Catchpoint provides an extremely flexible Alert system which allows you to define events that Catchpoint will notify you about and log during testing.
You can configure alerts specifically for individual tests, and/or you can configure them at the Product or Folder level and take advantage of Inheritance to share Alert settings among multiple tests.
Creating Alerts
- At the Product level, deselect the "None" check box in the Alerts section or, at the Folder or Test level, deselect the "Inherit" option in the Alerts section.
- Override ignores the parent-level alerts and uses only the alerts set up at the current level (this Folder or Test.)
- Inherit & Add retains parent-level alerts in addition to alerts set up at the current level. (See Multiple Alerts Logic below to learn more)
- Configure Alert Delivery
- Input one or more alert recipient(s) in the Recipients field. You can enter up to 20 Contacts, Contact Groups, and/or email addresses.
- As you type, the field will automatically display any Contacts/Contact Groups matching your input. Select the desired Contact or Group.
- To enter an email address, simply input the entire address in the field.
- In the Subject field, enter a subject for the email notification. You can enter up to 255 characters using a combination of literal text and macros. See Alert Email Macros for more information.
- Input one or more alert recipient(s) in the Recipients field. You can enter up to 20 Contacts, Contact Groups, and/or email addresses.
- In addition to email recipients, it is possible to send Alerts to an API Endpoint (Webhook). API Endpoints must first be configured in Settings > Webhooks. Once set up, you will see an API Endpoint field here which you enables you to select a destination Webhook.
- Click Add Alert, which launches the Alert Configuration Blade.
- Select an Alert Type
- Configure the Alert Trigger. These settings define what is being checked to determine whether an alert should be sent. Different Alert Types have different triggering options (see table below).
- Configure Conditions. These settings determine how many Test Runs or Nodes must experience the triggering state before an Alert is actually sent. The options include:
- # (Number) or % (Percentage) of runs that breach the Alert Trigger within the Time Threshold
- # (Number) or % (Percentage) of nodes that breach the Alert Trigger within the Time Threshold
- Average across nodes that breach the Alert Trigger within the Time Threshold
- # of Nodes failing. This is an optional field which adds the following logic to the Alert: the average availability across nodes must meet the trigger AND the specified number of nodes must have recorded failures.
- When finished, click Complete to save this alert configuration.
- If desired, repeat steps 5-8 to configure additonal alerts. See the following section to understand the logic applied when multiple alerts are configured for a test.
Multiple Alerts Logic
It is possible to have multiple alert configurations applied to a given test. You can do this by adding multiple alert configurations at the same level, and/or you may enable Inherit & Add, in which case alerts inherited from parent containers will be applied to the test in addition to alerts configured at the test level. In either case, each alert is evaluated and triggered independently, based solely on the criteria configured within that alert. The system does not use the triggering logic of one alert to override or cancel another alert, regardless of the level where each alert is configured.
For example, if you have configured an alert at the test level which triggers if Test Time exceeds 5000ms, and this test also inherits an alert from its parent container which is triggered when Test Time exceeds 4000ms, then a test which exceeds 5000ms will trigger both alerts. The system does not take into account the fact that the two configurations will result in redundant alerts in some cases.
Alert Triggers
The table below lists types of alert triggers that you can configure. Not all trigger types apply to all test types, and not all trigger types can be configured at the container (Product/Folder) level.
