Integrating NetCrunch with Connectwise

It is usually more convenient to integrate NetCrunch with the system that you are already using. This is the reason we have created an integration with Connectwise, a very detailed and comprehensive Service Desk. This article explains how to set up NetCrunch to send tickets to your Connectwise Service Desk.

In this article, we will show how to set up your NetCrunch to send tickets to Connectwise.

Enable NetCrunch to post in Connectwise

To enable NetCrunch to post important alerts directly to Connectwise, you need to first set up an Integration Profile for Connectwise. To do so, click Monitoring Integration Profiles at the top of the NetCrunch application.

In the editor, the new Integration Profile needs to be named and you will be asked for your Company ID, a Public Key and a Private Key. Your Company ID is the same ID that you enter when accessing your Connectwise Board. Instructions on how to configure the Public and the Private Key can be found at ConnectWise Website.

Attention: If you want to utilize the Callback function as well, you have to configure the Public and Private Key with your Integrator Log-in! For more details, read the section "Callbacks".

Create an alert sending the tickets to Connectwise

To allow NetCrunch to utilize the integration, it's necessary to create an alerting script (or edit the already existing one). The steps below explain how to create a new alerting script.

1. Click Monitoring Alerting Escalation Scripts
2. In Alerting Scripts Window click Add Alerting Script
3. Click Add and select Action to Run Immediately
4. Click Integrations tab and select Connectwise

A new window will appear - it may take a moment for NetCrunch to load all your boards. Select the board where you wish to receive tickets from NetCrunch, and enter the Company ID of the company that should be named in the ticket as a requester. You can find the Company ID's when viewing all companies and looking for the column "Company ID". It is also possible to select the type of the ticket you want to open - the ticket type name has to be correct, otherwise it will default to an empty field.

The case-sensitivity also applies to the ticket status, but here the default status is the default defined in the board. If you scroll down further, you can select the ticket Priority, which will default to "Normal Response" if not specified otherwise. The Urgency describes the severity of the problem in relation to your company and will be displayed in the Impact/Urgency diagram in the ticket. The Impact will be automatically determined by the severity of the NetCrunch alert.

Make sure that you are using the correct profile. Test sending messages to Connectwise by clicking Test. A small window with the test procedure will appear, and if everything is configured properly, the test should finish with the "Successfully executed" message, and a test ticket should now appear on the Connectwise board where NetCrunch should send the tickets.

This procedure will not work with the "Close Ticket" operation. To test the "Close Ticket" operation you need to create an alerting script with "Create Ticket" operation as an Action to Run Immediately and the "Close Ticket" operation as an Action to Run on Alert Close. This action requires you to select the status that the ticket should have when it is closed. Again, this field is case sensitive and if the status is entered incorrectly when you set up the integration, it might not close the ticket.

Next, select a node and create an alert (for example Node Monitoring Disabled) to test and assign the alerting script to this alert. The following steps explain how to create a "Node Monitoring Disabled" alert for a single node.

1. Right-click the node where you want to create an alert
2. Select the Node Settings and click Alerts&Reports in the node settings window
3. Click Add Alert, select the Basic tab and choose Node monitoring is disabled
4. Right-click the new Alert and select Assign Predefined Alerting Script Your Script name

Triggering the alert (Disable the Node Monitoring) will now create a ticket in Connectwise. If this alert is closed (Node Monitoring Enabled), the ticket in Connectwise will be commented and closed. If such an alerting script is attached to various alerts, NetCrunch will send tickets to Connectwise each time when the given alert is generated.

It is also possible to send tickets to different boards by creating a new alerting script for every board. Be sure to enter the script name that describes which Connectwise board it is related to.

Callbacks (Two-way-integration)

Connectwise is one of our two-way-integrations, which means you can configure a Callback that sends information back to NetCrunch when the ticket is closed in Connectwise so that the alert in NetCrunch is closed as well. This does not resolve the problem which caused the alert but it will close the alert generated by NetCrunch (i.e., node may still be down even though the alert is closed).

To receive Callbacks from Connectwise, you need to configure the NetCrunch API Key access. To do so, go to the Connectwise Integration Profile and click "Open API Key Manager". Copy the WebHook URL and replace the [Web_Access_address] with your NetCrunch Web access address (i.e. https://123.456.789.0/ncinf/rest...).

In Connectwise, you need to create an Integrator Login (go to https://secure.n-able.com/webhelp/NC_9-1-0_SO_en/Content/N-central/PSA_Integration/PSA_ConnectWise_ConfigNCCredentials.html for more information) and enable the Company API, the Service Ticket API, and the System API. In the Service Ticket API, include the WebHook URL with your replaced Web_Access_Address as Callback URL.

Now, when everything is configured correctly, and a ticket created by NetCrunch is being resolved by a Connectwise agent, the alert in NetCrunch will be closed.

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