Adding Custom Logic to Okta Just Got Easier: Introducing Event Hook Preview

At Okta, we’ve made it our mission to make identity as seamless and efficient for developers as possible. By providing the tools that set developers up for success, our customers can focus on what matters: innovating and building highly scalable applications. 

Recently, we’ve taken big strides towards this goal. The acquisition of Auth0 will help us increase our focus on improving developer experiences, and our Okta Starter Developer Edition provides customer identity and access management tools at no cost for up to 15,000 users. 

Alongside these transformative initiatives, we’ve also been working on changes behind the scenes that drive significant value for developers. In particular, we’ve launched a number of solutions that improve the process of setting up Okta Hooks. This includes the regular release of new event types for Event Hooks as well as Inline Hook Preview—and now, we’re excited to announce that Okta Event Hook Preview is generally available to our customers. Event Hook Preview allows developers to seamlessly test and troubleshoot their Event Hooks, so they can be confident about their events before deploying them to production.

Below is an overview of everything developers can expect to accomplish with this new tool.

We’re enhancing the Okta Event Hooks experience

Across technology companies, developer resources are scarce—and not all of them are equipped to build identity, especially with the high security risk of writing your own auth code. Developer time is also often spread across various functions, which can negatively impact an application’s speed-to-market. As such, developers need tools that can easily integrate with their systems while also remaining flexible enough to meet their needs. 

When we launched Okta Event and Inline Hooks in 2019, our goal was to give developers the ability to secure and customize their identity layer—and allow them to extend the Okta Identity Cloud in innovative ways. While Okta Workflows lets developers automate their identity processes with no-code or low-code, Okta Hooks makes it easier for them to use custom code for their Okta policies, behaviors, integrations, and workflows. 

Event Hooks are like webhooks in that they use HTTP POST to send pertinent Okta events to your downstream systems as they occur. For example, if a user is added to your “Executives” group, you would receive an Event Hook to update your systems with that user’s information. The Event Hook could then also prompt an automatic workflow in your downstream services, like adding the user to a specific Slack channel.

Now, with Event Hook Preview, developers will be able to proactively test and troubleshoot their Event Hooks as they set them up, ensuring that the tool is doing what it needs to do before deploying. 

Event Hook Preview simplifies your identity processes

Having launched Event Hooks two years ago, we’ve continued our efforts to improve this feature and streamline how developers use it. Event Hook Preview is the result of those efforts. 

The tool allows admins and developers to preview a new Event Hook before it’s enabled. It does this by displaying the JSON payload of an Event Hook request, letting developers send the request to the Event Hook endpoint to see how their code responds. We’ve carefully designed the user interface for this tool to make this process seamless and flexible—enabling you to edit the payload and expand the JSON payload window for easier viewing. You can check out the detailed implementation steps on our product documentation page.

As a new tool in the Okta developer toolkit, Event Hook Preview will allow developers to easily test and troubleshoot Event Hooks, send sample requests without manually triggering an event, and perform any due diligence required before deploying events to production. In this way, developers will be able to avoid friction when pushing events live, making it easier for them to focus on their core competencies and reduce time to value for their application. It’s a win-win. 

We’re continually working to enhance our products and the ways in which they enable our customers and developers. In fact, customer feedback plays an important role in shaping the Okta Identity roadmap—we’re always open to hearing from you. 

For more information about Okta’s Event Hook Preview and Inline Hook Preview tools, reach out to your customer success manager or your Okta account representative, or contact us with questions.