o11y IM Unable to configure ServiceNow integration for events (403: Forbidden Error)

Applicability

Description

An issue might be encountered when a ServiceNow integration is modified.

The integration might return a "403: Forbidden Error" during the validation step.

This error occurs because, at the validation stage, a test API call is made to the ServiceNow instance using basic authentication (with provided credentials) and a message body based on the integration options.

Investigation

To determine the issue type:

• confirm which type of issue is used for the integration.
  • Each issue type triggers an API call to a different endpoint and requires specific user roles:
    
    

Troubleshooting Steps:

• If the integration is configured but returns a 403 error, the following checks can be performed:
  • Confirm if the integration fails for one or multiple issue types.
  • Verify that the user specified in the integration configuration has the necessary privileges on the ServiceNow side.
  • Confirm if comparing the results using a different ServiceNow instance (if available) shows the same result.
  • Request to make an API call using tools like curl, Postman, or any other API tool, and observe whether the call succeeds.

Example of an API Call for Event Issue Type:

• For the Event type, the following example shows how to make a call to the ServiceNow API:

curl --location 'https://<instance>.service-now.com/api/global/em/jsonv2' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8' \
--header 'Authorization: Basic <bas64 of user:pass>' \
--data '{
    <contents in their integration sf_options>
}'

Example of sf_options:

sf_options: "{
"alertResolvedPayloadTemplate" : null,
"alertTriggeredPayloadTemplate" : null,
"instanceName" : "<instance>.service-now.com",
"issueType" : "<Issue_Type>"
}"

Resolution

To fix when the checks indicate an issue with the instance name or user roles:

• Verify that the correct ACLs (Access Control Lists) are assigned to the user configured in the integration.
• Consult the internal ServiceNow admin to resolve any permission-related issues.

Related Links

snow_integration

observability_servicenow