Alerts Configuration and Customization

You can enrich your alerts by adding properties to tests, models and sources in your .yml files. The supported attributes are: owner, subscribers, description, tags.

You can configure and customize your alerts by configuring:

• suppression interval

• alert fields (for test alerts only)

• alert grouping

• alert filters

Alert properties in .yml files

Elementary prioritizes configuration in the following order:

For models / sources:

1. Model config block.

2. Model properties.

3. Model path configuration under models key in dbt_project.yml.

For tests:

1. Test properties.

2. Tests path configuration under tests key in dbt_project.yml.

3. Parent model configuration.

dbt_project.yml

meta:
  owner: "@jessica.jones"
  subscribers: ["@jessica.jones", "@joe.joseph"]
  description: "This is the test description"
  tags: ["#marketing", "#data_ops"]
  channel: data_ops
  alert_suppression_interval: 24
  slack_group_alerts_by: table
  alert_fields: ["description", "owners", "tags", "subscribers", ...]

Alert content

​Owner

Elementary enriches alerts with owners for models or tests).

• If you want the owner to be tagged on slack use '@' and the email prefix of the slack user (@jessica.jones to tag [e-mail]).
• You can configure a single owner or a list of owners (["@jessica.jones", "@joe.joseph"]).

models

models:
  - name: my_model_name
    meta:
      owner: "@jessica.jones"

test

tests:
  - not_null:
    meta:
      owner: ["@jessica.jones", "@joe.joseph"]

test/model config block

{{ config(
    tags=["Tag1","Tag2"]
    meta={
        "description": "This is a description",
        "owner": "@jessica.jones"
    }
) }}

dbt_project.yml

models:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        owner: "@jessica.jones"

tests:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        owner: "@jessica.jones"

Subscribers

If you want additional users besides the owner to be tagged on an alert, add them as subscribers.

• If you want the subscriber to be tagged on slack use '@' and the email prefix of the slack user (@jessica.jones to tag [e-mail]).
• You can configure a single subscriber or a list (["@jessica.jones", "@joe.joseph"]).

model

models:
  - name: my_model_name
    meta:
      subscribers: "@jessica.jones"

test

tests:
  - not_null:
    meta:
      subscribers: ["@jessica.jones", "@joe.joseph"]

test/model config block

{{ config(
    meta={
        "subscribers": "@jessica.jones"
    }
) }}

dbt_project.yml

models:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        subscribers: "@jessica.jones"

tests:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        subscribers: "@jessica.jones"

Test description

Elementary supports configuring description for tests that are included in alerts. It's recommended to add an explanation of what does it mean if this test fails, so alert will include this context.

test

tests:
  - not_null:
    meta:
      description: "This is the test description"

test config block

{{ config(
    tags=["Tag1","Tag2"]
    meta={
        description: "This is the test description"
    }
) }}

dbt_project.yml

tests:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        description: "This is the test description"

Tags

You can use tags to provide context to your alerts.

• You can tag a group or a channel in a slack alert by adding #channel_name as a tag.

• Tags are aggregated,so a test alert will include both the test and the parent model tags.

model

models:
  - name: my_model_name
    tags: ["#marketing", "#data_ops"]

test

tests:
  - not_null:
    tags: ["#marketing", "#data_ops"]

test/model config block

{{ config(
    tags=["#marketing", "#data_ops"]
    }
) }}

dbt_project.yml

models:
  path:
    subfolder:
      tags: ["#marketing", "#data_ops"]

tests:
  path:
    subfolder:
      tags: ["#marketing", "#data_ops"]

Alerts distribution

Elementary allows you to customize alerts to distribute the right information to the right people. This way you can ensure your alerts are valuable and avoid alert fatigue.

Suppression interval

Don’t want to get multiple alerts if the same test keeps failing? You can now configure an alert_suppression_interval, this is a “snooze” period for alerts on the same issue.

The accepted value is in hours, so 1 day snooze is alert_suppression_interval: 24. Elementary won't send new alerts on the same issue that are generated within suppression interval.

