# Creating alerts
****
This documentation topic discusses legacy alerting in Grafana. Legacy alerting is removed in Amazon Managed Grafana version 12. You must migrate to Grafana alerting before upgrading to v12. For more information, see one of the following topics.
For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 10.x, see [Alerts in Grafana version 10](v10-alerts.md).
For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 9.x, see [Alerts in Grafana version 9](v9-alerts.md).
For Grafana workspaces that support Grafana version 8.x, see [Grafana alerting](alerts-overview.md).
When you use Amazon Managed Grafana alerting, you can attach rules to your dashboard panels. When you save the dashboard, Amazon Managed Grafana extracts the alert rules into a separate alert rule storage and schedules them for evaluation.
On the **Alert** tab of the graph panel, you can configure how often the alert rule should be evaluated and the conditions that must be met for the alert to change state and initiate its notifications.
Currently, only the graph panel supports alert rules.
## Adding or editing an alert rule
1. Navigate to the panel where add or edit an alert rule, choose the title, and then choose **Edit**.
1. On the **Alert** tab, choose **Create Alert**. If an alert already exists for this panel, you can edit the fields on the **Alert** tab.
1. Fill out the fields. For more information, see [Alert rule fields](#old-alert-rule-fields).
1. When you have finished writing your rule, choose **Save** in the upper right corner to save the alert rule and the dashboard.
1. (Optional but recommended) To make sure that the rule returns the results you expect, choose **Test rule**.
## Deleting an alert rule
To delete an alert, scroll to the bottom of the alert, and then choose **Delete**.
## Alert rule fields
This section describes the fields that you fill out to create an alert.
### Rule
+ **Name** – Enter a descriptive name. The name will be displayed in the **Alert Rules** list.
+ **Evaluate every** – Specify how often the scheduler should evaluate the alert rule. This is referred to as the *evaluation interval*.
+ **For** – Specify how long the query must violate the configured thresholds before the alert notification triggers.
**Warning**
Do not use `For` with the `If no data or all values are null` setting set to `No Data`. The triggering of `No Data` will trigger instantly and not take `For` into consideration. This can also result in an OK notification not being sent if alert transitions from `No Data -> Pending -> OK`.
If an alert rule has a configured `For` and the query violates the configured threshold, it will first go from `OK` to `Pending`. Going from `OK` to `Pending`, Amazon Managed Grafana does not send any notifications. When the alert rule has been firing for more than the `For` duration, it will change to `Alerting` and send alert notifications.
Typically, we recommend using this setting because it’s often worse to get false positive than to wait a few minutes before the alert notification initiates. Looking at the `Alert list` or `Alert list panels`, you will be able to see alerts that are in the pending state.
### Conditions
Currently, the only existing condition type is a `Query` condition that allows you to specify a query letter, a time range, and an aggregation function.
#### Query condition example
```
avg() OF query(A, 15m, now) IS BELOW 14
```
+ `avg()` Controls how the values for **each** series should be reduced to a value that can be compared against the threshold. Choose the function to change it to another aggregation function.
+ `query(A, 15m, now)` The letter defines what query to run from the **Metrics** tab. The second two parameters define the time range: `15m, now` means 15 minutes ago to now. You can also use `10m, now-2m` to define a time range that will be 10 minutes ago to 2 minutes ago. This is useful if you want to ignore the last 2 minutes of data.
+ `IS BELOW 14` Defines the type of threshold and the threshold value. You can choose `IS BELOW` to change the type of threshold.
The query used in an alert rule cannot contain any template variables. Currently, we support only `AND` and `OR` operators between conditions, and they are run serially. For example, we have three conditions in the following order: *condition:A(evaluates to: TRUE) OR condition:B(evaluates to: FALSE) AND condition:C(evaluates to: TRUE)* so the result will be calculated as ((TRUE OR FALSE) AND TRUE) = TRUE.
#### Multiple series
If a query returns multiple series, the aggregation function and threshold check will be evaluated for each series. Currently, Amazon Managed Grafana does not track the alert rule state **per series**. The implications of this are detailed in the following scenario.
+ An alert condition with query that returns two series: **server1** and **server2**.
+ The **server1** series causes the alert rule to fire and switch to state `Alerting`.
+ Notifications are sent out with message: *load peaking (server1)*
+ In a subsequent evaluation of the same alert rule, the **server2** series also causes the alert rule to fire.
+ No new notifications are sent because the alert rule is already in state `Alerting`.
As you can see from the previous scenario, if the rule already is in state `Alerting`, Grafana doesn't send out notifications when other series cause the alert to fire.
**Note**
You can configure reminders to be sent for triggered alerts. This will send additional notifications when an alert continues to fire. If other series (such as server2 in the previous example) also cause the alert rule to fire, they are included in the reminder notification. Depending on which notification channel you’re using, you might be able to take advantage of this feature for identifying new or existing series that are causing alerts to fire.
### No data and error handling
The following table contains conditions for controlling how the rule evaluation engine handles queries that return no data or only null values.
| No Data Option | Description |
| --- | --- |
| No Data | Set alert rule state to NoData. |
| Alerting | Set alert rule state to Alerting. |
| Keep Last State | Keep the current alert rule state, whatever it is. |
| Ok | Supported, but usually not useful. |
### Execution errors or timeouts
The following options tell Amazon Managed Grafana how to handle execution or timeout errors.
| Error or timeout option | Description |
| --- | --- |
| Alerting | Set alert rule state to Alerting. |
| Keep Last State | Keep the current alert rule state, whatever it is. |
If you have an unreliable time series store from which queries sometimes time out or fail randomly, you can set this option to `Keep Last State` to basically ignore them.
## Notifications
On **Alert** tab, you can also specify alert rule notifications and a detailed message about the alert rule. The message can contain anything: information about how you might solve the issue, link to runbook, and so on.
The actual notifications are configured and shared between multiple alerts. For information on how to configure and set up notifications, see [Alert notifications](old-alert-notifications.md).
+ **Send to** – Select an alert notification channel if you have one set up.
+ **Message** – Enter a text message to be sent on the notification channel. Some alert notifiers support transforming the text to HTML or other rich formats.
+ **Tags** – Specify a list of tags (key-value) to be included in the notification. It is supported by only some notifiers.
## Alert state history and annotations
Alert state changes are recorded in the internal annotation table in the Amazon Managed Grafana database. The state changes are visualized as annotations in the graph panel of the alert rulel. You can also go into the `State history` submenu on the **Alert** tab to view and clear state history.