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Grafana

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Grafana: Overview and setup

Create and manage incidents through the Grafana IRM integration.

Connect Grafana to Atomicwork to create, update, and manage incidents through the Grafana IRM (Incident Response Management) plugin as part of your IT and incident management workflows. The integration works with Grafana Cloud or self-hosted Grafana instances that have the IRM plugin installed.

Usecases

By connecting Grafana, your teams can:

  • Automate incident creation: Trigger incident creation in Grafana IRM from Atomicwork workflows when critical alerts or events are detected.
  • Manage the incident lifecycle: Update incident severity, status, and details as part of escalation or resolution workflows.
  • Track incidents: List and retrieve incidents for dashboards, reporting, or status checks.
  • Create retrospective incidents: Open retrospective incidents for post-mortem analysis by setting status to “resolved” at creation.
  • Enable self-service incident reporting: Let employees report incidents through Atom — the assistant creates them in Grafana IRM automatically.
  • Custom operations: Use Call API to access any Grafana IRM endpoint not covered by the standard actions.

Permissions

To connect Grafana to Atomicwork, you need:

  • Org admin access in Atomicwork
  • Admin access to your Grafana instance with permission to create service accounts and tokens
  • The Grafana IRM plugin installed and enabled on your Grafana instance

[!NOTE] The integration authenticates using a Grafana Service Account Token. Assign the service account the Editor role. This lets Atomicwork list and create incidents and read the severity and status options used in the Create and Update Incident forms.

Setup

Step 1: Generate a service account token in Grafana

  • In Grafana, go to Administration > Users and access > Service accounts.
  • Create a new service account, or select an existing one and set its role as Editor.
  • Click Add service account token, give it a name, and create it.
  • Copy the token and save it somewhere secure — it’s shown only once.
  • Confirm the Grafana IRM plugin is installed and enabled on your instance.

Step 2: Connect Grafana in Atomicwork

Supported workflow actions

Once connected, you can automate the following Grafana actions within your Atomicwork workflows:

ActionDescription
Create incidentCreate a new incident with title, severity, status, and incident type. Set status to “resolved” at creation to open a retrospective incident.
Get incidentRetrieve details of a specific incident by ID.
Update incidentUpdate an existing incident’s title, severity, or status.
List incidentsList incidents with optional filters — severity, status, date range, drill filter, search query, and cursor-based pagination.
Call APIMake a generic API call to any Grafana IRM endpoint for custom operations.

Troubleshoot common issues

ErrorCauseResolution
Invalid Grafana service account token (401)The API key is invalid or has been revoked.Generate a new service account token in Grafana and update it in Settings > Enterprise integrations > App store > Grafana.
Service account token does not have sufficient permissions (403)The token lacks the required permissions (Incidents: Read/Write).Assign the appropriate role to the service account in Grafana and re-test the connection.
Invalid Grafana stack URLThe API URL is malformed.Ensure the URL includes the protocol (e.g., https://your-stack.grafana.net).
Unable to connect to GrafanaNetwork connectivity issue or incorrect URL.Verify the Grafana instance is accessible from your network and the URL is correct.
IRM plugin not installedThe integration targets the Grafana IRM API, but the plugin is not enabled on your instance.Install and enable the Grafana IRM plugin, then re-test the connection.
4xx client errorsInvalid request parameters, missing required fields, or malformed JSON.Check the request body and parameters and retry.
5xx server errorsThe Grafana API is experiencing issues.Retry the operation. If the issue persists, check the Grafana status page.