Note: if you configure a suppression interval using this method, it will override the value in the global configuration.

model

models:
  - name: my_model_name
    meta:
      alert_suppression_interval: 24

test

tests:
  - not_null:
    meta:
      alert_suppression_interval: 12

test/model config block

{{ config(
    meta={
        "alert_suppression_interval": 24
    }
) }}

dbt_project.yml

models:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        alert_suppression_interval: 24

tests:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        alert_suppression_interval: 48

Group alerts by table

By default, Elementary sends a single alert to notify on each failure with extensive information for fast triage.

Elementary also supports grouping alerts by table. In this case, a single Slack notification will be generated containing all issues associated with this table. The created notification will contain a union of the relevant owners, tags and subscribers.

Due to their nature, grouped alerts will contain less information on each issue.

model

models:
  - name: my_model_name
    meta:
      slack_group_alerts_by: table

test

tests:
  - not_null:
    meta:
      slack_group_alerts_by: table

test/model config block

{{ config(
    meta={
        "slack_group_alerts_by": "table"
    }
) }}

dbt_project.yml

models:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        slack_group_alerts_by: table

tests:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        slack_group_alerts_by: table

Alert fields

Currently this feature is supported only by test alerts!

You can decide which fields to include in the alert, and create a format of alert that fits your use case and recipients. By default, all the fields are included in the alert.

Supported alert fields:

• table: Displays the table name of the test

• column: Displays the column name of the test

• description: Displays the description of the test

• owners: Displays the owners of the model on which the test is running

• tags: Displays the dbt tags of the test/model

• subscribers: Displays the subscribers of the test/model

• result_message: Displays the returned message from the test result

• test_parameters: Displays the parameters that were provided to the test

• test_query: Displays the query of the test

• test_results_sample: Displays a sample of the test results

model

models:
  - name: my_model_name
    meta:
      alert_fields: ["description", "owners", "tags", "subscribers"]

test

tests:
  - not_null:
    meta:
      alert_fields: ["description", "owners", "tags", "subscribers"]

test/model config block

{{ config(
    meta={
        "alert_fields": "['description', 'owners', 'tags', 'subscribers']"
    }
) }}

dbt_project.yml

models:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        alert_fields: ["description", "owners", "tags", "subscribers"]

tests:
  path:
    subfolder:
      +meta:
        alert_fields: ["description", "owners", "tags", "subscribers"]

Alerts CLI flags

Filter alerts

Elementary supports filtering the alerts by tag, owner, model, status or resource type.

Using filters, you can send alerts to the relevant people and teams by running edr multiple times with different filters on each run.

alerts on skipped tests and models are filtered out by default. if you want to receive those alerts, apply the statuses filter and include them explicitly.

tags filter

edr monitor --filters tags:critical
edr monitor --filters tags:finance,marketing

owners filter

edr monitor --filters owners:@jeff
edr monitor --filters owners:@jessy,@jeff

models filter

edr monitor --filters models:customers
edr monitor --filters models:orders,customers,signups

statuses filter

edr monitor --filters statuses:warn,fail
edr monitor --filters statuses:error
edr monitor --filters statuses:skipped

resource_types filter

edr monitor --filters resource_types:model
edr monitor --filters resource_types:test
edr monitor --filters resource_types:test,source_freshness

The --filters flag can be used multiple times to apply multiple filters. The filters are combined using the logical AND operator. The comma , is used to separate multiple values for the same filter, creating a logical OR.

multiple filters

edr monitor --filters resource_types:model --filters tags:finance,marketing

Group alerts by table

By default, Elementary sends a single alert to notify on each failure with extensive information for fast triage.

Elementary also supports grouping alerts by table. In this case, a single Slack notification will be generated containing all issues associated with this table. The created notification will contain a union of the relevant owners, tags and subscribers.

Due to their nature, grouped alerts will contain less information on each issue.

edr monitor --group-by table

Suppression interval flag

Don’t want to get multiple alerts if the same test keeps failing? You can now configure an alert_suppression_interval, this is a “snooze” period for alerts on the same issue. Elementary won’t send new alerts on the same issue that are generated within suppression interval.

The flag configuration is the suppression interval duration in hours, and the default is 0 hours (no alert suppression). If configured otherwise in the dbt project config block or meta, the CLI value will be ignored (unless --override-dbt-project-config is used).

edr monitor --suppression-interval 24