Frequently Asked Questions

ServiceAlert.ai tracks 1,000+ cloud services, but alerts are only sent for the ones you select.

1. Go to Service Selection — In the sidebar under Settings, click Service Selection.
2. Browse services — Use the search bar or browse the full list.
3. Toggle services on/off — Click a service to add or remove it from your monitored list.
4. Save — Click Save Preferences to apply your changes.

The number of services you can monitor depends on your plan. Personal plans include up to 3 services, Pro plans include up to 50, and Business and Enterprise plans are unlimited.

Email alerts notify you when your monitored services experience outages, degraded performance, or recover. Here's how to configure them:

1. Navigate to Email Alerts — In the sidebar, click Email Alerts under Integrations.
2. Enable alerts — Toggle the Enable Email Alerts switch to On.
3. Add recipients — Enter one or more email addresses that should receive notifications. Your account email is included by default.
4. Choose alert types — Select which status changes trigger an alert: Major Outage, Partial Outage, Degraded Performance, and/or Recovery.
5. Set a cooldown — Pick a minimum interval (30 min – 4 hrs) between repeated alerts for the same service to avoid inbox flooding.
6. Save & test — Click Save Preferences, then use Send Test Email to verify delivery.

Email alerts require a Pro or Enterprise plan and at least one monitored service selected in your Service Selection settings.

Teams integration uses the Microsoft Graph API to post messages to your channel. You'll need Azure AD admin access to complete the setup.

1. Open Azure Portal — Go to Azure AD App Registrations and click New registration.
2. Register the app — Enter a name like "ServiceAlert Teams Bot", select Accounts in this organizational directory only, and click Register.
3. Add API permissions — Navigate to API permissions → Add a permission → Microsoft Graph → Application permissions. Search for and add ChannelMessage.Send.
4. Grant admin consent — Click Grant admin consent for [Your Organization]. This requires Azure AD admin privileges.
5. Create a client secret — Go to Certificates & secrets → New client secret. Set a description and expiration, then click Add. Copy the secret value immediately — you won't be able to see it again.
6. Copy your IDs — Go to Overview and copy the Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID.

7. Get a link to your channel — In Microsoft Teams, right-click the channel name and select Get link to channel.
8. Extract the IDs from the URL — The link contains:
   Team ID: the groupId parameter (the GUID).
   Channel ID: decode the path after /channel/ (replace %3A with : and %40 with @).

Requires Azure AD admin privileges. Contact your IT department if you don't have access. Teams alerts are available on the Enterprise plan.

Slack integration uses Incoming Webhooks to post messages to your channel. Setup takes just a few minutes.

1. Go to Slack API — Visit api.slack.com/apps and click Create New App. Choose From scratch.
2. Name your app — Enter a name like "ServiceAlert" and select your workspace. Click Create App.
3. Enable Incoming Webhooks — In the sidebar, click Incoming Webhooks, then toggle Activate Incoming Webhooks to On.
4. Add webhook to workspace — Click Add New Webhook to Workspace. Select the channel where you want alerts and click Allow.
5. Copy the Webhook URL — Copy the URL that appears (starts with https://hooks.slack.com/services/) and paste it into the Slack Alerts settings.

You may need workspace admin approval to add apps if your workspace restricts app installations. Slack alerts are available on the Enterprise plan.

Google Chat integration uses webhooks to post card-formatted messages directly to a Google Chat space.

1. Open your space — Open Google Chat and navigate to the space where you want to receive alerts.
2. Open space settings — Click the space name at the top, then select Apps & integrations.
3. Manage webhooks — Click Manage webhooks. If you don't see this option, you may need space manager permissions.
4. Create the webhook — Click Add another, name it "ServiceAlert.ai", and click Save.
5. Copy the Webhook URL — Copy the URL that appears (starts with https://chat.googleapis.com/) and paste it into the Google Chat Alerts settings.

You need space manager permissions to create webhooks. Google Chat alerts are available on the Enterprise plan.

Discord integration uses webhooks to post rich embed messages directly to a Discord channel.

1. Open channel settings — Right-click your channel in Discord (or click the gear icon) and select Edit Channel.
2. Go to Integrations — Click Integrations in the sidebar, then click Webhooks.
3. Create a webhook — Click New Webhook, name it "ServiceAlert.ai".
4. Copy the Webhook URL — Click Copy Webhook URL and paste it into the Discord Alerts settings.

You need the Manage Webhooks permission in the channel. Discord alerts are available on the Enterprise plan.

Webhooks let you receive alert payloads at any HTTPS endpoint — perfect for integrating with PagerDuty, Opsgenie, Zapier, n8n, or your own custom automation.

1. Enter your endpoint URL — Go to Webhooks in the sidebar and paste your HTTPS endpoint URL.
2. Add a signing secret (optional) — Enter a secret string to enable HMAC-SHA256 signature verification. Each request will include an X-ServiceAlert-Signature header.
3. Test the connection — Click Test Webhook to send a test payload and verify your endpoint receives it.
4. Save — Click Save Configuration to start receiving alerts.

Payload events:

• service.status_change — when a monitored service's status changes
• monitor.status_change — when an uptime monitor goes up/down
• service.early_signal — when user reports spike for a service
• test — sent when you click Test Webhook

Verifying signatures: Compute HMAC-SHA256(payload_body, your_secret) and compare with the X-ServiceAlert-Signature header value (format: sha256=<hex_digest>).

Webhook alerts are available on Pro plans and above. Your signing secret is stored securely and never exposed to the browser.

Early Signals is a crowdsourced alerting feature. When multiple users report issues with a service within a short time window, ServiceAlert.ai detects the spike and can notify you — often before the vendor's official status page is updated.

1. Enable Early Signals — Go to the Early Signals section in the sidebar and toggle alerts on.
2. Set a threshold — Choose how many user reports within 15 minutes should trigger an alert (5, 10, 15, 20, or 25).
3. Configure a notification channel — Early Signals alerts are delivered through your existing channels (Email, Teams, Slack, Google Chat, Discord, or Webhooks). Make sure at least one is enabled.

Early Signals are available on Pro and Enterprise plans. You can also report issues yourself on any service detail page.

The alert cooldown sets the minimum time between repeated notifications for the same service. For example, if a service flaps between "Partial Outage" and "Operational" several times within an hour, a 1-hour cooldown ensures you receive only one alert instead of several.

You can set the cooldown to 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, or 4 hours in your Email Alerts settings. The cooldown applies per service, so alerts for different services are unaffected.

Groups let you organize your team members into smaller units — like NOC, SOC, Engineering, or DevOps. Each group can have its own service list and dashboard layout, so different parts of your organization only see what's relevant to them.

Creating a group:

1. Go to Team Management in the sidebar.
2. Under Groups, type a name and optional description, then click Create Group.
3. Assign members to the group using the Group dropdown in the members table.

Configuring a group's dashboard:

1. Click the grid icon next to a group name to open its configuration.
2. Select which services the group should monitor — members will only see these services on their dashboard.
3. Toggle dashboard sections on or off (Trending Now, Live Activity, Monitor Health) to customize the group's view.

Group Leads: You can promote any group member to Lead by clicking the star icon next to their name. Leads can edit their group's service selection and dashboard layout without needing Business Admin access.

Groups are available on Business and Enterprise plans. Each member can belong to one group at a time. Members not assigned to a group see the default company-wide dashboard.