Freshservice Integration

A Freshservice integration with Cloudhouse Guardian (Guardian) allows you to automatically create Freshservice records after certain events take place. For example, you can configure this as an Action that automatically creates a Freshservice record every time a scan or policy fails in your Guardian instance. Creating Freshservice records allows you to identify changes, assess risks, and take action on problematic issues.

Additionally, a Freshservice integration lets you schedule a node synchronization job that runs at a set interval to ensure the nodes you see in Guardian are kept up-to-date with what's present in Freshservice. For more information, see Synchronize Nodes – Job Type. This topic describes the how to set up a Freshservice integration with Guardian.

Note: If you've already set up the integration and want to configure Freshservice actions, see Action: Create a Record in Freshservice.

Dependencies

To add a Freshservice integration, you'll need a Freshservice account. This could be an existing user account, but we recommend setting up a brand new user account named 'Guardian' for easier identification.

Note: This feature was introduced in V4.3.49.1 of Guardian. To utilize any Freshservice functionality, you must be upgraded to this version or later. For more information, see October 2024 Quarterly Release.

Add a Freshservice Integration

To add a Freshservice integration to Guardian, complete the following:

  1. In the Guardian web application, navigate to the Integrations tab (Control > Integrations) and click Add Integration. The Add Integration page is displayed.

  2. Select Freshservice from the list of available integrations. Here, you are required to complete the following options:

    Option

    Description

    Instance URL field

    The unique URL of your company’s Freshservice instance. For example, 'https://yourcompany.freshservice.com'.

    API Key field

    The Freshservice API Key required to authenticate Guardian's access. For more information on how to source this, see Where do I find my API key?
    Change Filter (optional) field

    Option to add a Freshservice query to filter the change records Guardian syncs. By default, the 'status:<6' query is used to sync only records with a status below 6, ensuring that only relevant and active change records are included.

    However, you can use a different query to filter your Freshservice change records. For example, you could use the query 'status:2 AND priority:1', which syncs only high priority change records that are currently in progress.
    Node Name Exclusion (optional) field Option to exclude certain nodes from Guardian. Any nodes listed here will not be detected during scans. The node names entered should be in a comma-separated list with no spaces. For example, 'nodename1,nodename2,nodename3'.
    Scan Nodes (assets) on Word End checkbox Option to scan any nodes that are impacted by a change request. If selected, the scanned nodes are tagged with the change request ID allowing Guardian to compare impacted nodes to the change request's implementation work and provide policy compliance. For more information, see Freshservice Automated Change Reconciliation.
    Enable Verbose Logging (not recommended) checkbox

    Option to enable verbose integration logging. If selected, Guardian will collect extra information for troubleshooting purposes.

    Note: This option is only recommended for troubleshooting purposes.
    Validate Change checkbox

    Option to only look at the nodes impacted by a change request during the post-implementation stage and check that:

    • A policy in Guardian that is named with the corresponding change request ID is passing.

    • The node in fact changed when it was meant to.

    Warning: Guardian will only validate whether a change request is in compliance with a policy, if the policy name in Guardian matches the change request ID. For more information, see Freshservice Automated Change Reconciliation.
    Detect Unauthorized Change checkbox

    Option to detect changes that occur on nodes that don't match up with the change request in Freshservice. If selected, the following options are displayed:

    • Select applicable environments checkboxes – The list of environments in your Guardian instance. Select the environment(s) you want to detect the change request records in.

    • Unauthorized Change Request Window field – The number of hours Guardian will check back to look for related change request records.

    • Unauthorized Change Request Filter (optional) field – Option to add a Freshservice query to filter the change records synced by Guardian.

    Note: Options for detecting nodes using a Freshservice integration can be found in the Job Schedule tab (Control > Job Schedule). For more information, see Synchronize Nodes – Job Type.

  3. Once you have set the correct values for each of the options displayed, click Done to create the Freshservice integration.

If successful, a confirmation message is displayed and the Freshservice integration is added to the Integrations tab of your Guardian instance. If unsuccessful, an error message is displayed. Use the information displayed in the error message(s) to troubleshoot the values in your Freshservice Integration options.

Troubleshooting

If you are experiencing issues with your integration, try the following:

  • Verify that the values supplied for the integration are correct.

  • To confirm the status of the integration sync, check the integration sync event in the Events tab (Control > Events) of your Guardian instance. For more information, see Events.