# Alert Rules

Alert Rules provide a powerful means to configure who gets notified in various scenarios. These scenarios include targeting specific checks, groups, or apps, and adding the appropriate recipients to be notified during a situation in which those filters are impacted.

- **Min Duration:** This setting delays notification to the recipients by the entered number of minutes required for the incident to be opened.
- **Min Severity:** Some executives might want to be notified of an outage but only if the severity impact goes above a certain level. This is very useful for scoping escalations.

To add recipients to a rule just start typing their name in the Recipients section towards the button of the edit form. An auto-complete list will start populating with contact names. Once one is selected a delivery method can be selected as well as whether or not they should be notified of any escalation changes and/or closed incidents. The delivery methods available depend on the type of contact information configured for your contact. If needed, contacts can be created or edited in Monitoring  >  Contacts.

TIP

A recipient can be in multiple alert rules and can even be configured to be notified via different methods depending on the rule. A useful example might be to alert someone via email for lower severity incidents but SMS for critical severity levels.
