This article explains how to configure Email and Zendesk alert notifications, associate notification channels with alerts, verify delivery, and troubleshoot notification issues.
Permissions
To create or edit alert definitions and notification channels, you need:
- Manage Alerts: Edit
- Notification Channels: Edit
To view alert definitions and notification channels, you need the corresponding View permissions.
If you only need to manage notification channels without changing alert definitions, you need:
- Notification Channels: Edit
- Manage Alerts: View
Step 1: Confirm the alert definition
Before troubleshooting notification delivery, confirm that the alert itself can generate an event.
- Go to the site where the alert is configured.
- Navigate to Manage Alerts.
- Open the Alerts v2 table.
- Open the alert definition.
- Confirm that the alert is enabled.
- Confirm that the alert scope includes the intended sites, devices, interfaces, or other entities.
- Review the trigger condition, severity, alert delay, and clear condition.
- Save the alert if you make any changes.
An alert must trigger before Auvik can send a notification. Maintenance windows, suppression rules, alert delays, and conditions that clear quickly may prevent a notification from being delivered.
Step 2: Create or configure the Email notification channel
- Go to Manage Alerts > Notification Channels.
- Click Add Notification Channel, or select an existing Email channel.
- Add the email addresses or distribution lists that should receive notifications.
- Give the channel a clear name.
- Save the channel.
A shared mailbox or distribution list can be useful when multiple people need consistent alert coverage.
If the channel already exists, confirm that:
- The recipient addresses are correct.
- There are no extra spaces or typing errors.
- Outdated aliases have been removed.
- The channel is active.
- The channel is associated with the correct alerts.
Step 3: Associate the Email channel with alerts
- Go to Manage Alerts > Notification Channels.
- Select the Email notification channel.
- Click Associate with Alerts.
- Select the alert definitions that should send Email notifications.
- Click Save.
- Confirm that the alert definitions remain enabled and scoped correctly.
You can also add the notification channel while editing an alert definition.
If alerts are configured at a parent or organization level, verify that the intended child sites inherit the correct notification channel. A customized child alert may not receive later parent-level notification-channel changes.
Step 4: Configure Zendesk ticket notifications
Auvik can send alert notifications to Zendesk through an Email-to-ticket workflow when the Zendesk support address is configured as the destination for an Email notification channel.
- Confirm that Zendesk Email-to-ticket is enabled for the intended Zendesk group or support address.
- Confirm that the Zendesk support address can receive messages from Auvik.
- Create or edit an Auvik Email notification channel.
- Add the Zendesk support address as a recipient.
- Associate the Email channel with the alert definitions that should create Zendesk tickets.
- Confirm that the alert is enabled and scoped to the expected entities.
In Zendesk, configure the appropriate:
- Group or assignee
- Ticket type
- Priority
- Tags
- Triggers
- Automations
- Duplicate-ticket or ticket-threading behavior
If your Auvik environment provides a dedicated Zendesk integration or notification channel, use the connection and authentication settings provided for that channel instead of Email-to-ticket.
Step 5: Verify Zendesk permissions and routing
A Zendesk administrator should confirm that:
- The support address is active.
- Zendesk can create tickets from incoming Email.
- The receiving group is valid.
- The Zendesk mailbox is not rate-limited or blocked.
- Zendesk triggers and automations are not deleting, merging, or redirecting tickets.
- The integration or Email workflow has permission to create and update tickets.
- The expected priority, assignee, group, and tags are being applied.
Auvik cannot control Zendesk rules that run after the notification reaches Zendesk.
Step 6: Send a safe test
Use Auvik’s Send Test Alert function when it is available.
- Go to Manage Alerts > Notification Channels.
- Select the Email notification channel.
- Click Send Test Alert.
- Select the site where the test should originate.
- Click Send.
- Confirm that the Email is received.
- If the channel sends to Zendesk, confirm that the expected Zendesk ticket is created.
The Send Test Alert function tests the selected notification channel. It is preferable to lowering a production alert threshold.
If the test function is not available, use a non-production alert or a temporary test alert that can be safely triggered and cleared. Restore any temporary settings after testing.
Step 7: Check Email delivery
If an Email recipient does not receive the notification, ask the recipient to check:
- Spam or junk folders
- Quarantine or Email-security portals
- Mailbox capacity
- Mailbox rules that redirect, delete, or filter Auvik messages
- Restrictions on receiving external Email
An Email administrator may need to allow-list the sender address or domain used by Auvik notifications.
The Email administrator should also review:
- Inbound mail-gateway logs
- Transport rules
- Domain-level delivery restrictions
- Forwarding loops
- Auto-replies
- DMARC, SPF, and DKIM handling
- Deferred, rejected, or blocked messages
Step 8: Check alert timing and suppression
If a notification was not received, confirm that the alert actually generated.
Review:
- Alert History
- Alert scope
- Trigger condition
- Alert delay
- Email frequency
- Maintenance windows
- Suppression rules
- Clear or recovery behavior
- Notification-channel associations
Email frequency may bundle repeated alert events into a single Email. It does not necessarily affect other notification channels.
Step 9: Troubleshoot missing Zendesk tickets
If the Email is received but no Zendesk ticket is created:
- Confirm that the Zendesk support address is correct.
- Confirm that the Email reached Zendesk.
- Review Zendesk mail-processing logs, if available.
- Check Zendesk triggers and automations.
- Confirm that the receiving group and ticket-routing rules are active.
- Check for rate limiting or duplicate-ticket handling.
- Confirm that the ticket was not merged, closed, or redirected automatically.
- Review any Auvik integration or notification errors.
If the Email was not sent, troubleshoot the Auvik notification channel and alert association first.
If the Email reached Zendesk but the ticket was not created, involve the Zendesk administrator.
If notifications are still not received
Collect the following information before contacting Auvik Support:
- Alert name
- Affected device, interface, or other entity
- Site or tenant
- Notification-channel name
- Recipient Email address or Zendesk support address
- Exact test or alert time, including timezone
- Whether other recipients received the notification
- Whether the Email reached Zendesk
- Any bounce, SMTP, quarantine, or integration error
- Screenshots of the alert scope and notification-channel association