We're excited to announce new API endpoints! These new endpoints now provide the ability to edit your checks and other objects through the CheckCentral API. You can now modify existing items similarly to creating them by calling the new endpoints:

• modifyCheck
• modifyCheckGroup
• modifyDashboard
• modifyPermission
• modifyUser
• modifyUserGroup

Further information on each endpoint is available on your API documentation page!

If you have feedback or questions about this update or anything else in CheckCentral, please let us know!

We're excited to announce a new option available for custom dashboards. The "user object" setting will display the check groups and checks available to the selected user or user group, without having to manually select those check groups or update them as that user's or user group's access permissions change. To help test this feature - or to verify the permissions set for an object - admins can generate and view dashboards from the point of view of a selected user or user group with the "Test Dashboard" links.

If you have feedback or questions about this update or anything else in CheckCentral, please let us know!

We're excited to announce a new option for check conditions: regex matching! For those complicated conditions that need detailed matching, you can now use the power of regular expressions to help match exactly what you need. A regex reference and tester can be found at http://regexstorm.net/

If you have feedback or questions about this update or anything else in CheckCentral, please let us know!

We have added the option to change your organization's date and time formatting: you can now choose between 24-hour clock and 12-hour clock display, and several date formats. If you have alternative formats you would prefer to use, please let us know! These settings apply across your organization, and can be configured by administrators on the organization's settings page.

In addition, we now provide several new options for creating activity reports. Any search on the activities page can be saved to a PDF or CSV file, and the checks page includes the option to save a comprehensive history of your organization's activity history. The "Export Check History" option on the checks page will generate an archive of CSV files detailing the activities processed by CheckCentral over the selected period.

We also made some adjustments to subscription management to simplify changing your subscription level and added support for payments with American Express cards. If you have feedback or questions about these updates or any aspect of CheckCentral, please get in touch!

We're excited to announce a number of recent updates to CheckCentral!

We've updated nearly all the pages on CheckCentral to include pagination and filtering to ensure that your data is always easily available. As your organization grows, you will always have fast and simple access to your checks, groups, and more. You can also search for checks by name on your dashboard, to help you get to the information you need as fast as possible!

For organizations looking to automate the set up of their data, the CheckCentral API now supports create and delete endpoints to manage your checks, groups, and users. Access to these endpoints is restricted to API tokens granted the appropriate permissions. As well, we have also added authentication tokens tied to user accounts, which provide access through the API to only the data that that user is permitted to read or modify.

We've also made many other updates, such as an option to pre-sort newly created check groups in alphabetical order, improvements to PDF reports, the ability to configure Slack notifications for specific check groups, and notification emails now include the original message's attachments.

If you have feedback or questions about these updates or any aspect of CheckCentral, please let us know!

We're happy to announce that we're rolling out some updates to the CheckCentral mobile apps! The apps are updated with a new framework, and most of the changes are behind the scenes improvements. Here's the full list:

• Improved device support (including support for Amazon devices)
• The Microsoft Store (UWP) app now supports push notifications
• We've made some reliability improvements to the push registration process
• The Android apps have been posted to the Play Store and Amazon App Store, and iOS is coming soon

If you're not already using the CheckCentral mobile app, we encourage you to try it out. As always, if you have any feedback, we'd love to hear from you!

The CheckCentral API provides an endpoint for adding users programmatically. All of the configuration options are available through the API, detailed below. To add a new user through the API, you will require an API token for your organization with Read/Write access. Organization administrators can create tokens through the API portal on your dashboard.

The endpoint is located at https://api.checkcentral.cc/createUser/?apiToken=APITOKEN where the APITOKEN placeholder is replaced with your valid token. The request must be made with the Content-Type header set to application/json. The body of the request should contain the properties below to configure the new user's settings. Any properties not passed will be set to their default value.

For example, to add a new user you could send the following json in the body of the request:

The user data must include an email property as well as an accessLevel at minimum.

The complete list of possible properties for user creation are as follows:

User Structure

Parameter	Type/Allowed Values	Default
email The email address of the new user. The email parameter is required.	String
accessLevel The access level to grant the new user. The accessLevel parameter is required.	One of: disabled custom readonly user editor manager administrator
name The name for the new user. If the name parameter is not included, the user's name will be set to their email address.	String
sendWelcomeEmail Pass the sendWelcomeEmail flag to have CheckCentral send an introductory email to the new user.	Boolean	false
userGroups Pass an array of user group IDs to add the user to those user groups. User group IDs can be retrieved with the getUserGroups API endpoint.	An array containing user group IDs.	[]
notifications Pass an array of json objects to configure which services CheckCentral should use to communicate with the user.	Array[NotificationConfig]	[]

NotificationConfig

Parameter	Type/Allowed Values	Default
type Pass the type of notification to configure. The type parameter is required for NotificationConfig objects.	One of: digest failures warnings unmatched
services The list of services that CheckCentral should use to alert the user about the configured type of notification. Any services not included in the array will be disabled for the notification type.	Any of: email sms push pushbullet pushover	[]

We’re pleased to announce some great new CheckCentral features that have recently been rolled out. These new features make organizing your checks and users easier than ever.

