Configuring Channels in Alert

Before configuring the Azure Boards channel in Alert you must do the following:

1. Ensure that the ALERT_HOSTNAME environment variable is set to the hostname of the system where Alert is installed. This is required when the OAuth handshake redirects to the Alert Server.

   • For Docker Swarm, add ALERT_HOSTNAME as an environment variable within docker-compose.local-overrides.yml
   • For Helm, update the hostname variable within values.yml

2. Follow the instructions to create a client application in Azure

   • Assign the following scopes to the application:
     • Project and team (read)
     • Work items (full)
   • Assign the redirect URL for Alert replacing the variables for hostname and port: -https://<ALERT_HOSTNAME>:<ALERT_SERVER_PORT>/alert/api/callbacks/oauth/azure. For authentication to succeed, this must match the location where Alert is hosted.

• Copy the Client ID and Client Secret from the Azure Boards instance to use when configuring the Alert channel.

To configure the Azure Boards channel in Alert:

1. Navigate to Channels > Azure Boards and provide the following values:

   Field	Description
   Name	The name of this Azure board.
   Organization Name	The name of the Azure DevOps organization.
   App ID	The Client ID generated when registering the application.
   Client Secret	The Client Secret generated when registering the application.
   Microsoft OAuth	Authenticate to Microsoft and retrieve token.

2. Click Authenticate & Save. This will redirect you to Microsoft's OAuth login which starts the process of allowing access to the application created in Azure and fetching the OAuth tokens.

• When you click Authenticate the configuration is saved and you are redirected to the Azure login page if not already logged in.
• When you're logged in with your Azure credentials you may be asked to allow access to the client application.
• When you allow the client application access Azure redirects to Alert via the redirect URL and Alert starts acquiring the OAuth tokens.
• You are redirected to the Alert user interface when Alert has the OAuth tokens.

1. To test the configuration, click Test Configuration

2. Click Save.

Figure 1. Azure boards configuration.

To configure email:

1. Navigate to Channels > Email and populate the following fields

   Field	Description	Notes
   SMTP Host	The hostname of the SMTP server
   SMTP From	The email address to use in the FROM field
   SMTP Auth	Select Select this checkbox if your SMTP server requires authentication; then complete the SMTP User and SMTP Password fields
   SMTP User	The username to authenticate with the SMTP server
   SMTP Password	The password to authenticate with the SMTP server
   Additional Email Properties	Mapping of additional javamail properties that can be used to appropriately configure your email connection.	For acceptable values see here

2. Click Test Configuration to open a Test Your Configuration dialog box, containing an email address field for a test email.

3. In the Email Address field enter an email address to send a test message.

4. Click Send Test Message.

5. Verify the test message was received.

6. Click Save.

To delete the current configuration click the Delete button.

Figure 2. Email Configuration.

If a project is new it usually does not have any users assigned to it. When projects are deleted the email addresses associated with the project are also deleted leaving no users to notify. This can mean that project and project version notification types do not work well for the email channel.

When projects are deleted, you may receive an email stating that a project has been removed even if you are not a member of that project. This may occur if a distribution job has multiple projects associated with the job and you are a member of one of those projects.

The Slack and MS Teams channels work well for Project and Project Version notification types because they can send these updates without any issues related to projects without users. These notification types are also used in the Jira Cloud and Jira Server channel; when you configure a Distribution Job in Alert for the Jira Cloud and Jira Server channels, the Project and Project Version deletions are used to help determine which Jira issues to resolve.

To Configure Jira Cloud:

1. Navigate to Channels > Jira Cloud, and provide the following values:

   Field	Description	Notes
   URL	The URL of the Jira Cloud instance
   Email Address	The email address of the Jira Cloud User	This MUST be a Jira Admin user, unless the Disable Plugin Check checkbox is selected
   API Token	The API token associated with the email address	To learn more about generating a Jira Cloud token, refer to Atlassian API tokens.
   Timeout	The timeout, in seconds, for communicating with the Jira Cloud instance	Defaults to a 300 second timeout
   Disable plugin check	Select this option to disable checking whether the Alert Issue Property Indexer plugin is installed on the Jira instance	If selected, you must ensure the plugin is installed manually, otherwise issues won't be updated properly
   Configure Jira Cloud Plugin	Installs the Alert Issue Property Indexer plugin on your Jira Cloud server

2. Click Test Configuration to validate your configuration.

3. Click Save.

To delete the current configuration click the Delete button.

Figure 3. Jira Cloud Configuration.

There is no global configuration for MS Teams.

1. Navigate to Jobs > Distribution and select MS Teams for the Channel Type in a new distribution job where you configure a Webhook to post messages from Alert.

2. To generate a MS Teams Webhook, follow the instructions for Setting up a custom incoming webhook.

There is no global configuration for Slack

1. Navigate to Jobs > Distribution and select Slack for the Channel Type in a new distribution job where you can configure a Webhook to post messages from Alert.

2. To generate a Slack Webhook, follow the instructions for Setting up a custom incoming webhook