Alert Rules
Choose which question-type measures should alert you, at what level, and who hears about it.
Overview
An alert rule watches one measure on one of your four question types. When a check finds the measure past the level you set, the rule fires: an alert opens on the Alerts page and stays open while the measure stays past that level. If the rule has email switched on, the alert goes into the next alert email to the people you chose.
Rules are managed at Settings → Notifications & targets. Each project has its own rules.
What each rule watches
There is one rule per question type, and each watches that question type's main measure. The direction is fixed by the measure: a measure that is good when high alerts when it falls below your level, and one that is bad when high alerts when it rises above it.
| Rule | What it watches |
|---|---|
| Non-brand · Transactional — Named on contested questions | Alert when Named on contested questions falls below this level on Non-brand · Transactional questions, measured over contested questions. |
| Non-brand · Informational — Citation rate | Alert when Citation rate falls below this level on Non-brand · Informational questions, measured over contested questions. |
| Brand · Transactional — Negative answers | Alert when Negative answers rises above this level on Brand · Transactional questions, measured over judged answers about us. |
| Brand · Informational — Own-source share | Alert when Own-source share falls below this level on Brand · Informational questions, measured over answers about us that cited anything. |
Setting up a rule
- Go to Settings → Notifications & targets. Each rule has its own card.
- Switch on the rules you want.
- Set the threshold, in percent.
- Set the cooldown: after a rule has alerted, how long before it can alert you again (from 1 hour to 7 days).
- Switch email on or off, and choose who gets it: organisation owners and admins, everyone on this project, or specific people (up to 20).
- Use Preview to see how often the rule would have fired over the last 30 days.
Changes save as you make them.
How a rule is checked
Rules are checked after every capture, on the question type's latest capture cycle. A check fires the rule when the measure is past your level and has moved by at least the measure's noise floor since the previous full cycle. When there is no earlier full cycle to compare with, it fires as soon as the measure is past your level. A move smaller than the noise floor does not fire it.
The alert closes on its own when a later check finds the measure back on the right side of your level.
When a rule is first checked
A rule is first checked once its question type has answers in three capture cycles within its recent window (the last 30 days for daily capture, 90 for weekly, 180 for fortnightly or monthly), and only when the latest cycle has at least 80% of its usual answers. Until then it shows 'Not yet checked'.
The capture rhythm is the project's active schedule; with none active (a paused schedule does not count), it is read from the project's captures over the last 180 days, and taken as daily when fewer than two capture days are on record.
A cycle with no figure for the measure, for example one with no judged answers about you, is not checked either; the rule waits for the next cycle.
A rule whose question type has no active questions can never be checked, because no capture produces an answer for it. Instead of 'Not yet checked' it shows "This question type has no questions yet, so this rule can't be checked." Add questions of that type and the rule is checked as described above.
Editing and switching off rules
- Edit: change the threshold, cooldown, email or recipients on the card. Future checks use the new values; past alerts are not rewritten.
- Switch off: the rule is no longer checked. An alert that was open closes, and the card says the rule was switched off while the alert was standing.
- Delete: from the rule's own page, after typing to confirm.
Plan limits
Each plan limits how many rules can be switched on at once across your organisation. Rules that are switched off do not count.
| Plan | Rules switched on at once |
|---|---|
| Free | 1 |
| Starter | 5 |
| Pro-Individual | 10 |
| Pro-SME | 25 |
| Enterprise-Brand | 100 |
| Enterprise-Agency | 100 |
See Configuration → Organization Settings for details on plan limits.
Best practices
- Think in terms of "what would I want to wake up to?" Alerts should be things you'd take action on, not general observability.
- Set the level a little past where the measure sits today, so the rule tells you about a real move rather than normal cycle-to-cycle variation.
- Review rules quarterly. As your brand grows, yesterday's "concerning" numbers become today's baseline. Raise thresholds when appropriate.