Setting up SNS Slack Integration using Webhooks: 3 Simple Steps

If you have an AWS account, you can leverage Amazon’s Simple Notification Service (SNS) to publish and deliver notifications about Application Security events to subscribers. Amazon SNS does not support direct integrations with third-party applications, instead, it requires Webhooks to deliver SNS messages to third-party applications. Slack is one of the most widely used workspace communication platforms. When you use both of these solutions together, you may be able to strengthen customer relationships while also streamlining communication across your core organizational units.

This blog introduces you to Amazon SNS and Slack along with the key features that they offer. This article will also provide you with a step-by-step guide on how to set up SNS Slack Integration using webhooks. Read along to learn more about SNS Slack Integration!

Table of Contents

• Prerequisites
• What is Amazon SNS?
  • Key Features of Amazon SNS
• What is Slack?
  • Key Features of Slack
• What is a Webhook?
• How to set up SNS Slack Integration?
  • SNS Slack Integration Step 1: Create an SNS Topic
  • SNS Slack Integration Step 2: Create a Lambda Function
  • SNS Slack Integration Step 3: Configure a Test Event
• How to Add an SNS Topic Trigger to your Lambda function?
• Conclusion

Prerequisites

• An active AWS account.
• An active Slack account.

What is Amazon SNS?

Amazon Simple Notification Service (SNS) is a Cloud Service that coordinates the delivery of push notifications from software applications to subscribed Endpoints and Clients. To prevent message loss, all messages published to Amazon SNS are warehoused across multiple availability zones.

Amazon SNS enables users to push messages to Windows, Google, Apple, and a few more Internet-connected smart devices by using an Application Programming Interface (API) or the AWS Management Console. Once a message is published to the service, it can be sent to multiple recipients. Service users can also utilize a single publish request to send direct messages to multiple devices or a single subscriber. To get started with Amazon SNS, developers must first create a Topic, which serves as an entry point for subscribers who want to receive notifications about a specific subject. When developers have an update for subscribers, they publish a message to a topic, and Amazon SNS distributes the message to all appropriate subscribers.

Key Features of Amazon SNS

Some of the key features of Amazon SNS are as follows:

• Message Encryption: It offers Encrypted Topics to keep your messages safe from unauthorized and unknown access. By using Encryption Keys provided by AWS KMS, Server-Side Encryption protects the message contents stored in Amazon SNS Topics.
• Message Filtering: Each subscriber receives every message published to the Topic by default. A subscriber can assign a Filter Policy to the Topic subscription in order to receive a subset of the messages. The message is delivered to the subscribed endpoint when the incoming message attributes match the Filter Policy attributes. Otherwise, the message is discarded. 
• Message Archiving & Analytics: Amazon SNS allows the user to push notifications to additional Archiving and Analytics endpoints such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) buckets, Amazon Redshift tables, and more.

What is Slack?

Slack is a multi-purpose communication and collaboration platform. It includes instant messaging, voice and video calls, as well as a suite of tools for groups to share information and collaborate. Slack offers applications for Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, and iOS, as well as a web browser. Slack messaging leverages Channels and Direct Messages to organize conversations and replace communications that would otherwise be spread across emails, text messages, or in-person meetings.

Public channels in Slack are accessible to all members of a workspace and can cover anything from various marketing and sales operations to random discussions and meme streams. Slack also allows you to send private messages to other team members, allowing you to have one-time communications or keep things organized between you and specific members of your team.

Key Features of Slack

Some of the key features of Slack include:

• Third-Party Integrations: One of Slack’s most powerful features is integration with third-party services. These kinds of integrations allow you to use some of your favorite apps directly within Slack, eliminating the need to switch tabs, remember where that shared link went, or open another application just to double-check something.
• Message Reminders: To avoid missing out on a task or something important that is within a message, Slack allows you to set a reminder right on that specific part of the message.
• Advanced Search: Slack has a search bar that allows teams to easily find files. If you enter a search query that yields a large number of results, you can enclose it within quotes to reveal an exact match.

What is a Webhook?

A Webhook is a method of altering and modifying the behavior of web pages or web applications through the use of Custom Callbacks. It is essentially a user-defined HTTP Callback that is triggered by specific events. When the trigger event occurs on the source website, the Webhook Records it, Collects the Data, and Sends it in the form of an HTTP request to the specified URL. A trigger event can be a Blog Comment, a Sign-up, Form Submission, etc.

