Hey everyone, I'm deep into our Drata implementation and have hit a snag. Our engineering team built a custom internal tool that handles sensitive customer data—it's a critical part of our lead flow and scoring process. Drata is doing a great job monitoring our mainstream SaaS apps (like our ESP and CRM), but it's completely overlooking this custom app.
From what I can tell, the system seems to rely heavily on pre-defined integrations. I need this app recognized for:
* User access reviews (SSO is via Okta, but the app itself isn't listed)
* Data encryption verification for data at rest
* Activity logging for audit trails
Has anyone successfully onboarded a bespoke, internally-developed application into Drata's compliance framework? I'm looking for the practical steps.
My hunch is it involves a combination of custom monitors and maybe leveraging the API, but I'd love to hear from someone who's been through it. Specifically:
* Did you have to create custom evidence requests for it?
* How did you handle continuous monitoring for something not in their catalog?
* Any pitfalls in mapping controls (like SOC 2) to a home-grown system?
Really hoping to benchmark against your experiences. The documentation points to "custom applications," but the real-world workflow is what I need.
Cheers, Henry
Been there. Your hunch about custom monitors and the API is spot on. We had to onboard a custom event routing service.
For the controls mapping, the trick was to treat our app's own audit logs as the source of truth. We set up a custom monitor that ingests those logs via a scheduled export to an S3 bucket Drata can poll, basically mimicking a SaaS integration. The SOC 2 mapping was manual - we worked with our compliance lead to document which app features satisfied which control requirements.
Biggest pitfall? The evidence requests. For data at rest encryption, we couldn't just point to AWS KMS. We had to create a custom request that pulled a screenshot from our app's admin panel showing the encryption flag was enabled, plus a CLI output from the infra side. It's clunky but it passed.
Did you look at using their "Generic Webhook" integration for the activity logging? Might save you some scripting.
> a scheduled export to an S3 bucket Drata can poll
Oh, that's a neat workaround. I'm setting up my first pipeline and was worried about writing a custom API client from scratch. The S3 export idea makes it feel more like a normal ELT job.
Did you run into any specific formatting requirements for the logs in that bucket? Like, did Drata need JSON with certain fields, or was it pretty flexible?
Your three core needs map directly to the three primary extensibility mechanisms in the platform. Based on our implementation, here's how we structured it.
For user access reviews, we used a custom evidence request that pulls a CSV report from our app's database via a scheduled query. The report lists users and roles, and we attach it manually each review cycle. It's not automated like an Okta integration, but it satisfies the auditor as direct evidence.
Continuous monitoring for activity logs is best handled through the Drata API, not just S3 exports. We built a lightweight service that batches our app's audit events daily and posts them to the `/v1/activity-logs` endpoint. This gets the logs into the system for real-time monitoring and alerting. The API expects a specific JSON schema; the documentation is adequate but you must match the field names exactly.
The main pitfall in control mapping is ambiguity. For SOC 2 CC6.1, our "home-grown system" couldn't just state we use AES-256. We had to document the specific implementation: the library used, how keys are managed, and where encryption is applied in the data flow. This required close collaboration with the engineering team to produce architecture diagrams that satisfied the control intent.
Yeah, the formatting was our first hurdle too. Drata's S3 monitor basically wants a newline-delimited JSON file. They do need a few specific fields to map the activity correctly.
We had to include `user_email`, `timestamp` (in ISO 8601), `ip_address`, and `event_action` at a minimum. Here's a snippet from our connector config:
```
{"user_email":"alex@company.com","timestamp":"2024-05-15T14:22:01Z","event_action":"user.login","resource_id":"cust_123"}
```
The `event_action` needs to match their allowed list, which is kind of buried in the docs.
Did you find a good way to structure your export job? I'm using a simple Python script but curious if there's a cleaner pattern.
Agreed on the API being the right path for real-time logs. That said, the manual CSV upload for access reviews can become a scaling pain point as your team grows.
We found that even a simple automated step, like having the report emailed to the compliance manager or dropped in a shared drive, builds a better paper trail than manual attachment each cycle. It links the process back to a system, not just a person's diligence.
Your point on documenting the *specific* implementation for encryption is spot-on. That's exactly what auditors want to see - the concrete how, not just the checkbox. Did you run into any pushback from engineering on that level of detail, or were they already documenting it internally?
Stay factual, stay helpful.