Work on incidents in PagerDuty and InfraNest together

Responders can work an incident from whichever tool they have open. Acknowledging, resolving and writing notes in PagerDuty shows up in InfraNest, and the other way round.

#Before you start

You need a PagerDuty account connected under Integrations → PagerDuty — see Connect PagerDuty. If you connected with one click, two-way sync is already on. If you pasted an integration key, set it up first: If you connected with an integration key.

#Acknowledge and resolve in either tool

• In PagerDuty: acknowledge or resolve as usual. Within seconds the InfraNest incident shows it, with the responder's name — your teammate's, if their PagerDuty email matches their InfraNest one.
• In InfraNest: acknowledge or resolve the incident, and PagerDuty follows.
• When the problem recovers, InfraNest resolves the PagerDuty incident for you. Teams that close incidents by hand can switch that off — see Resolve incidents by hand.

One outage, one page. When several monitors on the same server go down together, PagerDuty gets one incident for the whole outage. Acknowledging or resolving it applies to every InfraNest incident in that outage.

Merging in PagerDuty. If you merge incidents in PagerDuty, the InfraNest incidents follow the incident you merged into. They stay open until that one is resolved or the problem recovers.

Unacknowledged again? When an acknowledgement times out in PagerDuty and it pages again, InfraNest keeps its own incident acknowledged. An automation can still react to it.

#Incident notes

• Notes written in PagerDuty appear on the InfraNest incident's timeline, marked with who wrote them and PagerDuty, such as "Dana · PagerDuty". Only your team sees them — never your status page or its subscribers.
• Updates you post in InfraNest become a PagerDuty note starting From InfraNest, with your name and the update's status. This needs an account connected with one click.

Each note is copied once and never comes back. Notes are only shared for incidents InfraNest raised, and only on services with Sync notes on. To stop sharing them for a service, go to Integrations → PagerDuty, find the service and turn Sync notes off.

#See who is on call

If you connected with one click, InfraNest shows who PagerDuty would page right now — for example On call: Dana Reyes (level 1) · Sam Ito (level 2):

• on the PagerDuty account, under each service;
• on a monitor's page, for every service its alerts reach;
• on an incident, once PagerDuty has reported back on it.

The names are at most a few minutes old. The first time you open a page it may show nothing for a moment; reopen it and the names appear. An account connected with an integration key shows no on-call names, because a key can't read schedules. To message whoever is on call from an automation, see Automate with PagerDuty.

#Publish PagerDuty status updates on your status page

A status update in PagerDuty is the message you write for people outside the response team. InfraNest can post it on your status page, so you don't write it twice.

It's off for every service until you turn it on, because a status update often names customers or internal systems, while a status page is public and emails your subscribers. To turn it on, go to Integrations → PagerDuty, find the service, and switch on Publish PagerDuty status updates on the status page.

• The update appears on the status page of the matching incident, and subscribers are emailed — as when you post one yourself.
• The incident's status doesn't change.
• Nothing is posted for an incident that isn't on a status page, or is already resolved.
• A long update PagerDuty shortened is posted shortened, ending in ….

Updates you write in InfraNest go to PagerDuty as notes, not as status updates.

#If you connected with an integration key

A pasted key can page, but it can't create the webhook PagerDuty uses to report back. Create it yourself:

1. In InfraNest, go to Integrations → PagerDuty and copy the webhook address shown on the account. Treat it like a password.

2. In PagerDuty, go to Integrations → Generic Webhooks (v3) and select New Webhook.

3. Paste the address, and subscribe to at least incident.acknowledged and incident.resolved. Add incident.annotated for notes and incident.status_update_published for status updates. For automation triggers, see the list in Automate with PagerDuty.

4. Save. PagerDuty shows a signing secret once — copy it now.

5. Back in InfraNest, paste it into Signing secret and select Save. The account's Inbound updates row reads Ready.

#If you're not a PagerDuty admin

Only a PagerDuty Admin or Account Owner can create the webhook. Everything else works without it, so set up the rest yourself and ask an admin for this one step:

1. On the account in Integrations → PagerDuty, select Ask a PagerDuty admin.
2. Copy the link, or type the admin's email and select Email it.
3. The admin opens it and signs in to PagerDuty. They don't need an InfraNest account, and the link shows them nothing else.

The link works once, for three days, and only for your PagerDuty account. InfraNest uses the admin's sign-in once and then forgets it. You get a notification when two-way sync is on.

#Good to know

• Older setups. If your workspace set up two-way sync before each PagerDuty account had its own webhook, the PagerDuty page shows a notice. Select Move to my account and InfraNest moves you over and removes the old webhook. If it can't find the old one, delete it yourself under Integrations → Generic Webhooks (v3) in PagerDuty.
• Only your PagerDuty account can update your incidents. Every update must carry PagerDuty's signature, and each PagerDuty account has its own webhook and secret.
• Pausing the account stops updates in both directions until you resume it.

#If something isn't working

PagerDuty actions don't update InfraNest. Check that the account's Inbound updates row reads Ready. If you connected with one click and it doesn't, select Enable inbound synchronization. With an integration key, check that the webhook is subscribed to incident.acknowledged and incident.resolved, that the address is exactly the one InfraNest shows, and that the secret is the one PagerDuty gave that webhook. The activity on the PagerDuty page lists each update PagerDuty sent and, when one wasn't applied, why.

An incident created by hand in PagerDuty didn't appear in InfraNest. That's expected: only incidents InfraNest raised are linked. It can still start an automation.

An alert didn't open a new PagerDuty incident. PagerDuty groups repeat alerts for the same problem into the incident that's already open, so a flapping monitor updates it instead of paging again.

An update didn't appear as a note in PagerDuty. Check that Sync notes is on for the service, that the account was connected with one click, and that it doesn't say PagerDuty no longer accepts the sign-in. If it does, select Connect again.

You can't find where to set a secret in PagerDuty. There isn't one: PagerDuty creates it and shows it once, when you create the webhook. If you missed it, delete the webhook and create it again.

#Related articles

• Connect PagerDuty
• Choose how PagerDuty is paged
• Automate with PagerDuty
• What InfraNest can see and do in PagerDuty