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. 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.