Jenkins Changes

Jenkins is an open-source automation server. This workflow creates change records so you can monitor the impact of Jenkins changes on your service health. You can then build automations to update stakeholders, or send messages to respond to events in Jenkins.

How it works

When a change is generated in Jenkins, it sends a JSON-formatted webhook to xMatters, based on user-defined rules. A Jenkins trigger in xMatters parses the webhook and initiates a flow. The webhook includes essential alert data you can use to enrich notifications to users or when building automated tasks.

Install the workflow

The following instructions describe how to install the workflow through the xMatters one-click installation process.

  1. Go to the Workflow Templates page and click the Jenkins tile.
  2. On the Set up the Workflow tab, give the workflow a name that identifies its purpose (this must be unique in your instance), add an optional description, and set the default incident type (if applicable). Any built-in Initiate Incident steps in the workflow will automatically be set to the selected incident type.
    • You can edit these later, if needed.

  3. Click Next to set up the connection.
  4. Choose the authentication method. A trigger URL is generated based on the selected authentication method.
  5. Copy the trigger URL — you’ll use this to configure the webhook in Jenkins.
    • The trigger URL includes the recipients parameter, which specifies who should be notified. By default, this parameter is set to notify you (the logged in user), but you can set it to target any user or group you want.

  6. Send a test signal to the trigger URL to test the connection.
  7. Click Open Workflow to go to the workflow and customize it, or click Close to close the installation window.

Configure Jenkins to send requests to the trigger URL

To have Jenkins send alerts to the flow trigger, you need to install a notification plug-in and set it to use the trigger URL.

  1. Go to the Jenkins website and download the Notification plug-in. This adds the Job Notification tab to your Jenkins page.
  2. Once installed, go to the Job Notifications tab.
  3. In the URL field, paste the trigger URL you copied from Flow Designer.

  4. Add the target names of any recipients you want to notify when the monitor creates an alert.
    • For URL authentication, use an ampersand to attach recipients. For example, if you want to notify Emma Pearson and the on-call members in the group responsible for the Antares service, you'd add &recipients=epearson,antares to the end of the URL.
    • For other authentication types, use a question mark to attach recipients. For example, if you want to notify Barry Gull and the on-call members in the group responsible for the Cassiopeia service, you'd add ?recipients=bgull,cassiopeia to the end of the URL.
    • You must URL-encode any special characters or spaces in the target names.
  5. Click Save.

You're now ready to use the webhook to trigger automated flows, including steps such as sending alerts and initiating incidents, though we always recommend testing before putting things into use.

Set recipients in the trigger URL

The trigger expects the names of targeted recipients in the trigger URL. When you copy the URL from xMatters, it includes the recipients parameter: recipients=<yourname>. Of course, you don’t want to receive all the alerts.

To change the recipients for changes from this webhook, swap out your name for the people or groups you want to target.

  • For URL authentication, use an ampersand to attach recipients. For example, if you want to notify Emma Pearson and the on-call members in the group responsible for the Antares service, you'd add &recipients=epearson,antares to the URL.
  • For other authentication types, use a question mark to attach recipients. For example, if you want to notify Barry Gull and the on-call members in the group responsible for the Cassiopeia service, you'd add ?recipients=bgull,cassiopeia to the URL.

Remember to URL-encode any special characters, including spaces, in your group names.

We recommend using groups so you can take advantage of the xMatters group features — rotations, escalations, and absences — to reach the right on-call people to jump on an issue.

Next Steps

Now that you've installed the workflow, you can use it as-is, or customize it to suit your needs better. Here are some examples of things you can add to the workflow to customize it: