre-sales engineers.

I was able to get it working from Workflows!

Now the question is what types of variables it supports to make the message more meaningful.

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