We’re thrilled to announce the release of the BetterCloud Platform APIs! The Platform APIs enable IT and security teams to automate management workflows and security policies across any cloud technology, extending the power of BetterCloud beyond the set of SaaS applications currently supported natively. The Platform APIs also allow teams to leverage BetterCloud’s security features for script creation, collaboration, and security.
Accessing the Platform APIs
To get started, navigate to the BetterCloud APIs section on the left navigation bar on app.bettercloud.com. Select “Get Started,” where you’ll find instructions on how to start using the Platform APIs.
Webhooks
Webhooks transform an API call into an action within BetterCloud. Here, we’ve exposed the same functionality we use to write native actions within the BetterCloud platform. Using these Webhooks, you can create an action to send audit logs to Splunk or another SIEM provider, add or remove a user within an application, or create a ticket in ServiceNow or another ITSM product, to name a few ideas.
Webhooks can be accessed via Action Engine and Workflows in BetterCloud, so users without any coding experience can leverage these connections and include these actions in policies.
Scripting
BetterCloud’s Scripting tool enables teams to securely create, store, and run scripts in your cloud applications. Scripts function similarly to Webhooks, in that they can be accessed via Action Engine and Workflows, giving users with no coding experience or access to the Platform API the ability to leverage these connection in policies and day-to-day management tasks. Developers in our Beta program created scripts to collect user profile information from BambooHR and Greenhouse to add the user to other applications, trigger workflows from Splunk or another SIEM, and created and managed Lastpass and JumpCloud users.
BetterCloud uses a Node.js scripting environment where users can write their own custom scripts to other applications. Scripts are centralized into a single place, so IT and security teams know exactly what scripts are running in the environment. Anyone on the domain with Platform API credentials can access and collaborate on scripts. When the script runs, all actions are recorded in the Audit Logs, so you have a log of all actions taken for compliance records.
Secrets
The BetterCloud Developer Platform gives you the ability to safely store your third party application credentials to a highly secure encrypted database. If you’re writing a script or webhook that executes against another application’s APIs, you can store the administrator credentials as a secret key in the Secrets Store. Whenever the key is updated, any place that is leveraging this secret will be automatically updated. This makes it easy to comply with routine Secret rotations and maintain the certifications requiring them.
GraphQL
The BetterCloud Graph API allows customers to analyze cross-application data in BetterCloud to identify security trends and report on unique metrics. This feature opens up BetterCloud customers to view their data in a cross-cutting manner and understand the connection between data objects. Teams can report on data objects and specific attributes, such as files that are publicly exposed or group membership information.
Runbooks
Runbooks help you implement BetterCloud Platform API functionality easily. Runbooks are sets of related functionality that interact with a specific application. The functionality is bundled together and made available to easily add to your developer console. Runbooks can consist of both webhook actions and scripts that can be accessed via Action Engine and Workflows in the BetterCloud platform.
To read more about how to use this feature, visit the Platform API Documentation.
Please note this feature is only available for our Enterprise customers. If you’d like to upgrade, click here to reach out to your Customer Success Manager.