Alert Rules

Alert Rules let you define automatic notifications when a learner metric crosses a threshold. Rules are evaluated once per hour by a background job.

Go to Thinkific Command Center → Alert Rules to manage rules and evaluator settings.

Creating a rule

1. Enter a rule name — this appears in notification messages.
2. Choose a condition — the metric to watch.
3. Choose an operator — whether to trigger above or below the threshold.
4. Enter a threshold — the numeric value that activates the rule.
5. Choose an action type — how to notify.
6. Enter an action target — the email address or URL to send to.
7. Set a cooldown — minutes to wait before the rule can fire again.
8. Click Add Rule.

The rule is active immediately and will be evaluated on the next hourly run, or you can trigger a manual run from the evaluator settings.

Conditions

Condition	What it measures
high_risk_count	Number of learners with high risk status
at_risk_count	Number of learners with at-risk status
inactive_30_plus	Number of learners with no activity for more than 30 days
no_attribution_count	Number of learners with no marketing source recorded
queue_size	Total learners currently in the intervention queue

Operators

Operator	When it triggers
≥ (gte)	When the metric is greater than or equal to the threshold
≤ (lte)	When the metric is less than or equal to the threshold

Use ≥ to alert when a problem is growing — for example, when the high risk count reaches 10.

Use ≤ to alert when a metric falls below an expected floor — for example, when queue size drops to 0 as confirmation a retention workflow completed.

Action types

Email

Sends a plain-text notification to the specified address.

• Enter a valid email address as the target.
• If the target is left empty, the notification goes to the WordPress site admin email.
• Delivery depends on your site's mail configuration. Test with a known-good address first.

Slack

Posts a message to a Slack channel via an Incoming Webhook URL.

• Enter your Slack Incoming Webhook URL as the target (e.g. https://hooks.slack.com/services/...).
• Set up an Incoming Webhook in your Slack app settings — you get one URL per channel.
• The message includes the rule name, condition, current metric value, and timestamp.

Webhook

Posts a JSON payload to any HTTPS endpoint.

• Enter a valid HTTPS URL as the target.
• The request is a POST with Content-Type: application/json.
• Payload fields: rule_name, condition_key, operator_key, threshold, metric, fired_at.

Cooldown

The cooldown prevents a rule from firing repeatedly while the condition remains true.

• Measured in minutes. Minimum: 1 minute. Default: 60 minutes.
• A rule that fires at 09:00 with a 60-minute cooldown cannot fire again until 10:00, even if the metric stays above the threshold.

Set a longer cooldown for conditions that persist over hours (high risk counts rarely recover quickly). Set a shorter cooldown for conditions that are expected to fluctuate.

Evaluator settings

The evaluator runs once per hour. You can also run it manually from the Alert Rules screen.

Setting	Description
Enable evaluator	Master on/off for the hourly job
Dry-run mode	Rules are evaluated and logged but nothing is dispatched
Enable live dispatch	Secondary gate — when off, dispatches are blocked even if dry-run is off

Recommended setup when testing

1. Enable the evaluator.
2. Leave dry-run mode on.
3. Add a rule and click Run now.
4. Review the evaluator log to confirm the rule matches as expected and would dispatch to the right target.
5. When satisfied, turn off dry-run and enable live dispatch.

Evaluator log

The log shows the last 200 evaluator run entries. Each entry records:

• Timestamp
• Number of rules processed and matched
• Dispatch outcome per matched rule: sent, failed, blocked, cooldown_active, or dry_run

Troubleshooting

Rule fires but no notification arrives

• Confirm Enable live dispatch is on.
• Verify the target is a valid email address or HTTPS URL.
• For email: test your site's mail configuration independently first.
• For Slack/webhook: confirm the URL is reachable from your server and that the endpoint is accepting POST requests.

Rule is not triggering

• Confirm the rule is Active in the rules list.
• Confirm the evaluator is enabled in evaluator settings.
• Run the evaluator manually and check the log — it shows the current metric value and whether the condition matched.
• Check whether a cooldown is blocking the rule (the log will show cooldown_active).

Evaluator cron is not running

WP-Cron is triggered by site traffic. On low-traffic or staging environments it may not run on schedule. Use a system cron to call wp-cron.php directly:

* * * * * curl -s https://yoursite.com/wp-cron.php > /dev/null

Verify the cron event is registered with WP-CLI:

wp cron event list | grep bb_tfo_pro_alert_eval_event