NEW! Creating User Groups, Setting Security on Check Groups

It is now possible to manage access to your individual CheckCentral check groups thanks to the introduction of user groups, and check group permissions. To get started, simply head to the user groups page via the Organization tab to quickly create new user groups.

Once you have user groups created, they can be used to assign permissions to a check group. Simply visit the check groups page (under the Checks tab) and select the check group you’d like to modify the permissions for. You’ll see a Permissions section where you are able to add a permissions entry for your new user group, specifying what level of access that group should have.

NEW! Improved Organization via Labels

You can now set labels on your checks. Checks with the same label will be grouped together on the Dashboard and Checks page, allowing you to organize checks within a check group.

You’ll see the new Label field when creating or editing a check. You can also set labels in bulk via the Checks page.

Improvements to custom dashboards and more!

Custom dashboards can now be configured to only display specific check groups, making your custom dashboards even more flexible.

As always, we welcome your feedback about these updates, as well as the service as a whole, so please feel free to reach out.

The CheckCentral API provides an endpoint for creating checks programmatically. All of the configuration options are available through the API, detailed below. To create a new check through the API, you will require an API token for your organization with Read/Write access. Organization administrators can create tokens through the API portal on your dashboard.

The endpoint is located at https://api.checkcentral.cc/createCheck/?apiToken=APITOKEN where the APITOKEN placeholder is replaced with your valid token. The request must be made with the Content-Type header set to application/json. The body of the request should contain as many of the properties listed below as required to define the check. Any properties not passed will be set to their default value.

For example, to create a new check that:

• Receives messages at the address "demo+apicheck@mycheckcentral.cc"
• Expects messages every two hours
• Expects messages only on weekdays
• Is set to Failure unless the message subject is "Message Success" or the message body has the text "No Errors Reported"

you would send the following json in the body of the request:

The check data must include a name property, as well as at least one of email_alias and matching_conditions to allow the check to be matched against incoming messages.

The complete list of possible properties for check configuration are as follows:

Check Structure

Parameter	Type/Allowed Values	Default
name The name for the new check. The name parameter is required.	String
email_alias The plus alias for the check. This will be used to generate the custom email address for the Check along with your organization account name: account_name+email_alias@mycheckcentral.cc. At least one of the email_alias or matching_conditions parameters must be specified.	String
matching_conditions The rules that will be used to match incoming messages. See the definition of a ConditionGroup below. At least one of the email_alias or matching_conditions parameters must be specified.	ConditionGroup	{}
group_id The ID of the group to assign this check. IDs may be retrieved from the getGroups API endpoint.	String
description A text description for the check.	String
interval_type The interval unit CheckCentral will use to calculate the expected arrival time of incoming messages	One of: minute hour day week month	day
interval_value The number of interval units (see above) used when calculating the expected arrival of incoming messages.	Integer	1
overdue_minutes How many minutes after the interval has elapsed CheckCentral will wait before flagging the check as failed.	Integer	30
window_start An optional time of day when messages will begin to be received.	String	00:00
window_end An optional time of day when messages will cease to be received.	String	00:00
active_days Pass an array of days to indicate which days the check should expect to receive messages.	An array containing either "all", or any of: sun mon tue wed thu fri sat	[ "all" ]
enabled_notifications Pass an array of personal notification services to configure the check to send alerts via those services.	An array containing any of: email sms push pushbullet pushover	[]
enabled_integrations Pass an array of organization notification services to configure the check to send alerts via those services.	An array containing any of: slack	[]
notify_returned_to_success Checks with this flag will send an alert when they are restored to a success state by an incoming message.	Bool	true
notify_outside_window Checks with this flag set to false will only send alerts during the time window and active days configured above.	Bool	true
notify_consecutive_failures This parameter controls when CheckCentral will send alerts about failure messages.	One of: always first after_n every_nth	always
notify_consecutive_failures_limit If notify_consecutive_failures is set to either after_n or every_nth, this parameter configures how many consecutive failures will trigger alerts.	Integer	1
notify_failure_grace_period The number of minutes this check will wait to send alerts about failures. If the check is returned to successful status before this period elapses, any pending alerts will be cancelled.	Integer	0
default_status The default status for incoming messages that don't match against any of the conditions below.	One of: success warning failure	failure
success_conditions The rules that determine whether incoming messages will be set to success. See the definition of a ConditionGroup below.	ConditionGroup	{}
warning_conditions The rules that determine whether incoming messages will be set to warning. See the definition of a ConditionGroup below.	ConditionGroup	{}
failure_conditions The rules that determine whether incoming messages will be set to failure. See the definition of a ConditionGroup below.	ConditionGroup	{}

ConditionGroup

Parameter	Type/Allowed Values	Default
required_conditions This parameter controls whether incoming messages must meet any or all of the conditions defined below to be considered a match.	One of: all any	"all"
condense_whitespace If this flag is set, all of the conditions defined in this group will treat multiple whitespace characters as a single space.	Bool	false
conditions The list of conditions for this ConditionGroup to match messages against. See the definition of a Condition below.	Array[Condition]	[]

