A Closer Look at AlertBot’s Email Reports

At AlertBot, we know our customers don’t want too much data about their websites and tasks. Instead, they want clear, organized, and reliable intelligence that tells them: what happened recently, what’s happening now, what’s likely to happen in the near future — and what they can do about it. That’s where email reports enter the story.

Here are the five sections in AlertBot’s email reports: Availability, Performance, Common Errors, Failure Events, and Confirmed Failures.

Availability

The Availability section of the email report displays the overall uptime of the websites that you are testing. Additionally, it is color coded.

• Green indicates that everything is working perfectly (or nearly perfectly).
• Yellow indicates that there may be some minor concerns.
• Red indicates significant concerns that should be addressed.

Performance

The performance section of the email report provides details for the websites that you are testing. It displays a breakdown (measured in seconds) of each process, along with individual web pages that are associated with that process.

This is useful for daily website monitoring and studying long-term patterns to ensure their functionality. It helps in checking the performance of websites on a regular basis and analyzing trends over time. This is important to ensure that websites are functioning properly and meeting their objectives.

Common Errors

The email report’s common errors section shows all failures and transition errors that happened within a certain time. The list includes confirmed events, as well as those that are intermittent. Use this information to check for problems with websites or processes, or issues that need more investigating and analyzing.

Failure Events

Here, you will find a list of all confirmed failures (as indicated in the Common Errors section) for each hour in the past week. The failure events are also color coded:

• Red indicates significant areas of concern.
• Yellow indicates minor areas of concern (some confirmed failures).
• Green indicates no areas of concern.

Confirmed Failures

Finally, the confirmed failures section of the email report logs all problem areas. Notably, these have all been confirmed from a secondary location — i.e., they are actual failure events and not false positives.

With this in mind, there can be scenarios where confirmed failure events do not necessarily indicate a problem. For example, you may see that over the past week a website failed 10 times at 1:00am. However, after digging deeper you may discover that this is happening due to maintenance. If so, then you can simply set up a maintenance window.

The Final Word

In the 1990s flick Apollo 13, the big brains at NASA said that “failure is not an option.” Unfortunately, down here on earth, sometimes things in general — and websites and their related processes specifically — don’t work as expected.

Fortunately, that’s where AlertBot’s detailed, yet clear and focused, email reports make a transformative difference. It’s not just raw information. It’s actionable intelligence!

But what sets AlertBot apart is not just the information it provides, but how it presents it. Our reports are clear, concise, and focused, ensuring that you can quickly grasp the key insights without getting lost in a sea of technical jargon. We understand that not everyone is a tech expert, and that’s why we’ve made our reports accessible to all.

So why wait? Take control of your online presence and ensure that your website is running smoothly. Don’t let website issues hold you back – let AlertBot be your trusted companion in the digital realm.

Getting started with AlertBot is a breeze. With our free trial, you can experience the power of our email reports without any commitment. No need to download or install anything, and rest assured, we won’t ask for any billing information. In just a matter of minutes, you’ll be fully set up and ready to uncover the hidden potential of your website: click here.

A Closer Look at AlertBot’s Alert Group Feature

If we start by sharing that AlertBot’s alert group feature lets you, well, alert certain groups, then you might wonder what earth-shattering revelations we have in store — such as water is wet, fire is hot, and the pain of Game of Throne’s final season will never, ever go away (seriously, whatever happened to Gendry?!).

Yes, you’re right: the alert group feature IS about alerting groups of people about a site failure — but as George R.R. Martin would say: there is much more to the story! Here’s a rundown of some interesting details that you may not be aware of:

Notes

When you set up an alert group, you can add notes if you feel that it would benefit your team. For example, you can let your Web Team know who the communication point person during a failure event should be or if it should include several people from the team, provide updates about vacation schedules, and anything else that you deem relevant.

Notification Order

You can choose when members of an alert group are notified of a site failure, from immediately all the way up to 48 hours later. For example, your Web Team can be alerted right away during a site failure event, and your CTO can be alerted 1 hour later into a site failure event and so on (if the problem persists). You can choose the frequency of alerting and how many times individuals or a group of people can be alerted during downtime events on your site.

Contact Method

You can also choose which email address will be contacted, based on the notification order. For example, an immediate alert can be sent to [email protected] and other teams/emails if selected, and then an hour later another alert can be sent to [email protected] and so on until the site is back up and running.

Monitors

What happens if you’re doing some testing or updating, and you don’t want failure events across all site monitors to trigger an alert (and maybe spark some anxiety)? No problem: you can choose which specific monitors are associated with an alert group.

