FAQ

Common questions,
straight answers.

Everything you need to know about WatchDog: how it works, what it costs, and how we handle your data.

WatchDog is a Salesforce security monitoring and observability tool that runs inside your own AWS account. It continuously watches your org for errors, anomalies, and security risks — from login threats and data exfiltration to high-risk config changes — and alerts your team via Salesforce notifications and email, often before your users notice anything is wrong. Security events can also route to Slack, Jira, or Azure DevOps.

WatchDog deploys as a small serverless stack — AWS Lambda functions on a schedule — inside your own AWS account. It authenticates via JWT and polls various Salesforce logs on a per-module schedule, from as often as every 60 seconds during Hypercare down to every 15-60 minutes for other modules. Because that stack runs entirely in infrastructure you control, no log or event data ever passes through a third party.

Hypercare Mode is WatchDog's flagship feature. When you're going live with a new release or onboarding critical users, you place those users into hypercare. WatchDog keeps their debug logs on automatically, monitors every transaction, and alerts your team immediately if anything breaks. It's built specifically for the high-risk period immediately after a go-live.

No. WatchDog is engineered to be production-safe from day one. It runs as lightweight scheduled Apex jobs that operate well within Salesforce governor limits. The monitoring overhead is negligible; your users will not notice it is running.

When WatchDog detects an error, it extracts the relevant log lines and sends them to an AI model for analysis. The AI identifies the most likely root cause and suggests a fix, for example, "NullPointerException on line 47 of AccountTrigger.cls, likely caused by a null Account.OwnerId on migrated records." This analysis is included directly in your Slack or Jira alert, so your team knows where to look without reading raw logs.

Yes. WatchDog supports a Bring Your Own AI (BYO AI) model. You can connect OpenAI, Amazon Bedrock, or other compatible providers using your own API keys. Your log data stays within your chosen provider's environment, and you remain in full control of AI costs and data handling.

Log data is processed inside your Salesforce org. Alert payloads sent to your AWS environment for notifications contain only error summaries and relevant metadata, not raw log dumps or PII. WatchDog does not store bulk Salesforce record data outside your org.

Security is built into the architecture. All API communication uses JWT authentication with RSA-2048 keys. Every API Gateway stage is protected by a Regional AWS WAFv2 WebACL covering SQL injection, rate limiting, and geo-blocking. Secrets (Canvas keys, JWT keys, encryption keys) are stored in AWS SSM Parameter Store and never hardcoded anywhere. All data in transit is encrypted with TLS 1.2 or higher.

WatchDog installs as a Salesforce managed package via a package link, paired with a small AWS stack you deploy into your own AWS account (about 10-15 minutes via CloudFormation), plus a Connected App and RSA key so Salesforce and AWS can talk to each other. Once both sides are connected, WatchDog starts monitoring your org right away.

WatchDog supports Salesforce Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer editions. It requires API access and managed package installation rights. Professional Edition is not supported by default, as it lacks the API access needed for debug log monitoring.

WatchDog fires alerts to Slack, Jira, Azure DevOps, and email via AWS SES. Salesforce's native in-app notifications are also supported. You can configure multiple channels simultaneously, for example, a Slack alert for immediate visibility and a Jira ticket for tracking resolution.

WatchDog is priced by org size, not per seat, so your cost stays predictable as your team grows. Plans start at $149/month for up to 100 Salesforce users. All plans are billed through AWS Marketplace on your existing AWS invoice, with no separate billing relationship to manage. Annual plans are available at a 20% discount.

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