Create an alert with the guided setup

Walk the six numbered steps of the guided setup to pick a recipe, source, recipient, template and rule, then fire a test signal.

In the sidebar, open Critical Alerts, then Setup, then Guided Setup. The page address is /critical-alerts/create.

The page is six numbered sections down the left, with a Progress panel and a Deployment panel on the right. Each section lets you pick something that already exists or create a new one without leaving the page.

Before you start

• Your admin has to give your role permission to manage critical alert sources. Creating recipes, destinations, templates and rules from this page needs the matching permission for each.
• Know who should be contacted and how: a phone number, a person in Nova, a team, a branch, or an on-call schedule.

Steps

1. Under 1. Recipe, press the recipe that best matches your situation. Its description and matching guidance appear below. If nothing fits, press New recipe (see Create a recipe).
2. Under 2. Source, press an existing source card to select it, or press Create source. A new source opens Source endpoint & tools with its address shown once; copy it now. On a selected source, Source endpoint & tools reopens that drawer at any time.
3. Under 3. Recipient routing, choose Direct recipient when the destination names a fixed phone number, person, team, branch, email or webhook. Choose On-call schedule when the recipient changes with a rotation; pick the schedule first, then the destination that sends through it. Press Create destination (or Create schedule destination) to make a new one.
4. Under 4. Template, select the wording that will be spoken or sent, or press Create template.
5. Under 5. Rule, select the rule that ties the source, matcher, destination and template together, or press Create rule. Only rules for the selected source are listed.
6. Under 6. Test, check Source key, Event name, Signal type, Severity, Title and Summary, then press Trigger test signal. Nova pushes a real signal through the whole path and shows the signal and incident it created.
7. Publish the drafts you made along the way. New destinations, templates and rules start as drafts and do not deliver until published. See Publish a draft or roll back to an earlier version.

Warning: A test signal is real. It opens an incident and contacts the destination you chose. Tell that person first.

What you see

• Progress lists a row per step (Recipe selected, Source selected, Destination selected, Template selected, Rule selected, Signal tested) and marks each complete as you go. Voice entitlement shows whether phone calls are available to your organization.
• Deployment shows Source authentication for the selected source, the recipe's Recipe guidance steps, and an Open Critical Alerts guide button.
• Each search box (Search recipes, Search sources, and so on) narrows the cards below it. Only the first few matches show; Manage sources, Manage destinations and the other manage buttons open the full lists.

If something looks different

• A red box reads "Some Critical Alerts setup data could not load.": press Retry load.
• Create schedule destination is greyed out: you chose On-call schedule but have not picked a schedule yet.
• "No rules match the current source selection yet.": pick a source first, or press Create rule.
• The Voice entitlement row stays pending: phone-call delivery is not turned on for your organization. Text, email and notifications still work.

Open the guided setup