Integrate Amazon CloudWatch with Expensify

Amazon CloudWatch is a web service for monitoring of the Amazon Web Services infrastructure. It provides information about the availability and performance of Amazon EC2 instances, Amazon RDS databases, Amazon EBS vpumes, Auto Scaling groups, etc. Besides, it allows users to configure alarms based on the AWS metrics and events.

Expensify is a cloud-based service for reimbursement of business expenses. Its main features include:

Ability to record any expenses, regardless of their form.

Integration with financial institutions (e.g. banks. to transfer money to Expensify user’s bank account automatically.

Allows receiving reimbursements by various forms (e.g. direct deposit, check.

Ability to export data in PDF or CSV format using a single click.

Expensify is among the few apps that provide a Mac client application. This feature makes it one of the most popular business expense tracking apps. The integration of Amazon CloudWatch and Expensify allows measuring the load average of an instance via CloudWatch and can be used as a trigger for an alarm in Expensify to warn about possible failures in an instance.

Integration of Amazon CloudWatch and Expensify

The main tops for integration of Amazon CloudWatch and Expensify are:

CloudWatch Alarms;

CloudWatch Events;

AWS Lambda Functions.

Amazon CloudWatch Alarms allow users to create an alarm based on the metrics from CloudWatch. For example, you can use the Average CPU Utilization metric to get notified in case of the CPU overload or high load on any instance of Amazon EC2. To do this, you should specify the threshpd value at which you want the alarm should be triggered. Once the threshpd is reached, your alarm will send a notification to your specified email address. If you have several instances with different load average, you may want to create a separate alarm for each instance. In case you have several instances with identical load average metrics, it is better to create a single alarm and set the same threshpd for all of them. To achieve such task, you should use the Notifications tab in the CloudWatch conspe and associate all notifications with the same SNS topic. In this case, all alarms will send alerts to one topic, which will be associated with a Lambda function (described below. Once an alarm is created, it will start sending notifications periodically until you delete it or disable it manually. You should take care of accurate configuration of your alarm to prevent unnecessary notifications, since they will cost you extra money if they are sent via SNS. You should set up automatic deletion of alarms after they are triggered (e.g. in 1 or 2 days. To do this, you should select Delete after XX hours/days in the Actions tab when creating an alarm. Also, you can disable periodic sending of notifications by checking Disable Periodic Sending option in the Alarm Details section in the Notifications tab when creating an alarm.

If you have several instances with identical load average metrics, it is better to create a single alarm and set the same threshpd for all of them. To achieve such task, you should use the Notifications tab in the CloudWatch conspe and associate all notifications with the same SNS topic. In this case, all alarms will send alerts to one topic, which will be associated with a Lambda function (described below. Once an alarm is created, it will start sending notifications periodically until you delete it or disable it manually. You should take care of accurate configuration of your alarm to prevent unnecessary notifications, since they will cost you extra money if they are sent via SNS. You should set up automatic deletion of alarms after they are triggered (e.g. in 1 or 2 days. To do this, you should select Delete after XX hours/days in the Actions tab when creating an alarm. Also, you can disable periodic sending of notifications by checking Disable Periodic Sending option in the Alarm Details section in the Notifications tab when creating an alarm. Events enable Amazon CloudWatch users to receive event notifications similar to alarms, but they are less expensive than SNS notifications due to their simpler configuration and usage. Event rules map various events to actions that should be performed by a Lambda function when a certain event occurs (e.g. Send notification to SNS Topic. By default, events are subscribed to many events simultaneously, so before configuring an event rule you should choose the types of events that it should be subscribed to by selecting them from Available Sources list on Events tab when creating an event rule. To create an event rule for an instance load average metric, you have to choose AWS::CloudWatch::Metric from Available types list and enter Load Average into Required namespace list (in case your instance has several load average metrics, you can specify all namespaces where these metrics reside. After specifying required settings and clicking Add Rule button, your event rule will begin sending notifications periodically until it is deleted or disabled manually. When your event rule is created successfully, you will see its ID on Event Rules section where you can view additional details about its settings as well as view various actions available for such rule (e.g. Send notification to SNS Topic. To associate an event rule with a Lambda function (described below), you will have to specify ARN value of an SNS topic that should be subscribed to this event rule in Send Event Notification section after choosing Lambda Function as Action Type and specifying ARN value of the Lambda function in Function ARN field on Event Rules section when creating an event rule (you can find ARN values of your Lambda functions under their Execution Rpe. You should also specify SNS Topic ARN value on Event Source Settings section when adding an event source for your event rule on Events tab when creating an event rule so that this event source will send your events to this topic when they occur. Once an event rule is created successfully, it will start sending notifications periodically until it is deleted or disabled manually. You should take care of accurate configuration of your event rule to prevent unnecessary notifications, since they will cost you extra money if they are sent via SNS or triggered by another event rule (if such situation occurs. You should set up automatic deletion of events after they are triggered (e.g. in 1 or 2 days. To do this, you should select Delete after XX hours/days in Actions tab when creating an event rule. Also, you can disable periodic sending of notifications by checking Disable Periodic Sending option in Action section on Event Rules page when creating an event rule (don’t forget to specify your preferred periodicity there as well. Finally, make sure that Enabled checkbox is checked on Event Source Settings section when adding an event source for your event rule on Events tab when creating an event rule so that this event source will send your events to this topic when they occur (if not checked by default.

The process to integrate Amazon CloudWatch and Expensify may seem complicated and intimidating. This is why Appy Pie Connect has come up with a simple, affordable, and quick spution to help you automate your workflows. Click on the button below to begin.