Monitor allows you to set up custom alerts, so you can be notified when core thresholds are breached. Alerts are available in-app and also via push notifications to email, Slack, and Teams. 

You can view a 'How To' tour by clicking on the gif below or read on for step-by-step instructions on how to create Alerts in Monitor.

In the top right of the page, click on '+ New alert'.

Choose the project that you’d like to set the alert for and you’ll be taken to the rules and thresholds settings, which will look like this:

Here, you can now specify the settings for the threshold:

1. Severity. Choose between a warning or critical alert. Warnings will be notified in-app, whereas any critical alerts will also come through as push notifications to email, Slack or Teams. This helps ensure you are only interrupted for the most critical issues. 
2. Report. Choose the report you’d like to set the alert for. You can choose from any of the default Lumar reports, and any custom extractions that you have set up. 
3. Segment. Choose to create an alert for a specific segment (from those you've set up in Analyze), or set the alert across all URLs.
4. Choose the rule for your alert logic. You can choose greater than or equal to, or less than.
5. Threshold. Your URL threshold will be automatically determined based on your most recent crawl data. If you wish to overwrite this threshold with your own value, you can do so by choosing ‘greater than or equal to’ or ‘less than’, and then specify the number of URLs for the threshold. (Please note this will cause the threshold to no longer automatically recalculate the value. If you want to go back to the automatically set thresholds, you will need to remove the rule entirely and start again). To the right hand side, you’ll see the latest trend graph for the metric, with the current threshold as a red dotted line. As you amend the threshold the red line will update immediately to help you set an appropriate level. Here you’ll also see the total number of pages in the last crawl for the relevant metric, the absolute change in the number of pages and the % of difference. 
6. Smart Alerts. Here you can select if you would like Monitor’s Smart Alerts to automatically update thresholds based on previous crawl data. See below for more information on Smart Alerts.

Once you have created your first rule, you can add more by using the ‘+ Add new rule’ link underneath the existing alert/s. You can also easily edit the alerts by clicking onto the relevant alert and changing the settings - just remember to hit Save once you’ve made your changes. 

Smart Alerts

To keep alerts effective over time with minimal effort, Monitor’s Smart Alerts will automatically set new alert thresholds for you based on your recent crawl data. Alternatively, you can decide whether to manually accept or reject the new thresholds Monitor suggests, or not suggest new thresholds at all. You can even choose to automatically accept new thresholds when an issue improves, but suggest when an issue gets worse, or vice-versa. 

When an issue improves consistently, the alert threshold should be updated in-line with the improvements to prevent a gulf appearing between your initial threshold and the new level of your report (meaning you might miss new issues). So, if a threshold has not been breached in the past 5 crawls, Monitor will set or suggest a new threshold:

• For greater than or equal to rules, this will be the highest value from the last five crawls plus 1.
• For less than rules, it will be the lowest value from the last five crawls. 

When an issue gets worse (i.e. when a notification is triggered) it may take some time to fix the issue. The alert threshold should be updated to the new status quo to prevent multiple alerts for an issue you’re already aware of, but still notify you if the issue gets even worse. So, if a notification is triggered, a new threshold will be set or suggested:

• For greater than or equal to rules, this will be the most recent value plus 1.
• For less than rules, it will be the most recent value.

If you have set Smart Alerts to automatically accept, the alerts will update and all new notifications will be at the new level. 

If you are manually accepting Monitor’s suggestions, you can go through each suggestion and accept or reject as required. Accepted suggestions will be updated and all new notifications will be at the new level, while rejected suggestions will leave the threshold and notifications at the previously set level.