Setting up Alerting

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  • Published on Feb 15, 2026
  • 6 minute(s) read
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Setting Up Alerts

Alerts are one of the most powerful tools in WISdom. Instead of manually checking dashboards to spot problems, alerts do the watching for you — notifying the right people the moment a condition worth investigating is detected in your database environment. Whether it's a sudden spike in CPU usage, a blocking issue, or a storage threshold being crossed, WISdom can route that notification exactly where it needs to go.

This guide walks you through the steps required to get alerting up and running.

Before you begin: You must have Administrator access to the Admin Console to complete these steps.

Overview

Setting up alerts in WISdom follows a specific order. Each step builds on the one before it:

  1. Configure a Notification Channel — tell WISdom where to send alerts (email, text, Slack/Teams, or a ticketing system).
  2. Create a Profile — define a named group of alert settings that can be applied to one or more resources.
  3. Assign Resources — choose which database instances this Profile will monitor.
  4. Assign Alert Types — select which alerts to enable and set their severity and tolerance thresholds.
  5. Assign Notification Channels — link your notification channels to alert severities so the right people are notified.

For more in-depth information on any of these steps, refer to Profiles in the User Guide.

Step 1: Configure a Notification Channel

A notification channel is how WISdom delivers alerts. You must have at least one channel configured before you can complete a Profile setup.

WISdom supports the following notification channel types:

  • Email Notification — send alerts directly to an email address or distribution list.
  • SMS/Text Notification — send alerts as text messages to a phone number.
  • Slack / Teams — post alerts to a Slack or Microsoft Teams channel.
  • Ticketing System — automatically create tickets in PagerDuty, ServiceNow, or Zendesk.

Prerequisite — Slack/Teams and Ticketing Systems: Before a Slack, Teams, or ticketing system channel can be used, the corresponding integration must be configured in WISdom first. See Integrations in the User Guide for setup instructions. Email and SMS/Text channels have no prerequisites and can be configured immediately.

To add a notification channel:

  1. Navigate to Admin Console > Monitoring and select the Notification Channels tab.
  2. Click the [+ Channel] button.
  3. Select the notification type from the drop-down menu.
  4. Fill in the required details for the selected channel type (e.g., email address, phone number, or ticketing system credentials).
  5. Give the channel a descriptive name so it's easy to identify later.
  6. Click [Save].

Repeat this process for any additional channels you want to set up. You can configure as many channels as you need.

Tip: Use a descriptive naming convention for your channels — for example, DBA Team Email or Critical Alerts - PagerDuty — so they're easy to identify when building Profiles.

Step 2: Create a Profile

A Profile is the core of WISdom alerting. It bundles together a set of alerts, their thresholds, and the notification channels that receive those alerts. Think of it as a monitoring template you apply to one or more resources.

The New Profile wizard walks you through four steps: Details, Resources, Alerts, and Notifications. You can save your work at any point and return to complete the remaining steps later.

To create a new Profile:

  1. Navigate to Admin Console > Monitoring and select the Profiles tab.
  2. Click the blue [+ Profile] button to open the New Profile wizard.
  3. On the Details step, complete the following fields:
    • Profile Name (required) — enter a name for the Profile.
    • Profile Description — enter an optional description.
    • Time Zone (required) — select the time zone for this Profile.
    • Time Frame (required) — set the hours during which this Profile is active. Defaults to Always Active (00:00 AM – 23:59 PM).
  4. Click [Continue] to proceed to the next step.

Already have a Profile? To modify an existing one, click the edit icon on the Profile row to open it directly in the wizard.

Note: MSP Administrators will see an additional option to create the Profile at the MSP account level, making it available across all child accounts.

Step 3: Assign Resources

With your Profile details saved, the next step is to select which database resources this Profile will monitor.

To assign resources to a Profile:

  1. On the Resources step of the wizard, use the Select Resource drop-down to find and select the resource(s) you want this Profile to monitor.
  2. Selected resources will appear in the table below.
  3. Click [Next] to proceed, or [Save] to save your progress and return later.

You can assign as many resources as needed. If you manage different types of environments — for example, production versus development — consider creating separate Profiles for each to allow for different alert thresholds and notification channels.

Step 4: Assign Alert Types

Now that your Profile has resources assigned, it's time to choose which alerts to enable.

To assign alert types to a Profile:

  1. On the Alerts step of the wizard, use the Select Alert Type drop-down to find and add alerts to the Profile.
  2. Added alerts appear in the table with the following columns:
    • Alert Type — the name of the alert.
    • Severity — the severity level assigned when this alert fires (e.g., Critical, Warning, Information).
    • Tolerance — the threshold value that triggers the alert.
    • Tolerance Formula — the logic used to evaluate whether the threshold has been crossed.
  3. Review and adjust the Severity and Tolerance values for each alert to match your environment's needs.
  4. Click [Next] to proceed, or [Save] to save your progress and return later.

Need escalation workflows? The Basic Mode view covers standard alerting and is the recommended starting point. For more advanced setups — such as multi-level escalation that routes a Warning to email and a Critical to a ticketing system — click Advanced Mode in the top-right corner of the Alerts step. See Profiles in the User Guide for a full walkthrough of Advanced Mode configuration.

Step 5: Assign Notification Channels

The final step is connecting your notification channels to alert severity levels, so WISdom knows who to notify — and when.

To assign notification channels:

  1. On the Notifications step of the wizard, you will see a row for each alert severity level: Critical, Warning, and Information.
  2. For each severity level, configure the following:
    • Notify on Open Events — select the notification channel to alert when a condition of this severity is first detected.
    • Notify on Closed Events — select the notification channel to alert when a condition of this severity has resolved.
  3. Click [Save] to apply your changes and complete the Profile setup.

Tip: You do not have to assign a channel to every severity level. Leave a severity set to Select if you do not want notifications for that level.

You're All Set

Once saved, WISdom will begin evaluating your enabled alerts against the assigned resources and send notifications through your configured channels when conditions are met.

To review alerts that have fired, navigate to Health > Alerts from the main menu.

Related pages:

  • Notification Channels — detailed reference for all notification channel types and settings.
  • Integrations — set up Slack, Teams, and ticketing system integrations before using them as notification channels.
  • Profiles — full documentation for creating and managing Profiles, including Advanced Mode and escalation configuration.
  • Alert Types — browse all available alerts, their descriptions, and default severity levels.
  • Alert Rules — learn how to create exceptions and custom rules for individual alerts.
  • Alerts Details — understand and navigate the Alerts Details screen.