Trigger Type | Description |
|---|---|
ASN | |
| Origin AS | Trigger an alert based on the value of the ASN that originated a BGP route |
| Path AS | Trigger an alert based on the values of any/all ASNs included in a BGP Route. |
| Origin Neighbor | Trigger an alert based on the value of the ASN that immediately follows the origin in a BGP route. |
| Prefix Mismatch | Trigger an alert if a prefix mismatch is detected in a BGP route. |
Availability | |
| % Downtime | Trigger an alert if the monitored system is found to be down (unreachable) on or above a threshold pecrentage of test runs. |
| Test | Trigger an alert if an individual test's overall performance falls outside specified thresholds |
| Content | Trigger an alert if the content-loading time for an individual test exceeds specified thresholds |
Byte Length | |
| File Size | Trigger an alert if the size of an individual file loaded as part of a test falls outside specified thresholds |
| Page | Trigger an alert if the overall size of an individual page loaded as part of a test falls outside specified thresholds |
| Test URL | Trigger an alert if the overall size of all content loaded for the test URL falls outside specified thresholds |
Content Match | |
| Compare to File | Trigger an alert based on comparison of content loaded in test to content of a specified file. |
| Compare to Previous | Trigger an alert based on comparison of content loaded in a test to content loaded previously by the same test. |
| Regular Expression | Trigger an alert based on presence/absence of a match to a specified Regular Expression in loaded content. |
| Response Code | Trigger an alert based on value of the HTTP response code provided by the destination server. |
| Response Headers | Trigger an alert based on values of the HTTP response headers provided by the destination server. |
DNS | |
| DNS General | Trigger an alert based on the value of a DNS lookup's result. |
| DNS Answer | Trigger an alert based on the values of a DNS answer. |
| DNS Authority | Trigger an alert based on the DNS Authority that responds to a DNS request. |
| Additional Records | Trigger an alert based on the values of any additional records included in DNS response |
Experience Score | Trigger an alert if a test's Experience Score value falls outside of specified thresholds. |
Host Failure | Trigger an alert if Host failures occur in excess of specified thresholds |
IP Address | |
| Test URL | Trigger an alert based on the value of the IP address resolved for the primary test URL. |
| Child URLs | Trigger an alert based on the values of the IP addresses resolved for any Child URLs. |
| Any URLs | Trigger an alert based on the values of the IP addresses resolved for the primary Test URL and any Child URLs. |
Insight | |
| Indicators | Trigger an alert based on the results of any configured Indicators |
| Tracepoints | Trigger an alert based on the results of any configured Tracepoints |
Javascript Failure | Trigger an alert based on the number of Javascript failures that occur. |
| # Cities | Trigger an alert based on the number of cities traversed by the network path. |
Path | |
| # ASNs | Trigger an alert based on the number of Autonomous Systems traversed by the network path. |
| # Countries | Trigger an alert based on the number of countries traversed by the network path. |
| # Hops | Trigger an alert based on the number of hops in the network path. |
Ping | |
| Ping Packet Loss | Trigger an alert if Ping Packet Loss falls outside of specified thresholds |
| Ping RTT | Trigger an alert if Ping RTT (rounf trip time) falls outside of specified thresholds |
Requests | |
| Trigger an alert if the number of requests for the selected item type falls outside specified thresholds |
Test Failure | Trigger an alert if test failure occurs beyond the specified thresholds. |
Timing | |
| Trigger an alert if the selected timing-related metric value falls outside specified thresholds or experience a trend shift beyond specified thresholds. |
Zone | |
| Trigger an alert if the value of the selected metric falls outside specified threshold for hosts within the selected Zone |
| Self Downloaded Bytes | Trigger an alert if the nuber of downloaded bytes for hosts within the "Self" Zone falls outside specified thresholds |
| % Self Bottleneck | Trigger an alert if the percetnage of time that the "Self" zone is the bottleneck exceeds specified thresholds. |
| # Third Party Bottleneck | Trigger an alert based on the number of requests for which hosts in third party zones are a bottleneck. |
Alert Triggers for Multistep Tests
For script-based tests that support multiple steps (Playwright, Puppeteer, API, etc.), you can configure some alert types to be triggered based on a specific step, rather than evaluating the performance of the test overall. If available, you will see a Step dropdown in the Trigger section of the alert properties, with the following options:
- All - trigger the alert based on the performance of the test overall (all steps combined).
- Index - trigger the alert based on the performance of a specific step, identified by its numerical index.
- Name - trigger the alert based on the performance of a specific step, identified by its name (as defined using the
setStepName()command in the script). - Root IP - trigger the alert based on the performance of a specific step, identified by the IP address for the domain of the URL loaded on that step. If multiple steps in a test load URLs with the same root IP, each matching step will be checked until one is found to trigger the alert (if any), and then no further steps will be checked.
- Last - trigger the alert based on the performance of the last step in the test.
There is not currently a way to specify multiple steps to check for the alert condition within a single alert configuration. For example, if you want to trigger an alert if step 1, OR step 2, OR step 3 violates the condition, you must configure three different alerts, each specifying one of the steps. This capability is under consideration for future versions.