Rule triggers
Each notification rule has a trigger that determines when the rule fires. The trigger type must match the template type — for example, an Alarm trigger can only use an Alarm template. For an overview of rules and how to create them, see Notification center.
When it fires: An alarm is created, acknowledged, cleared, changes severity, or is deleted.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Alarm type list | Restrict to specific alarm types, or leave as Any type to match all. |
| Alarm severity list | Restrict to specific severity levels, or leave as Any severity to match all. |
| Notify on | Which alarm events trigger the notification: Alarm created, Alarm severity changed, Alarm acknowledged, Alarm cleared, Alarm deleted. |
Recipients: Uses an escalation chain instead of a simple recipient list. Add multiple stages with configurable delays between them. If a recipient clears or acknowledges the alarm before the next stage fires, subsequent recipients are skipped. Configure which alarm statuses stop the chain in the Stop escalation on the alarm status become field.
Default rules:
- New alarm — notifies Tenant administrators when an alarm is created.
- Alarm update — notifies Tenant administrators when any alarm is updated or cleared.
Device activity
Section titled “Device activity”When it fires: A device becomes active or inactive based on the connectivity status inactivity timeout.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Device / Device profile | Toggle between filtering by specific devices or by device profile. If the field is left empty, the trigger applies to all devices or all device profiles. |
| Notify on | Which activity event triggers the notification: Active, Inactive. |
Default rule: None.
Entity action
Section titled “Entity action”When it fires: An entity is created, updated, or deleted.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Entity type | One or more entity types to monitor: Device, Asset, Tenant, Customer, User, Dashboard, and others. |
| Status | Which actions trigger the notification: Created, Updated, Deleted. |
Default rule: Device created — notifies Tenant administrators when a device is created.
Alarm comment
Section titled “Alarm comment”When it fires: A comment is added or updated on an alarm.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Alarm type list | Restrict to specific alarm types, or leave as Any type. |
| Alarm severity list | Restrict to specific severity levels, or leave as Any severity. |
| Alarm status list | Restrict to specific alarm statuses, or leave as Any status. |
| Notify only on user comments | When enabled, system-generated comments (e.g., severity changes) are ignored. |
| Notify on comment update | When enabled, edits to existing comments also trigger the notification. |
Default rule: Comment on active alarm — notifies Tenant administrators when a user adds a comment on an active alarm.
Alarm assignment
Section titled “Alarm assignment”When it fires: An alarm is assigned or unassigned to a user.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Alarm type list | Restrict to specific alarm types, or leave as Any type. |
| Alarm severity list | Restrict to specific severity levels, or leave as Any severity. |
| Alarm status list | Restrict to specific alarm statuses, or leave as Any status. |
| Notify on | Which assignment events trigger the notification: Alarm assigned, Alarm unassigned. |
Default rule: Alarm assignment — notifies the assigned user when any alarm is assigned to them.
Rule engine lifecycle event
Section titled “Rule engine lifecycle event”When it fires: A rule chain or rule node starts, updates, or stops — typically used to detect initialization failures.
Filter settings:
The trigger has two independent filter sections:
Rule engine filter:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Rule chains | Restrict to specific rule chains, or leave empty to apply to all rule chains. |
| Rule chain events | Which lifecycle events trigger the notification: Started, Updated, Stopped. Default: All. |
| Only rule chain lifecycle failures | When enabled, only failure events (e.g., a rule chain fails to start) trigger the notification. |
Rule node filter:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Track rule node events | Toggle to enable rule node event tracking. Disabled by default. |
| Rule node events | Which lifecycle events trigger the notification: Started, Updated, Stopped. Default: All. |
| Only rule node lifecycle failures | When enabled, only failure events (e.g., a rule node fails to start) trigger the notification. |
Default rule: Rule node initialization failure — notifies Tenant administrators when any rule chain or rule node fails to start, update, or stop.
Edge connection
Section titled “Edge connection”When it fires: The connection status between ThingsBoard and an Edge instance changes.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Edge instances | Restrict to specific Edge instances, or leave empty to apply to all edge instances. |
| Notify on | Which connection events trigger the notification: Connected, Disconnected. Default: All. |
Default rule: Edge connection status change — notifies Tenant administrators when the connection status between ThingsBoard and an Edge instance changes.
Edge communication failure
Section titled “Edge communication failure”When it fires: ThingsBoard fails to communicate with an Edge instance.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Edge instances | Restrict to specific Edge instances, or leave empty to apply to all edge instances. |
Default rule: Edge communication failure — notifies Tenant administrators when communication failures occur.
Entities limit
Section titled “Entities limit”When it fires: A tenant approaches or exceeds its entity count quota (devices, assets, users, etc.).
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Entity type | The entity type whose count is monitored. |
| Threshold (%) | The percentage of the limit at which the notification fires. |
API usage limit
Section titled “API usage limit”When it fires: A tenant approaches or exceeds a usage threshold for a specific API feature.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| API features | The features to monitor: Device API, Telemetry persistence, Rule Engine executions, JavaScript executions, TBEL executions, Email messages, SMS messages, Alarms. Leave empty to apply to all API features. |
| Notify on | Which status transitions trigger the notification: Enabled, Warning, Disabled. |
Default rules:
- API feature disabled — notifies Tenant administrators when an API feature is disabled.
- API feature disabled (sysadmin) — notifies System administrators when an API feature is disabled for a tenant.
- API feature warning — notifies Tenant administrators on API feature usage WARNING state.
- API feature warning (sysadmin) — notifies System administrators on API feature usage WARNING state for a tenant.
New platform version
Section titled “New platform version”When it fires: A new ThingsBoard platform version is released.
Filter settings: None — triggers automatically when a new version is detected.
Default rule: New platform version — notifies System administrators when a new platform version is available.
Exceeded rate limits
Section titled “Exceeded rate limits”When it fires: A rate limit is exceeded.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Rate limits | The rate limits to monitor. Per-tenant limits: Transport messages, Entity version load, Entity version creation, Reports generation, Monolith telemetry Cassandra write queries, REST API requests, Rest API Cassandra write queries, Integration messages, Rule Engine telemetry Cassandra write queries, Rule Engine telemetry Cassandra read queries, WS updates per session, Notification requests, Rest API and WS telemetry Cassandra read queries, Monolith telemetry Cassandra read queries. Per-entity limits: Notification requests per rule, Transport messages per device, REST API requests per customer, Integration messages per device. Leave empty to apply to all rate limits. |
Default rules:
- Per-tenant rate limits exceeded (sysadmin) — notifies System administrators when a tenant exceeds a per-tenant rate limit.
- Per-tenant rate limits exceeded — notifies Tenant administrators when a per-tenant rate limit is exceeded.
- Per-entity rate limits exceeded — notifies Tenant administrators when a per-entity rate limit is exceeded for an entity.
Task processing failure
Section titled “Task processing failure”When it fires: A background task processing fails.
Filter settings: None.
Default rule: Task processing failure — notifies System administrators when task processing fails.
Resources shortage
Section titled “Resources shortage”When it fires: Server resource usage exceeds the configured thresholds.
Filter settings:
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| CPU threshold (%) | The CPU usage percentage at which the notification fires. Default: 80%. |
| RAM threshold (%) | The RAM usage percentage at which the notification fires. Default: 80%. |
| Storage threshold (%) | The disk storage usage percentage at which the notification fires. Default: 80%. |
Default rule: Resources shortage — notifies System administrators on resource shortage.