Developing the Webex Integration

Introducing Webex

Webex by Cisco is an American company that develops and sells web conferencing, video conferencing, and Contact Center as-a-service applications. Its software products include Webex App, Webex Suite, Webex Meetings, Webex Messaging, Webex Calling, Webex Contact Center, and Webex Devices. All Webex products are part of the Cisco Systems collaboration portfolio. Our new Webex integration accesses the Webex developer API and lists objects from many software products.

Testing of the API functionality was easy without admin access to an existing Webex account via Developer Sandbox on Webex’s developer website. By requesting a sandbox, Webex allocated me admin access to a complete Webex environment - able to create meetings, send messages, add devices, and authorize custom service apps into my sandbox organization. 

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Authenticating with Webex API was done by creating a Webex service app. The developer console gives a client ID and client secret when creating the service app. The client secret fetches a refresh token and an access token for a specific organization. In my case, I approved my service app for the organization I created in the sandbox environment. The code handles an expiring access token by requesting a new access token with the given refresh token whenever a request fails for token expiration reasons.

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Querying the Webex

Querying the Webex APIs was straightforward, with various resources like devices, meetings, workspaces, and people sharing a similar ‘List all’ API. Submitting all these resources to Datadog allows us to power our Webex dashboard. Some of the dashboard’s highlights are license utilization, pending invites, meeting breakdowns, and workspace location mapping:

• License utilization tells organizations how many units were consumed over the total amount available for each license 
• Invites pending shows the number of people within your organization and the number of invites still pending
• Meeting breakdowns show who the participants are for each meeting, when the meetings happen, and the device types of all the participants in the meeting
• Workspace location mapping lists all your workspaces in your organization, plots them on a geographic map, and shows the breakdown of your workspaces by type

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This was a high-level overview of developing and showcasing the main features of the Webex Integration on the Datadog Marketplace. There are a ton of other Webex APIs available that Rapdev would love to help you implement. Are you interested in trialing the integration? Check it out in the Datadog Marketplace!

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This isn't the integration you're looking for? Missing a critical feature for your organization? Drop RapDev a note at support@rapdev.io, and we'll build it!