> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.ilert.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.ilert.com/alerting/configure-alerting.md).

# Configure alerting

Connect your tools, decide which events deserve a page, and control when and how responders are notified.

Configuring alerting is mostly a question of noise. Every tool you connect can page someone; the settings in this section decide which signals are worth waking a person for, and which should be grouped, downgraded, or dropped.

Start with an alert source. Everything else is optional refinement.

## Where each setting belongs

Most alerting behavior is configured on the **alert source** itself — filtering, grouping, templates, priority, and which escalation policy to use. Reach for the other objects when the alert source alone cannot express what you need.

| Reach for                 | When                                                                                                       | Plan                                                                                                                   |
| ------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Alert sources**         | Always. This is where events arrive and where most noise is controlled.                                    | Free, though [several settings on it are gated](/alerting/configure-alerting/alert-sources.md#what-your-plan-includes) |
| **Support hours**         | Off-hours pages should be quieter, but not silent.                                                         | Scale                                                                                                                  |
| **Maintenance windows**   | Planned work will generate alerts nobody needs to see.                                                     | Free                                                                                                                   |
| **Event flows**           | Routing depends on conditions, needs a delay, or needs the payload transformed before it reaches a source. | Scale, in beta                                                                                                         |
| **Notification settings** | You are changing how *you* are reached, rather than what gets alerted.                                     | Free                                                                                                                   |

{% hint style="warning" %}
**Support hours downgrade, they do not suppress.**

Outside the hours you define, ilert creates `LOW` priority alerts rather than withholding them. A `LOW` alert uses only the **first** escalation rule and never advances past it. Real silence lives in each responder's notification rules, or in an event flow branch that drops the event.
{% endhint %}

## In this section

<table data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>Alert sources</strong></td><td>Connect a tool, then control filtering, grouping, templates, and priority.</td><td><a href="/alerting/configure-alerting/alert-sources.md">Alert sources</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Support hours</strong></td><td>Downgrade alerts raised outside the hours your team covers.</td><td><a href="/alerting/configure-alerting/support-hours.md">Support hours</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Maintenance windows</strong></td><td>Suppress alerting for planned work, on specific sources and services.</td><td><a href="/alerting/configure-alerting/maintenance-windows.md">Maintenance windows</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Notification settings</strong></td><td>Per-user channels and rules: what reaches you, on which device, and when.</td><td><a href="/alerting/configure-alerting/notification-settings.md">Notification settings</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>Event flows</strong></td><td>A routing layer above alert sources, for conditions, delays, and transforms.</td><td><a href="/alerting/configure-alerting/event-flows.md">Event flows</a></td></tr></tbody></table>


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