Alerts & notifications
Get told the moment a project drifts off track: on Slack, by email, or in the app.
Alerts are rules that watch the health signals inside your modules and fire when something crosses a line you set: confidence dropping, work going stale, scope health slipping, blocked items piling up. Each rule notifies the in-app bell and can also post to Slack or send an email. Admins set up company-wide rules for the whole workspace; project managers and admins can add personal rules that only reach themselves. Everyone sees the alerts they are allowed to see in the bell.
What alerts watch for
Rather than remembering to check every module, you define rules once and let Firebeam watch for you. Firebeam evaluates every active rule automatically once a day, and you can run a check on demand at any time. When a rule fires it records an in-app event and, depending on the rule, posts to Slack or sends an email. Alerts are read-only signals: they never change your data.
Triggers, module by module
Each module exposes the signals it can act on. Promise: confidence dropping below a threshold, a commitment slipping below its own alert threshold, or a milestone past its target date. FlowLens: an SLA policy breached, a WIP limit exceeded, work stuck in progress for too long, or blocked items above a count. ScopeGuard: scope health below a threshold, or too many scope changes in a window. Retrospective AI: unresolved action items older than a set age. Stakemaster, Together and UserLens have no triggers yet. They appear in the list but stay empty until theirs ship.
Creating a rule
From Settings, Alerts, pick the module and trigger, then set its parameters: a percentage threshold (for confidence and scope health), a count (blocked items, scope changes), and/or a time window in days (stale work, unresolved actions). Sensible defaults are pre-filled. Choose who gets it (admins pick company-wide or only themselves; everyone else creates personal rules), which project it watches (members with access to only some projects pick one of theirs), and how it is delivered: the bell only, Slack, or email.
The notification bell
Every fired alert lands in the notification bell in the top bar, with an unread badge. Read status is personal: marking an alert read clears it for you, not for your colleagues. You only see alerts you are allowed to see: your personal rules, alerts about projects you can open, and, if you have access to every project, workspace-wide alerts. The same condition is repeated at most once a week, so a lingering problem never floods the feed.
Slack and email delivery
For Slack delivery, send the alert to a channel from your connected Slack workspace, or to yourself as a direct message from the Firebeam app; it arrives as a short '[Firebeam Alert]' message. For email delivery, either pin a specific address on the rule, or leave it open and let it reach everyone who opted in through their notification preferences and may see the alert. Slack delivery needs the Slack integration connected.
Testing and tuning
The Test alerts now button evaluates every rule immediately and shows a line-by-line diagnosis: which rules would fire and, for the rest, exactly why not ('OK: 2 blocked items, below threshold 3'). It is a real evaluation, so a matching rule will actually notify. Each rule has an on/off switch and can be edited or deleted; inactive rules are kept but never fire.
Per-user email preferences
Alert emails are opt-in per person. Under Settings, Notification preferences, each user turns on email for the alert types that matter to them: confidence drop, SLA violation, scope health and WIP exceeded. When a rule delivers by email without a pinned address, it reaches exactly the people who opted in. These toggles never affect the in-app bell.
FlowLens SLA and WIP tie-in
The SLA violation and WIP exceeded triggers read the Flow Policies you define inside FlowLens, so set those policies first (see FlowLens, Policies). The FlowLens page banners and these alerts are related but evaluated separately: the banner is a live in-page warning, while the alert is what reaches you on Slack, email or the bell when you are not looking at the page.
Company-wide and personal rules
Admins set up company-wide rules, which fire for the whole workspace. Project managers and admins can also add personal rules, which reach only themselves. Each rule in the list shows a Company or Personal badge, and you can only edit the rules you are allowed to: admins the company-wide ones, everyone their own personal ones.
Who sees which alerts
Everyone sees the alerts they are allowed to see, and read status is personal: marking an alert read clears it for you, not for your colleagues. An alert about a project is visible to people who can open that project; an alert from a personal rule only to its owner; a workspace-wide alert without a project to admins and members with access to every project. Emails follow the same rule.
Several projects in one rule
A rule can watch all projects together, or any number of chosen projects. With chosen projects, each one is checked on its own and alerts with its name in front, for example "Atlas Mobile: 4 items stuck in progress". Members limited to some projects pick at least one of theirs.
Direct messages in Slack
Instead of a channel, a rule can send its alerts to you as a direct message from the Firebeam app. Choose Slack, then Me, as a direct message: Firebeam finds your Slack account by your login email, or lets you pick yourself when the emails differ.
The alert history
The notification bell shows the latest 20 alerts; See all alerts at its bottom opens the Alerts page with everything you can see, newest first. Filter by module, mark everything read, and use Show more to load older alerts.