Slack Integration

Slack Integration

Overview

The Slack integration is an outbound notification channel that sends Overwatch incident notifications to your Slack workspace. Unlike the other integrations which receive inbound alerts, the Slack integration pushes updates from Overwatch to Slack channels, keeping your team informed about new incidents, status changes, and resolution progress.

Overwatch sends structured messages to Slack with incident details, severity, status, and a direct link back to the Overwatch dashboard for full context and AI-powered resolution guidance.

Prerequisites

• A Slack workspace with permissions to add incoming webhooks or install apps
• An Overwatch organization with an active subscription
• A Slack channel designated for incident notifications

Setup Steps

Create a Slack Incoming Webhook

1. Go to the Slack API: Incoming Webhooks page.
2. Click Create New App (or use an existing app).
3. Select Incoming Webhooks and toggle the feature on.
4. Click Add New Webhook to Workspace.
5. Select the Slack channel where you want to receive notifications (for example, #incidents).
6. Copy the generated Webhook URL. It looks like:

   https://hooks.slack.com/services/T00000000/B00000000/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Configure Overwatch

1. In Overwatch, navigate to Settings > Integrations > New Integration and select Slack.
2. Paste the Slack Webhook URL from the previous step.
3. Configure notification preferences:
   • Channel name: Display name for reference (for example, #incidents)
   • Events: Select which events trigger Slack notifications
4. Click Save to activate the integration.
5. Click Test Connection to send a test message to your Slack channel.

Tip: Create separate Slack integrations for different channels if you want to route notifications by severity. For example, send critical incidents to #incidents-critical and lower-severity incidents to #incidents-general.

Notification Events

You can configure which Overwatch events trigger Slack notifications:

Event	Description
Incident Created	A new incident has been detected from an inbound integration
Severity Changed	An incident’s severity has been escalated or de-escalated
Status Changed	An incident’s status has changed (Open, In Progress, Resolved)
Assignment Changed	An incident has been assigned or reassigned to a team member
Resolution Found	The AI engine has generated a resolution recommendation

Message Format

Slack notifications include the following information:

• Incident title: The name of the incident
• Severity: Color-coded severity indicator (critical = red, high = orange, medium = yellow, low = green)
• Status: Current incident status
• Source: The monitoring platform that detected the issue (Datadog, Prometheus, etc.)
• Dashboard link: A direct link to the incident in the Overwatch dashboard
• Summary: Brief description of the incident or the AI-generated summary

Note: Overwatch uses Slack’s Block Kit formatting for rich, readable notifications. Messages include action buttons to view the incident in Overwatch.

Chrome Extension Integration

The Slack integration works alongside the Chrome extension. When the extension detects a relevant alert in your monitoring tool, it shows the same resolution context that was sent to Slack, ensuring your team has consistent information regardless of where they first encounter the incident.

Troubleshooting

Test message not appearing in Slack

• Verify the Slack Webhook URL is correct and has not been revoked.
• Check that the Slack app is still installed in your workspace.
• Confirm the webhook is associated with the correct channel.

Notifications stopped working

• Slack Webhook URLs can be invalidated if the associated app is removed or the channel is deleted.
• Regenerate the webhook URL in Slack and update it in Overwatch.
• Check the Overwatch integration health status on the Settings page.

Too many notifications

• Use the event filter settings to limit which events trigger Slack messages.
• Configure severity-based routing to send only critical and high severity incidents to high-visibility channels.

Message formatting issues

• Overwatch uses Slack Block Kit for message formatting. If messages appear as plain text, verify that your Slack workspace supports Block Kit (all modern Slack workspaces do).
• If you use a proxy between Overwatch and Slack, ensure it does not modify the JSON payload.

Notifications delayed

• Slack webhooks are sent asynchronously after incident processing completes. A small delay (1-5 seconds) is normal.
• If delays exceed 30 seconds, check the Overwatch backend logs for webhook delivery errors.