Alerts

At the scheduled time, Lightdash will run the query and check the results. If the value in the first row of the chart’s results, in the chart’s sort order, meets the alerting condition, the alert will be sent. Other rows aren’t checked. To alert when any row meets the condition, sort the chart by the alert field, descending for is greater than or ascending for is less than, so the first row holds the most extreme value. This notification will continue to be sent if the condition is true until it is manually disabled or deleted. You can create or select an existing saved chart, add an alert to it, and tell Lightdash when you’d like the send out your update. You can set up as many alerts to a saved chart as you like, and if you make any changes to the content, Lightdash will update the alert the next time they’re sent. Alerts can be sent to an email address or into Slack (assuming your org has added Slack). For security reasons, delivered files expire after 3 days. Images in older emails and Slack shares break once they expire and there’s no way to retrieve them, so download anything you want to keep from the alert itself.

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Enabling alerts

Email alerts are available on all Lightdash Cloud plans. To set up Slack, an organization admin will have to add the Slack integration.

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Creating an alert

Only users with admin, developer or edit access can create alerts. To create an alert, click on the three-dot menu in the top-right corner of your chart, then click on Alerts. You’ll get a modal that pops up and shows you the list of existing alerts for your saved chart, and gives you the option to Create new. Once you click on Create new, you’ll be brought to a configuration screen for your new alert. Here, you can configure your alert. The options are:

• Alert name: this is the name of your alert.
• Conditions: Configure the condition that is going to be evaluated against the first result(s).
  • Alert field The numeric field is going to be evaluated
  • Condition: Operator we are going to use to evaluate your value.
    • is greater/less than: Check if the first value in your results is greater/less than your threshold value.
    • increased/decreased by: Verify whether the percentage change in the first value relative to the second value exceeds the specified threshold, either by increasing or decreasing.
  • Notify me only once: send the alert the first time the condition is met, then pause it. The alert shows as paused in your list of alerts until you turn its toggle back on. Leave this unticked to be notified every time the condition is met.
• Run frequency: This is the frequency at which Lightdash runs a query to check your data for changes. (You will be notified if the conditions on the latest value are met) . All times for the scheduler are in UTC.
• Send to: here, you can pick if you want to send your alert to Slack, email, or both. You can add as many Slack channels and email addresses as you’d like to here. You can send an alert to a person in Slack using @persons-name or to a channel using #channel-name. The Lightdash app needs to already be a member of any Slack channel you add — see Saved chart alerts in Slack for how to invite it.

Alerts don’t have a custom message. Email and Slack alerts name the chart and list the condition that was met. The field in the condition is named from its field ID rather than its label in the chart, so orders_total_revenue appears as Orders total revenue. Each alert also includes an image of the chart.

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Editing and deleting your alerts

To edit an alert, click on the pencil-icon next to the alert you want to edit. This will bring you back to the configuration screen for your alert, where you can make any changes you’d like. In case you want to delete a alert, click on the trash-icon next to the alert you want to delete. You can also pause alerts by clicking the toggle button on the list of alerts. Lightdash also pauses an alert when an error means it can’t run until someone fixes it, for example when the alert field is no longer in the chart’s results, the warehouse credentials are wrong or the warehouse can’t be reached, the alert has no recipients, or it sends to Slack and your organization’s Slack integration was removed. Fix the cause, then turn the alert’s toggle back on.

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Sending to private Slack channels

You must add the Lightdash Slack bot to a private Slack channel before it can post there. To send to a private Slack channel, type the channel name exactly as it appears in Slack into the destination field, then click it to confirm.

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Sending to Microsoft Teams

You can send Lightdash deliveries directly to Microsoft Teams using incoming webhooks, keeping your team updated with key metrics right inside your Teams channels. The legacy Office 365 Connector webhooks are deprecated. Microsoft now recommends using Power Automate Workflows to create incoming webhooks for Teams.

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Creating a webhook with Power Automate Workflows

1. Go to Power Automate
2. Select Templates
3. Filter by “webhook”
4. Select the Post to a channel when a webhook request is received template

5. Select your Microsoft account and target Teams channel
6. Once added, click Edit on the workflow
7. Select the When a Teams webhook request is received trigger
8. Copy the HTTP URL

9. Use that HTTP URL in the webhook field in Lightdash

For more details, see the official Microsoft documentation. Add the webhook to the list of destinations in your delivery, then test how it looks in Teams by pressing Send now.