Connect email

Send InfraNest alerts to an email address — the simplest destination to set up, and the one that needs nothing from another service.

#Before you start

Nothing to prepare. Unlike Slack, Teams, Discord or Telegram, email needs no webhook, bot or API key — just the address you want alerts to arrive at.

Use an address you actually watch. A shared team inbox or a distribution list works well, because alerts keep arriving when one person is away. A personal address that forwards to a phone works better for anything urgent.

#Connect it in InfraNest

1. Go to Integrations → Email and select Connect (or Add account if you already have an email destination). From Alerts → Destinations, Add destination takes you to the same place.
2. Under Send to an email address, give it a Name, enter the Email address, and choose the Format: Formatted (recommended), or Plain text for inboxes that strip HTML or a pager gateway.
3. Select Connect.
4. InfraNest offers to Send a test straight away. Do it, and check the message arrives.

#What arrives

Each alert is one email: what happened, the details, and a way to open it in InfraNest. While your workspace has no Slack, Teams, Discord or Telegram destination, it also ends with Get this in Slack next time →, which opens Slack in InfraNest, ready to connect.

#The destination's page

Under Integrations → Email → Connections & settings, select the destination to open its page.

• Connection details: the address it sends to. Change the address or the format, then select Save.
• What should this destination hear?: All events or Urgent only.
• Hours (optional): set From and Until, and optionally the days. Outside those hours the destination hears critical events only, so an outage still gets through.
• The ⋯ menu at the top has Test connection, Rename account, Disable integration (and Enable integration to switch it back on) and Disconnect.

In the destination list, the ⋯ menu next to each destination has Send test, Edit (its page) and Delete. A deleted destination can be restored from Recently deleted for 14 days.

#Check it keeps working

Under Alerts → Destinations, each destination shows its last test: Last test delivered, Last test sent … not confirmed yet or Last test failed. Switch on Monthly test to have a test alert sent there once a month, so a broken path shows up before an outage does. Each test message has an I got it link: click it to confirm someone saw it.

If the address starts turning alerts away, the destination says Not delivering and Alerts are not reaching this destination, and whoever manages it is told by email and in the bell. It is never switched off: InfraNest keeps sending, emails each alert it turned away to whoever manages it instead, and keeps them for 7 days so you can Send them here now once it works again. See A destination says it is not delivering.

#Send alerts to email

Once the destination is saved, choose it when you decide which alerts go where. Routing is chosen per object, so a monitor, server, DNS zone or domain can each send to a different address. See Alerts and destinations.

#Good to know

• One destination sends to one address. Add another destination for a second recipient, or point it at a distribution list your mail provider manages.
• InfraNest doesn't ask the address to confirm itself, so check you typed it correctly — the test is the easiest way.
• If an address someone in your workspace uses is also a destination, that person gets one email per alert, not two.
• If the address reports our emails as spam, the destination is switched off and says Disabled — this address reported our emails as spam.
• This is separate from your personal notification preferences. Changing which emails you receive as a user is done under My account → Notifications — a destination is about where a workspace's alerts go.

#Troubleshooting

The test never arrives. Check your spam folder first, then confirm the address is spelled correctly. Mail providers sometimes hold the first message from a new sender. See You're not receiving emails from us.

#Related articles

• Alerts and destinations
• A destination says it is not delivering