Notification lists specify which notifiers to use when sending monitoring-related notifications. NS1's monitoring solution lets you create monitors to track the up/down status of an endpoint as well as notification lists that indicate where to send monitoring alerts. When that monitor detects that an endpoint is down, it pushes alerts to all the notifiers specified in the attached notification list.
Native NS1 notification services include email, a custom webhook URL, and an NS1 data feed (sending monitoring alerts to an NS1 feed through a connected NS1 monitoring source). Note that NS1 integrates with third-party notification services like NS1 + Slack integration and PagerDuty.
Note
You can configure automatic failover to steer traffic away from "down" or under-performing endpoints automatically as network conditions change. When you configure automatic failover via the NS1 portal, a notification list is auto-generated once you connect a monitor to the answer metadata. In order to automatically update answer metadata, a notification list must include the NS1 data feed. If you are configuring automatic failover via API, you must manually create the notification list.
Follow the instructions below to create a notification list and attach it to a monitoring job (monitor) in the NS1 portal.
Navigate to the Monitors page from the main navigation.
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Click Notification Lists.
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Click Create a notification list.
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Enter a name for the notification list.
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Select an available notifier to add it to the notification list, or click Add a new notifier.
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Select a notifier type from the list.
You can select one of the following notifier types:
NS1 data feed
Email
Complete any additional form fields. The requested information will vary based on the type of notifier you select.
Click Add to list. The new notifier appears under "Selected Notifiers."
Optionally, add any additional notifiers to the notification list by creating another or clicking the plus sign (+) next to the notifiers.
Once complete, click Save list and notifiers.
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Refer to the articles for instructions on how to a new monitor (by monitor type):
Navigate to the Monitors page from the main navigation.
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Locate the monitor to which you want to attach the notification list. Click the menu icon
next to the monitor, and click Edit.
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Click the Notifications tab.
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Adjust the notification settings, as desired:
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Attach a notification list
Select an existing notification list from the drop-down menu. If necessary, you can click Edit Lists to change the list name or selected notifiers. Note that you will need to navigate back to the Notification Settings screen.
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Notify Delay (optional)
Enter the amount of time (in seconds) the system should wait before sending a notification. As a best practice, this value should be higher than the frequency value.
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Notify Repeat (optional)
Enter the amount of time (in seconds) between each notification. If a value is set, NS1 will continue to send you notifications at a frequency determined by the Notify Repeat field until the monitor is back up. If no value is set, NS1 will send you one notification when it detects the monitor is down.
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Notify Fallback (optional)
Select the checkbox to receive a notification when a previously failed monitoring job returns to an “up” status.
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Optionally, check the box next to Notify Regional to receive a notification upon any regional failure.
Click Save Changes.
Now, when a monitor detects that an endpoint (e.g., server, facility) is “down,” it pushes an alert to all notifiers specified in the attached notification list.