When data reaches important thresholds for your business, data-driven alerts automatically send notifications to key people you specify. Data alerts can be sent as an email, or as a notification either in your Tableau site or in a connected Slack workspace through the Tableau for Slack application. You can set data-driven alerts on dashboards and views, but not story points.

For time-based charts, use relative date filters so people automatically receive alerts as new data appears. If you don't own the content, ask the author to make this change.

Create a data-driven alert

You can create a data-driven alert or add yourself to an alert that someone else set up.

Image shows the view toolbar with a submenu under watch that has options for subscriptions, metrics, and alerts.

  1. On the view toolbar, select Watch > Alerts to display the Alerts side panel. If there are existing alerts created on the view, those alerts will display here.

  2. Select a continuous numeric axis of any chart other than a Gantt chart or map. (Numeric bins and discrete numeric axes aren't supported.)

    Image shows a chart with a numeric axis

  3. Select Create from the Alerts side panel.

  4. In the Create Alert dialog box, set the data condition and threshold value that triggers alert emails.

    In the view, a red line shows where the threshold falls relative to your current data.

  5. Specify the email subject line, schedule, and recipients. Select Make visible to others if you'd like others users to see your alert and add themselves to it For more information, see Add yourself to an existing data-driven alert.

    For live data sources, alerts are checked every 60 minutes for Tableau Online or on a frequency set by administrators for Tableau Server. Extracts are checked each time they're refreshed.

    Note: Alerts created prior to 2019.2 are not visible to others by default, but can be edited to be visible.

  6. Click Create Alert.

    Note: Alerts are checked every 60 minutes for Tableau Online, or on a frequency set by administrators for Tableau Server. Alerts with extract connections on Tableau Server are also checked each time they're refreshed.

Add yourself to an existing data-driven alert

Anyone with access to a view can see alerts created by others. Select the alert to see its details, including its threshold, schedule, and notification frequency. Add yourself to the alert by selecting Add Me.

Manage your data-driven alerts

You can manage alerts from the My Content area of Tableau web pages, but doing so directly from alert emails can be quicker. Click the links below the image to manage all your alerts, or add or remove yourself from the emailed alert. If you're the alert owner, click Edit this alert to change alert settings such as threshold, schedule, and recipients.

Tip: To add recipients to an alert you don't own, you can forward an alert email and ask people to click Add me to this alert, or ask them to select Add Me from the Alert side panel.

If you are an owner of an alert, you also can manage that alert through the Actions menu from the Alerts side panel of the dashboard or view.

Manage your alert notifications

You can receive data-driven notifications as emails, in your Tableau site, and in a connected Slack workspace through the Tableau for Slack app. For more information, see Change Notification Settings and See Tableau notifications in Slack.

Fix failing data-driven alerts

Alerts can sometimes fail, usually for these reasons:

  • Temporary connectivity issues. In this case, the alert will fix itself.
  • A data source has been removed
  • Credentials to data have expired
  • The workbook or sheet that the alert was created on has been removed.

If an alert fails, you'll receive a notification email that tells you which alert failed and when, with a link to your site to fix the problem.

There are a few ways to fix a failing alert if you're the alert owner:

  • Open the workbook in Tableau Online or Tableau Server. A warning will appear if credentials to your data have expired or if the data for your workbook has been removed.

  • Click Edit this alert to change alert settings such as threshold, schedule, and recipients. A warning will appear to tell you if the workbook or sheet that your alert was created on has been removed.

You'll receive an email notification when the alert is working again.

Resume or delete suspended data-driven alerts

If an alert fails enough times, you'll receive a notification email that your alert has been suspended. There are a few ways to resume a suspended alert if you're an alert owner or administrator:

  • From the My Content area of Tableau web pages, an icon appears in the Last checked column to indicate that the alert is suspended. Select ... > Resume Alert to resume the alert.
  • Click Resume Alert in the notification email to resume the alert. A notification will either allow you to resume the alert, or indicate that the view has changed and the alert should be deleted.

You'll receive an email notification when the alert is working again.