Ensuring effective communication in your system is key for proactive monitoring. The following guide demonstrates how you can test your notification settings.
Log in to your account and navigate to your dashboard.
From your list of monitors, select the specific one you wish to test notifications for.
On the Monitor's page, you'll find a button labeled 'Test Notification'. Click this button.
You'll then be given the option to choose where the test notification should be sent. This will trigger a test alert for both UP and DOWN notifications.
Before testing the notifications, make sure that the alert contacts are correctly set up and attached to your monitor. This practice ensures that all elements are correctly linked and functioning as expected.
Check each destination for the test messages — your inbox, phone, Slack/Teams/Discord channel, webhook receiver, and so on. You should see both a simulated DOWN and a simulated UP message.
A “Test notification sent” confirmation means the request was submitted — it doesn't confirm that a channel actually received it. Test notifications go through the same delivery pipeline as real alerts, so if a test message doesn't show up, that channel is misconfigured or broken, and it will fail the same way during a real incident. See [link: when-an-alert-doesnt-arrive article] for how to fix a channel that isn't receiving alerts.