Introduction to Alerts

Alerts can notify you when a value falls outside of an expected range. Use them to track important KPIs and identify issues like:

• An increase in checkout errors.
• A drop in user engagement. 
• A spike in average page load time.

You can create alerts for both metrics and segments.

Metric Alerts
Create a Metric Alert
Subscribe and receive notifications when an alert triggers
Charting and Logging

Segment Alerts
Create a Segment Alert

Additional Information
Managing Alerts
Alerts FAQs

Metric Alerts

Create a Metric Alert

First, open a saved metric and click Create Alert. You can create alerts for metric trends, but not for single metrics or those grouped by a dimension.

Then, choose when to trigger the alert. You can alert based on a value, a relative change, or an absolute change. 

• Value measures your metric against a fixed threshold. For example, alert when the metric’s value is greater than 10.  
• Relative change measures how your metric changes over time as a percentage. The time period is derived from your metric. For example, alert when my metric’s value increases or decreases by 10% compared to the previous week.
• Absolute change measures how your metric changes over time as a true difference. The time period is derived from your metric. For example, alert when my metric’s value increases or decreases by 10 compared to the previous month. 

For metrics that are "compare to past" metrics, the alert frequency is set to the same frequency in which the metric is calculated, and measured using the delta measured by the metric's "compare to past" setting as well. For example, let's say you've created a metric that measures the hourly rate of checkout clicks compared to last week. The alert you set up for this metric will check the difference between this week's and last week's checkout clicks on an hourly basis. Any time this difference crosses the threshold you set, you will be alerted.

If you trigger alerts based on a fixed value, you can configure notification frequency:

• Once when the value crosses the threshold. This option sends you an alert when the value crosses your defined threshold. It will not continuously alert if the value stays out of range. This is also the default behavior for relative change and absolutely change metric alerts. 
• Every day, week, hour, or month the value is greater than the threshold. This option sends you an alerts continuously if the value stays outside of your threshold. The frequency is derived from your metric's time period. For example, if your metric shows hourly trends, you can choose to alert hourly. 

Next, add a description and subscribe to alert notifications. You can choose in-app notifications, in-app and email notifications, or no notifications. Finally, name the alert and click Save.  

In-app and email notifications are sent to just you. If multiple users are interested in the same alerts, each user should set up their own. Alternatively, you can leverage integrations with Slack or Teams to notify channels of users all at once. 

Subscribe and receive notifications when an alert triggers

1. Receive notifications of a metric alert via email or in-app. 
2. Send Metric Alerts to channels via Slack or Microsoft Teams. Slack and Teams icons will appear under the "Also send this alert to" section when creating or editing a Metric Alert. Click the icon to configure your notification. If the integration is not installed, an admin or architect will be prompted to do that first.
3. For value alerts, choose to receive alerts once the value crosses the threshold OR have the alert continuously fire as long as the value is still over the threshold. 

You can also add other team members to the email or in-app notifications as you see fit. Users will only be notified when there is a state change, i.e., if they are subscribed to a new alert or unsubscribed to an existing alert they previously subscribed to. If the user was already subscribed and their subscription type is updated, they will not receive a notification about this change.

Charting and Logging

After you save the alert, Fullstory creates a chart and an alert log. 

The chart shows your current metric values, values from the previous period (if applicable), and your alert threshold. 

The log shows all alert history. If you change the alert threshold or metric time period, a historical tag that no longer matches your alert settings will appear on past alerts.

Segment Alerts

Create a Segment Alert

First, open a saved segment and click the 🔔 icon.

Then, add a short description and set your alert threshold. You can alert when the number of users is greater than or less than a defined value. For example, alert when there are greater than 100 users in this segment. 

Next, set your notification preferences. You can choose in-app, email, or Slack notifications. 

Click the ⬅ arrow to choose your alert time frame or compare it to a past time period. You can track daily, weekly, or monthly.

Finally, click Create Alert. 

Managing Alerts

Manage your alerts from the related metrics and segments, or click Alerts from the bottom of your left-hand sidebar. You can view, edit, subscribe to, duplicate, and archive alerts from this table in your Fullstory account.

FAQs

Is there a limit on the number of Alerts my account can have?
Each Fullstory account has an alert limit. Click Alerts in the sidebar to check your limit and usage. 

Why is my "Create Alert" button disabled?
If the “Create Alert” button is disabled, try these troubleshooting tips.

• Use a metric trend. You can create alerts for metric trends, but not for single metrics or those grouped by a dimension.
• Clear “Compare users” and “Group by” values. You can create alerts for single trends. 
• Save your metric. You can create alerts after you save your metric. 
• Check your account limit. Click Alerts in the universal sidebar to check your limit and usage. If you’ve reached your limit, archive unused metric or segment alerts to proceed. 

How do Segment Alert thresholds work?
Thresholds for segment alerts measure “greater than” and “less than.” They do not measure “greater than or equal to” and “less than or equal to.” For example, an “above 1” threshold alerts when the count of users is 2. 

When exactly will a threshold notification be sent to me?
- Segment alerts notify you when your threshold is crossed, and only once per reporting period. For example, a daily “above 1” threshold alerts you when the count of users reaches 2. It will not continue alerting you within the same reporting period if the count of of users increases to 3 for example. 
- Segments and User Trend charts track daily activity from midnight-to-midnight each day; however, segment alerts track daily activity as a rolling 24-hour window. This means your alert notification shows activity from the last 24 hours, which may not always match with the midnight-to-midnight data display on the Segment and User Trend chart.