But don’t worry: if you have a whole bunch of monitors and want to include them all, then you don’t have to manually add each one to an alert group. Simply select “All monitors in the account” and you’re good to go!

Do You Have 30 Seconds?

We’ve saved the best part for last: setting up a new alert group doesn’t take hours, or even minutes — it takes seconds. Simply choose the options you need, and you’re all set. And changing an alert group’s settings is just as fast (maybe even faster).

Try AlertBot Now

Reading is fun. But experiencing is better (unless you happen to be reading Game of Thrones and are perfectly happy learning about White Walkers vs. hanging out with them). Put AlertBot to the test by launching your free trial today. Play around with alert groups, along with many other features and functions.

 There is nothing to download or install, no billing information is required, and you will be 100% setup in minutes. Get started now: click here.

Why Your Website Monitoring Solution Needs a Do-Not-Disturb Feature

It is so low-tech that Gen Z’ers and other digital natives may faint (or perhaps the avatar in a VR game that they are playing may faint) to learn that one of the greatest inventions in the history of our species is the humble do-not-disturb sign. Indeed, this magical placard is like having a very own private Gandalf shouting: YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

However, the glory of do-not-disturb is not limited to hotels, motels, and teenagers’ bedrooms. It is also a must-have feature in website monitoring solutions.

Why is a Do-Not-Disturb Feature So Important?

It does not take a Jeopardy! champion to know that do-not-disturb means (…wait for it…) “do-not-disturb” — which seems like the very last thing that organizations would want if there are site performance issues. On the contrary, the alarm bells via SMS, email and/or phone call should ring loud and clear. Or…maybe not.

In some cases, it makes perfect sense to pull individuals or teams off the notification list. For example:

• An individual such as a CTO or SysAdmin is on leave (vacation, illness, personal, etc.).
• A site is being tested, migrated or updated, and as such it will go offline for a specific and predictable period of time.
• Per policy, certain individuals/teams do not get alerted to website performance issues during specific times (e.g. after hours, weekends, holidays, etc.).

What to Look For

A do-not-disturb feature is essential. But this does not mean that all website monitoring solutions that claim to offer this are in the same class. Here is what to look for:

• An extremely easy-to-use dashboard. Advanced technology is dizzyingly complex. But if you need a PhD in computer science and a wall full of industry certificates to use the do-not-disturb feature, then keep looking. Easy does it.
• The ability to create as few or as many do-not-disturb events as required, and to see all of them at-a-glance through the extremely easy-to-use dashboard.
• The option to add notes so that everyone understands why a do-not-disturb schedule was created. For example: “we are migrating to new site on 2/15 and as a result the site will be down from 12:00am to 4:00am”.
• The option to select individuals or teams who will not get notified.
• The option to schedule the do-not-disturb as a one-time or ongoing event.
• The option to select what sites the do-not-disturb applies to. For example: the Dev Team will not be alerted to uptime issues for, say, the “ACME Anti-Roadrunner Anvils” site from 12:00am to 5:00am on 2/15, but they will be alerted to performance issues for all other sites that are being monitored.

The Bottom Line

 Without a versatile do-not-disturb feature, members of your organization will be very disturbed — because at certain times, they will be alerted to website performance issues that they cannot and should not do anything about. This is a waste of time and resources, and can trigger confusion and chaos (and, let’s face it, it’s not great for blood pressure levels, either).

AlertBot’s website monitoring solution has a built-in do-not-disturb feature that checks ALL of the boxes described above. Learn more with a free trial. There is nothing to download and install, no billing information required, and you will be 100% setup in minutes. Get started now: click here.

The year was 1995. Michael Jordan returned to the NBA. Amazon sold its first book. Windows 95 unleashed the era of taskbars, long filenames, and the recycle bin. And when people weren???t dancing the Macarena, they were flocking to see Apollo 13 and hear Tom Hanks utter the phrase that would launch millions of (mostly annoying) impersonations: ???Houston, we have a problem.???

Thankfully, the eggheads in space and the eggheads on the ground worked tirelessly (and apparently smoked a whole lot of cigarettes) to get the crew home. But it was the pivotal moment when the failure was first reported that triggered the spectacular problem-solving process. If it happened an hour ??? or maybe even a few minutes ??? later, then the outcome could have been tragic instead of triumphant.

Admittedly, the brave, intrepid professionals in charge of keeping their organization???s website online and functional DON???T have to deal with life-and-death scenarios. But they DO need to deal with problems that, if left unsolved, will significantly damage competitive advantage, brand reputation and sales (immediately if we???re talking e-commerce, and eventually if we aren???t). And that???s where AlertBot???s failure alerting feature enters the picture.

What is Failure Alerting?