Condition

Parameter	Type/Allowed Values	Default
message_field Which part of the incoming message will be examined for this condition.	One of: subject body to cc attachments attachment_text from originally_to	subject
matches What matching rule this condition will use.	One of: contains not_contains exactly empty not_empty has_attachments has_no_attachments filename_contains filename_not_contains filename_exact text_contains text_not_contains complex_match complex_filename_match complex_text_match	contains
value The value to use with the above matching rule and message component.	String

If you have websites that you're in charge of maintaining the SSL certificates for, you can monitor them for expiring certificates using this PowerShell script. The script can be run from anywhere, as it connects to the public URL for the website, and it will email the results wherever you like. You can set it up to email yourself, or you can configure it to email the results to CheckCentral so that you can automate the status parsing.

Setting Up the Check Schedule

1. On your CheckCentral dashboard, click the "New Check" link.
2. Give the Check a name. It can be whatever you like, for example "Website Certificate Expiry Check."
3. Choose an existing Check Group to add this check to, or create a new one if you like, by clicking "New Group."
4. For this guide, we'll assume that you're going to run the script every day. In order for CheckCentral to notify you when the Check is overdue (e.g. if the script didn't run as scheduled, or got hung up on its last run), you'll want to configure the "Emails are expected every" setting to "1 Day."
5. Notice that there's nowhere to assign the time of day that the email is expected. This is because CheckCentral will automatically adjust the expected time based on when the last email arrived. If your script runs at 9am and finishes at 9:01am today, then the next email will be expected at 9:01am tomorrow. In case the script runs slightly late one day, you can configure the Check to only notify you if the email is late by more than a certain amount of time. We'll leave it at the default of 30 minutes for this example, which means that you won't get an "Overdue" notification until 9:31am tomorrow. This allows an extra 30 minutes for the script to run before any action is taken.
6. The Description field is optional, but can be helpful for documentation purposes.

The Check Information Section

Configuring the Matching Rules

7. The "Matching Rules" section is where you'll tell CheckCentral which emails should be processed by this Check. By default, the Check's email address will be populated with a custom email address based on the Check name. For this example we'll change it to "demo+certexpirycheck@mycheckcentral.cc." You'll see where this gets used later in this guide.

The Matching Rules Section

Configuring the Status Rules

8. In the "Status" section, you'll set what you want the default status to be when an email matches the check, but doesn't match any of the Success/Warning/Failure rules. Generally it's best to leave this set to Failure, then specify your Success and Warning criteria. This way it's only marked as successful or warning if it matches your given rules, anything else is marked as a failure so that you get notified and can investigate further.
9. The "Success Rules" section is where you'll set the criteria that will mark the Activity as successful. Click the "Add Success Rule" link. A successful run (no certificates expiring soon) of the script will have the word "Success" in the email Subject, so we'll set the rule to "Subject contains Success"
10. The "Warning Rules" section is where you'll set the criteria that will mark the Activity as a warning. Click the "Add Warning Rule" link. The email notification for a the script will have the word "Warn" in the email Subject if one or more certificates are expiring soon, so well set the rule to "Subject contains Warn"

The Status Rules Section

Configuring Notifications

11. In the Notifications section, you can choose how to you want to be notified about changes to the status of this Check. In this example, enabling the checkbox for "Email" will send an email when the Check status changes, to everyone on the CheckCentral Organization > Users page that has Email notifications enabled. If there are consecutive Success emails, a notification won't be sent every time, only when the status changes from Success to Warning/Failure, and back.
12. Click the "Save Check" button to finish setting up this Check.

The Notifications Section

Setting Up the Script

13. Now that our Check is setup in CheckCentral, we'll need to setup the script on a machine that can run it every day. First, download the script: CheckWebsiteCertExpiry.zip, and extract it to somewhere on your computer. (e.g. C:\Scripts)
14. Go to the new folder (e.g. C:\Scripts\CheckWebsiteCertExpiry) and edit websites.txt with the list of websites you want to check. Make sure to put one URL on each line.
15. Open a PowerShell console and run the script to make sure it works. For example:

    .\CheckWebsiteCertExpiry.ps1 -Websites (Get-Content websites.txt) -EmailFromAddress <Email From Address> -EmailToAddress <Check Email Address from Step 7>

16. Now refresh the Check page for the Check you created and you should see the new Activity that was sent in by the script.
17. You're ready to setup the Windows Scheduled Task now, so that the script will run automatically every day. First, edit the parameters at the top of the "CreateScheduledTask.ps1" script and save the changes.
18. Open an administrative PowerShell console and run .\CreateScheduledTask.ps1.
19. If everything was successful, you should see the new Scheduled Task in the Windows Task Scheduler. Double-check that the schedule looks good, then run it and verify that a second Activity shows up in the CheckCentral Check.

As always, if you run into any trouble configuring your Checks, please feel free to contact us and we'll be glad to help out.