A Webhook delivers data to other applications as it happens, which means you get data immediately, unlike traditional APIs, which require you to Poll Data frequently in order to get it in real-time. Webhooks are now much more efficient for both providers and consumers. Webhooks are commonly used to connect two distinct applications. You can even leverage Webhooks to set up an event on one website to trigger an action on another. Later in this article, you will learn about how to set up SNS Slack Integration using webhooks.

How to Set up SNS Slack Integration?

Amazon SNS can be used to send notifications to HTTP(S) endpoints such as Webhook URLs. When confirming the HTTP(S) subscription, some webhooks expect JSON key-value pairs that Amazon SNS does not support. For example, Slack Webhooks anticipate a JSON request with a message string corresponding to a “text” key. For such cases, an AWS Lambda Function is used to transform the Amazon SNS message body for the webhook endpoint to process.

Follow the steps given below to set up SNS Slack Integration using webhooks:

• SNS Slack Integration Step 1: Create an SNS Topic
• SNS Slack Integration Step 2: Create a Lambda Function
• SNS Slack Integration Step 3: Configure a Test Event

SNS Slack Integration Step 1: Create an SNS Topic

The first step involved in setting up SNS Slack Integration requires you to create an SNS Topic. Follow the steps given below to do so:

• Log in to Amazon SNS Console using the appropriate credentials.
• Navigate to the sidebar menu and select the Topics option.
• Click on the Create Topic button.

• Now, give a unique name to your SNS topic and click on Create topic.

SNS Slack Integration Step 2: Create a Lambda Function

The second step involved in setting up SNS Slack Integration requires you to create a Lambda Function. Follow the below steps to do so:

• Once you have successfully created your SNS topic, head over to the Lambda Console.
• Navigate to the Functions tab and click on the Create Function button to create a new Lambda function.

• Now, give a unique name to your function and choose the language you want to write your function in.

• Once you are done filling in the required fields, click on Create Function.
• Once the Lambda Function is successfully created, you need to add some custom code to send the message to the destination which is Slack in this case. The code given below can be used to send custom messages to a Slack channel:

Example Python Code for Slack

#!/usr/bin/python3.6
import urllib3
import json
http = urllib3.PoolManager()
def lambda_handler(event, context):
    url = "https://hooks.slack.com/services/xxxxxxx"
    msg = {
        "channel": "#CHANNEL_NAME",
        "username": "WEBHOOK_USERNAME",
        "text": event['Records'][0]['Sns']['Message'],
        "icon_emoji": ""
    }
    
    encoded_msg = json.dumps(msg).encode('utf-8')
    resp = http.request('POST',url, body=encoded_msg)
    print({
        "message": event['Records'][0]['Sns']['Message'], 
        "status_code": resp.status, 
        "response": resp.data
    })

Note: Replace the URL with the Incoming Webhooks URL and the Channel name with the Destination Channel on Slack.

SNS Slack Integration Step 3: Configure a Test Event

Once you have added the custom code to your Lambda Function, it’s time to test the function using Lambda Console to set up SNS Slack Integration. Follow the steps given below to do so:

• Save the Function code by clicking on the Save button, found at the top right corner.
• Now click on the Test button located right next to the Save button.

• In the Event Template field, select Amazon SNS Topic Notification and enter a unique name for the event.
• Once you are done filling all the required fields, click on the Create button.
• When the test event is completed, click on the Test button again and navigate to the Details section.
• If the response code is 200, it means that the message was accepted by Webhook and delivered to the corresponding channel on Slack. This also marks the end of SNS Slack Integration.  

Once you follow all the above steps in the correct sequence, you will be able to set up SNS Slack Integration in a seamless manner!

How to Add an SNS Topic Trigger to your Lambda function?

You can also subscribe your function to your SNS topic after sending an SNS message to Slack. To do so, add an SNS topic trigger to the Lambda console by following the steps given below:

• Head over to the Functions page of the Lambda console and select your function.
• Click on the Add Trigger option present under the Designer menu.
• Under the Trigger Configuration, select a Trigger, and then choose SNS.
• Select the SNS topic that you created previously.
• Mark the Enable Trigger check box and then click on Add.

Once you have completed the above steps, messages published to the topic will be forwarded to the function, and then to your webhook. You can do this after setting up the SNS Slack Integration.

Conclusion

This blog introduced you to Amazon Simple Notification Service, Slack, and  Webhooks along with their key features. It further provided the steps that you can follow to set up SNS Slack Integration. If you want to integrate data from various data sources into your desired Database/destination for free and seamlessly visualize it in a BI tool of your choice, Hevo Data is the right choice for you! It will help simplify the ETL and management process of both the data sources and destinations.

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