Failure alerting is when designated individuals ??? such as a SysAdmin, CTO, CIO, CEO, and so on ??? are proactively notified when something goes wrong with a website, such as downtime, errors, slowness, or unresponsive behavior.

As a result, just like in Apollo 13, the right people can take swift, intelligent action to fix things before visitors/customers sound the alarm bell, or worse, head out the (virtual) door and go straight to a competitor without looking back.

Notification Methods

AlertBot customers can choose any or all of the following methods to notify team members of a website failure event:

• Email
• Text Message
• Phone Call

For example, a SysAdmin could receive an email, a text message, and a phone call the moment something goes wrong.

Automatic Escalation

Now, if we were in NASA Mission Control circa 1970, someone wearing really thick horned-rimmed glasses would rise above the cigarette smoke and ask: What happens if the SysAdmin doesn???t receive the email, text message, and phone call? It???s a good question, and there is an even better answer: don???t worry about it.

AlertBot???s failure reporting feature can be configured to escalate the website failure warning if certain individuals don???t respond within a specific timeframe. For example, if a SysAdmin is indisposed for any reason (driving, sleeping, etc.), then after two minutes the alert can be pushed to another designated team member such as the CTO. And if the CTO doesn???t respond within two minutes, then the alert can be pushed to the CIO, and so on.

Ideally, the individual (or multiple individuals) who are sent the first alert receive it immediately, and take rapid action. But if they don???t or can???t, then the alert is escalated accordingly. It is important to note that all of this happens automatically, so there is no possibility of human error.

Granted, none of this is as entertaining as watching Apollo 13. There???s no rousing soundtrack or Tom Hanks. Heck, there???s not even Kevin Bacon.

But when it comes to fixing website problems as quickly as possible, organizations know that the less drama, the better. That???s precisely what AlertBot???s multi-channel, auto-escalating failure reporting feature delivers. We don???t need an Oscar. We just need extremely satisfied customers ??? and we have a lot of those.

Next Up: Reviewing Failure Events Online

??In our next blog, we???ll explore reviewing failure events online to pinpoint issues and detect problems. Stay tuned!

Launch a free trial??of AlertBot???s acclaimed site uptime monitoring solution. No credit card. Nothing to download. Get started in minutes. And if you decide to purchase our solution, there are NO setup fees!

4 Essential Failure Analysis Reports for Monitoring Website Performance & Uptime

by Louis Kingston

It would be nice if the same commandment held for websites. However, even an infinity of buzz cuts cannot change the fact that, alas, sometimes websites fail. And so, the question then becomes: how do you minimize the likelihood, duration and severity of website failure?

The answer probably isn’t enough to inspire a movie. But it’s more than enough to help businesses detect and remedy underlying problems with their website before they become full-blown catastrophes: use failure analysis reports.

There are four types of failure analysis reports that every business should be generating on a regular basis: Waterfall Reports, Web Page Failure Reports, Downtime Tracking, and Failure Events.

• Waterfall Reports

Waterfall Reports enable businesses to analyze the performance of every object that loads on their web pages (e.g. scripts, stylesheets, images, etc.), in order to identify common sources of bottlenecks, errors and failures. Waterfall Reports also display HTTP response headers, which help track down the source of slowdowns and breakdowns.

• Web Page Failure Reports

Many business websites have dozens of pages, and e-commerce websites can easily have more than 50, 100, or even 1000. Manually hunting for problems can be tedious and futile. That’s where Web Page Failure Reports come to the rescue. They often contain a screenshot of data a page might display during a failure event log. This information can then be used to fix issues before they trigger visitor/ customer rage.

• Downtime Tracking

No, Downtime Tracking isn’t the name of one of those bands that never smile when they sing. Rather, it’s a type of report that contains statistics on website and server downtime. Understanding the size, scope and source of downtime issues is critical to resolving them.  

• Failure Event Logs

Knowing that a web page — or element(s) within a web page — are failing is important, but it’s not the full story. Failure Event Logs fill in the gaps by providing detailed information about what tests were performed, the geographical locations affected, and the errors identified.

The Bottom Line

Are failure analysis reports as gripping and captivating as Apollo 13? No. Are they vital to website performance and business success? Yes. Because while website failure is unfortunately an occasional option, it absolutely cannot become a regular habit.

At AlertBot, we provide our customers with all of these failure analysis reports (and more) so they can get ahead of problems and avoid catastrophes. Start a free trial today.

Louis is a writer, author, and avid film fan. He has been writing professionally for tech blogs and local organizations for over a decade. Louis currently resides in Allentown, PA, with his wife and German Shepherd Einstein, where he writes articles for InfoGenius, Inc, and overthinks the mythos of his favorite fandoms.