Alert channels: how alerts reach you

Channels belong to your organisation, so every team member can use them. An organisation can have up to 50 channels. When you sign up, an email channel for your own address is created automatically.

The destination is checked when you add a channel: a Discord or Slack channel needs that service's webhook address, a webhook must use HTTPS, and a Telegram channel needs a chat ID and a bot token. If something does not fit, the form comes back with the type you chose, what you typed and the problem next to the field.

A channel only receives alerts for the monitors it is attached to. Choose the channels under Send alerts to when you create or edit a monitor. On a new monitor, every existing channel is selected. Monitors created through the API are attached to every channel.

Deleting a channel detaches it from all monitors. A monitor with no channel attached still records its incidents, but nobody is told.

Click Send test next to a channel to deliver a sample alert, headed Test alert from FastPing. If delivery fails, the error is shown on the page, for example Test failed: HTTP 404 for a deleted webhook. Test alerts are limited to 10 per 10 minutes per organisation.

Every alert starts with a headline that names the state and the monitor, followed by the message of the check:

Each alert also gives the monitor's target, says that the check ran from Helsinki, Finland (EU), and links to the monitor in your dashboard. Alerts are written in the recipient's language when FastPing knows it: an alert to a team member's own address uses that member's language, and every other address or channel uses the language of the organisation's owner. When each kind of alert is sent is explained in How checks, incidents and alerts work.

Alerts are sent the moment the state changes, to all attached channels in parallel. Each channel gets one attempt: if Discord, Slack, Telegram or your endpoint is unreachable at that moment, that alert is not delivered to it, so attach at least two independent channels to important monitors (for example email and a chat). During a maintenance window, no alerts are sent for the monitors it covers.