Outbound Integrations: What's going to happen to my old callbacks?

A major focus of the xMatters Task Force X (TFX) quarterly release is to make it easier than ever to create communication applications that can take actions or make updates on multiple products or services. This has been achieved through the enhanced outbound integrations available in our Integration Builder.

Part of this simplicity is derived from the consolidation of the old form callbacks and the new outbound integrations provided by the Integration Builder. This consolidation means that the old form callbacks configuration screen will be retired when TFX rolls out, and all existing callbacks will be managed solely from the Integration Builder.

Enhanced outbound integrations are 100% backward compatible with existing communication plans and callbacks. No manual action is required from any customers to maintain existing functionality.

Let's take a closer look at how things currently appear for existing communication plans with form callbacks, and what you can expect them to look like after the TFX release.

Before Task Force X: form callbacks

Here's a form called 'Confirmation Message', which has three different callbacks configured (click to embigify):

HTTP callbacks

In this form, event status callbacks will send a webhook to the provided URL using the requested authentication:

Integration Builder callbacks

The response callbacks for this form will execute an outbound integration created with the Integration Builder, called 'Example Outbound Integration':

Integration Agent callbacks

The device delivery callbacks will send updates to an Integration Agent:

The other important thing to note is that 'Example Outbound Integration' is currently the only outbound integration in the communication plan:

After Task Force X: outbound integrations

After TFX is released, a few things will happen:

The first thing you'll notice is that opening the old 'Request Callbacks' menu will display a reminder that you need to look at outbound integrations in the Integration Builder instead. Clicking OK will take you directly to the Integration Builder for the communication plan.

In the Integration Builder, you'll see there are now three outbound integrations, representing each of the three legacy callbacks that were configured for the form:

Send a webhook

A new outbound integration called 'Confirmation Message Status' has been created. The name of this integration is a combination of the form name (Confirmation Message) and the trigger that will execute the integration, in this case 'Status'.

The integration details page shows that the 'Confirmation Message Status' integration is associated with the event status updates trigger and will continue to send a webhook exactly as before:

An endpoint with the same name as the outbound integration has been created and populated with the URL and authentication details of the webhook:

Run a script

The existing 'Example Outbound Integration' which will run a script has been updated with the trigger selection, and the integration details page will show that this integration is still associated with the notification response trigger and will also continue to function exactly as before.

Send to Integration Agent

Finally, a second new outbound integration called 'Confirmation Message Delivery' has been created, and its name is a combination of the form we are using and the trigger that will execute the integration ('Delivery').

The integration details page shows that the outbound integration will send updates to the same integration service on an Integration Agent as before.

This completes the overview of what to expect when the Task Force X release is deployed.

All these changes are 100% backward compatible with existing communication plans and any existing integrations will continue to function exactly as before. However, the consolidated configuration means that managing outbound integrations will be much simpler and that multiple outbound integrations are now available for the same trigger type.

Please let us know if you like the new look and feel in the comments below.