Configuring PagerSync
This page shows the terminology and the setup for PagerSync.
Terminology
The main things we will deal with in PagerSync are:
Slack User Groups: In Slack there is a feature that allows creating a user group with a name that contains 1 or more slack users. Messages can be sent tagging this user group and it will alert whoever is currently a member of the user group. More details on the Slack website.
Scheduling System: PagerSync syns the on call schedule to slack, we now support getting the on call schedule from different systems like PagerDuty, Ops Genie by Atlassian and XMatters. The system you choose to integrate with is the scheduling system. You can only integrate with 1 system.
Schedule: Your scheduling system might refer to this in different ways but within PagerSync it usually referes to the entity that tells which user is on call at any given time. PagerDuty referes to this as Schedule.
PagerDuty On Call Config/Team Rotation: The core feature of PagerSync is to map a slack user group to one or more PagerDuty schedules. The people from the schedule get added to the User Group as and when they go on call. This ensures that when you ping a user group to report an issue it
Configuring Scheduling System
Setting up your scheduling system is the first step in using PagerSync. Without this step, the next steps wont work.
You have to choose one of the supported scheduling systems:
PagerDuty
Ops Genie by Atlassian
xMatters
Once your have configured the scheduling system refresh the app so that the homescreen is updated.
PagerDuty
Pagerduty is configurured through OAuth. On the app homepage, you must click on the link to install PagerSync into your PagerDuty installation. This will take you through an OAuth flow on PagerDuty side. Please ensure to give read configuration permissions.
Ops Genie by Atlassian
OpsGenie allows integrations via an API key.
Follow the Atlassian instructions on how to generate an API key.
Ensure that you select the read option along with configuration (without configuration PagerSync will not work)
Once the API key is available, come to PagerSync and click on the button to Add API Key for Ops Genie. This should open a dialog box that looks like this. Enter the API key there and click on submit.
xMatters
xMatters relies on setting up an API access to read schedules and on call information.
Setting up xMatters requires:
the xMatters URL for your company
an API Key
API Secret for the key
Generate the API Key and secret by following the instructions on the xmatters website.
Copy these values since they can only be seen 1 time.
Come to the PagerSync slack app. Click on the button for the option to connect to xMatters via API Key. This should open a modal dialog like below. Enter the values and click on submit.
For the URL ensure you dont add anything like https or www. This should be just be the host part of the xMatters URL for your company.
Configuring Team Rotation
A team rotation maps one or more Slack User Group to one or more schedules.
Creating a new rotation
This is done using the button Create Rotation in the Team Rotation section.
Clicking on the button opens up this modal.
Here's what each field in there means and how it behaves:
Config Name: This is a name for the config. Good options for this are things like the team name. This will help you find and manage this config later. There are no restrictions on the name.
User Group: This is a drop down with the list of user groups already present in your slack instance. Choose the appropriate user group you want to use.
Search: If you have a long list of user groups, you can search for it in the dropdown. Make sure to ensure the search string starts with
@when searching.The last option in there is to create a new one. If you want to create a new user group choose this option and set the name for the new group in the next text area.
You can only choose 1 user group for a given config and 1 user group can only be associated with a config (1:1 mapping)
New Alias to Create: If none of the existing user groups works for you, you can create a new user group using this text box. Restrictions:
The name needs to follow the rules of Slack user group. All lower case characters, numbers,
_and-. No special characters or space.
Schedules: You can choose 1 or more schedules to backup up the user group. If multiple schedules are chosen then PagerSync will add the current on call persons from all the schedules to the user group. Each schedule can change individually and PagerSync seamlessly updates the user group.
Channels: If you want an announcement in the group with who is going on call for a given user group, choose the channels you want the announcement in. The announcement message will look like this:
Editing and Deleting Existing Team Rotations
Once you have created at least a rotation, you should be able to see the list existing.
Note: The current on call list might be empty when you initially create the configuration. It will get populated soon and refreshing the app page or navigating to another channel and coming back will show the updated value.
Editing a Configuration
To edit a configuration, simply click on the edit button below the one you want to edit. This will open the same modal used to create the configuration with the values prefilled. For instance:
Click on Submit to save any changes and Cancel to discard changes.
Deleting a config
To delete a config use the delete button right below a given configuration. It will pop open a confirmation modal box.
Click on Delete to delete the config and Cancel to cancel the operation.
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