Event triggers for workflows

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Event triggers are a group of triggers that you can configure to match events in the ingest pipeline to trigger a workflow.

There are three event trigger types

  • Event trigger
  • Davis problem trigger
  • Davis event trigger

Event trigger

The Event trigger allows you to specify a custom event filter with the help of a DQL matcher expression to define which events will trigger a workflow execution.

The following configuration parameters are available to define the triggering behavior of the Event trigger.

  • Event type
    • events are created by Dynatrace and your monitoring and platform configuration.
    • bizevents are business events. An external application sends the bizevents. For more information, see the /bizevents/ingest endpoint.
    • dt.system.events are generated by Dynatrace systems. Not all system events are eligible to trigger workflows. To find the events that can be used, look for those with the dt.openpipeline.pipelines property set using filter isNotNull(dt.openpipeline.pipelines) in a notebook.
  • In Filter query, you can define how to narrow down the events. The filter definition is provided in DQL matcher syntax.

optional Select Query past events to estimate the volume of matching events in your environment.

Single events

All events are evaluated in the ingest pipeline against the DQL matcher expression, event by event. A DQL matcher expression, therefore, doesn't allow the use of any aggregation or querying over a set of events.

Davis problem trigger

Davis problems are created by Davis AI based on monitoring data. The Davis problem trigger allows selectively triggering a workflow in response.

The following configuration parameters are available to define the triggering behavior of the Davis problem trigger.

  • Problem state
    • active means that the Davis problem is not closed yet.
    • active or closed means that the Davis problem can be both active or closed.
  • Event category definitions are in Categories of events.
  • Select Affected entities based on their tags. For more information on tags, see Define and apply tags.
    • Include all entities
    • Include entities with all defined tags below
    • Include entities with any defined tag below
  • Define Additional custom filter query by adding any DQL matcher expression to the above definition.

Davis event trigger

Davis events are created by Davis AI based on monitoring data. The Davis event trigger allows selectively triggering a workflow in response.

The following configuration parameters are available to define the triggering behavior on Davis Problem events

  • Problem state
    • active means that the Davis event is not closed yet.
    • active or closed means that the Davis event can be active or closed.
  • Davis event name
    • equals means there's a match if the Davis event name exactly matches the event name string.
    • contains means there's a match if the Davis event name contains the event name string.
  • Select the Affected entities based on their tags. For more information on tags, see Define and apply tags.
    • Include all entities
    • Include entities with all defined tags below
    • Include entities with any defined tag below
  • Define Additional custom filter query by adding any DQL matcher expression to the above definition.

Permissions

The actor on a workflow with event trigger requires access to the event, thus the following permissions must be granted accordingly.

These permissions must be granted for any kind of user selected as an actor. In the case of an interactive user (nonsystem user), make sure that these permissions are also chosen in the authorization settings by this user. For more details, see (permission documentation for Workflows](workflows-security).

Limits

Because event triggers can occur frequently, each workflow is limited to a maximum of 1,000 event triggers per hour, per workflow.

  • If an event trigger exceeds this limit, no further event triggers for this workflow will run for up to an hour.
  • If an event trigger reaches the limit three times within seven days, the event trigger is disabled.

In either case, the limit is flagged in the Workflows overview and can be filtered for.

To remedy this situation, we recommend adjusting the event trigger configuration and reenabling the trigger.

Hints on working with workflows and event triggers

  • To access the event payload to parameterize tasks in your workflow, use the event() expression.
  • For an event trigger, Workflows will prompt the event context of the last successful execution for manually triggered workflow runs. The Workflows prompt allows you to adjust the event context for manual runs during workflow development iterations.
  • With Query past events in the event trigger definition, you can quickly see how many matching events were observed in the past in your environment.
  • Use Notebooks to explore the events in your environment and determine which events you want to leverage.
  • Be aware that event filter expressions only support DQL matcher syntax, which is a subset of DQL.