---
key: critical-alerts-guide
title: Set up critical alerts
audience: staff
section: critical-alerts
routes: ["/critical-alerts", "/critical-alerts/create"]
permissions: ["critical_alerts.view"]
features: ["critical_alerts.core"]
since: 0.0.1
updated: 0.0.1
status: published
summary: Understand how sources, rules, destinations and incidents fit together, then build your first alert with the guided setup.
keywords: [alarm, emergency alert, on-call, monitoring, freezer alarm, boiler alarm, page someone, wake someone up, guided setup, alerting]
related: [create-a-critical-alert-with-guided-setup, critical-alerts-04-sources-and-incoming-webhooks, create-a-critical-alert-rule, acknowledge-and-resolve-an-incident]
---

In the sidebar, open **Critical Alerts**, then **Dashboard**. The page address is `/critical-alerts`. The guided setup is **Critical Alerts**, then **Setup**, then **Guided Setup**, at `/critical-alerts/create`.

Critical Alerts is how Nova gets a person on the phone when something important goes wrong: a walk-in freezer alarm, a boiler fault, a monitoring box that stops checking in. A device or outside system sends Nova a signal, Nova opens an incident, and Nova calls, texts, emails or notifies the right people until someone deals with it.

## Before you start

- Your admin has to give your role permission to view critical alerts. Each piece below has its own manage permission, so you may see some pages and not others.
- Phone-call alerts need voice delivery turned on for your organization. The guided setup shows a **Voice entitlement** row under **Progress** so you can tell at a glance.

## How the pieces fit

Every alert path is four things, in this order:

1. A **source** is where the signal comes in: a webhook address for a device or outside system, an email inbox, a text line, or an event inside Nova. See [[critical-alerts-04-sources-and-incoming-webhooks]].
2. A **rule** looks at each signal from a source, decides whether it matters and how severe it is, and says who to tell. See [[create-a-critical-alert-rule]].
3. A **destination** is who gets told and how: a phone call, a text, an email, an in-app or push notification, or a webhook to another system. See [[add-a-critical-alert-destination]].
4. An **incident** is the record Nova opens when a rule matches. People acknowledge it, snooze it or resolve it. See [[acknowledge-and-resolve-an-incident]].

Four more pieces help:

- **Templates** hold the exact wording that is spoken or sent. See [[create-a-critical-alert-template]].
- **Schedules** say who is on call right now, so a destination can follow a rotation. See [[create-an-on-call-schedule]].
- **Suppressions** mute alerts during planned maintenance. See [[create-a-suppression-window]].
- **Recipes** are starting patterns that prefill all of the above. See [[create-a-critical-alert-recipe]].

## Steps

The fastest way to a working alert is the guided setup.

1. Open **Guided Setup** under **Setup**.
2. Under **1. Recipe**, press the recipe that matches what you are wiring in.
3. Under **2. Source**, pick an existing source or press **Create source**. Copy the address Nova shows; it is shown once.
4. Under **3. Recipient routing**, choose **Direct recipient** or **On-call schedule**, then pick or create the destination.
5. Under **4. Template** and **5. Rule**, pick or create each one.
6. Under **6. Test**, press **Trigger test signal** and confirm the right person is contacted.
7. Publish the drafts you created. See [[publish-a-critical-alert-draft]].

Every step in detail: [[create-a-critical-alert-with-guided-setup]].

## What you see

The dashboard shows five counts: **Recipes**, **Sources**, **Rules**, **Open Incidents**, and **Signals / 7d** (signals seen in the last 7 days). The live lists sit right under **Dashboard** in the sidebar: **Incidents**, **Signals**, **Failures** and **Analytics**. **Run Now** and **Audit** are in the **Setup** group.

## If something looks different

- Every count on the dashboard is zero: nothing is set up yet. Start with the guided setup.
- **Open Incidents** keeps climbing: someone needs to resolve them. Acknowledging does not close an incident unless the rule says so.
- An alert never rang anyone: check **Failures** for a delivery that failed, then see [[retry-a-failed-alert-delivery]].

[[route:/critical-alerts/create|Open the guided setup]]