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Alerts are your early warning system, designed to pinpoint operational bottlenecks and keep your development workflow running smoothly. devActivity provides a range of customizable alerts, allowing you to tailor the notification system to your specific needs and priorities.
Understanding Alerts
Alerts are notifications triggered by specific conditions within your workspace. They can help you identify potential issues, such as:
Contributor inactivity: When a team member hasn't been active for a set period.
Delayed code reviews: When pull requests remain unreviewed for too long.
Excessive comment threads: When a single pull request or issue receives an unusually high number of comments.
Default vs. Customized Alerts
While devActivity comes with default alert settings, it's essential to customize these based on your team's workflow and specific metrics. This ensures that you receive relevant and actionable notifications, avoiding unnecessary clutter.
Configuring Alerts
To access the Alerts Configuration screen, navigate to the Alerts section of devActivity. You'll find a list of available alerts categorized into three main areas:
General: Alerts related to contributor activity and recognition.
Work Quality: Alerts focused on code review efficiency and pull request handling.
Activity: Alerts monitoring team engagement and contribution levels.
Each alert can be enabled or disabled using a toggle switch. Clicking on an alert reveals a configuration window where you can:
Set the trigger condition: Define the specific criteria that will trigger the alert, such as the number of working days for inactivity or the maximum time for a code review.
Choose the notification method: Select how you want to receive the alert, such as email or Slack.
Alert List and Recommendations
Here's a breakdown of the most common alerts, potential causes, and recommended actions:
General
No activity from Contributor for X working days:
Possible causes: Leave, workload overload, lack of motivation, technical challenges, communication breakdown, personal issues, project misalignment.
Recommendations: Confirm the contributor's status, address workload concerns, provide support, facilitate communication, and ensure project alignment.
Contributor's activity outside working hours:
Possible causes: Passion, time zone differences, flexible work arrangements, personal productivity preferences, deadline pressure, global collaboration, side project enthusiasm.
Recommendations: Acknowledge dedication, address time zone differences, ensure alignment with work schedules, encourage open communication, and promote healthy work-life balance.
No assigned Recognition Award from Contributor for X weeks:
Possible causes: Unawareness of the recognition system, engagement challenges, lack of visibility, inadequate training, cultural or team dynamics, busy periods, lack of personal recognition habits.
Recommendations: Communicate the recognition system, address engagement challenges, highlight achievements, provide training, foster a culture of appreciation, and encourage recognition habits.
No received Recognition Award for Contributor for X weeks:
Possible causes: Low visibility of contributions, contributor disengagement, lack of recognition system education, limited awareness of opportunities, team dynamics, inadequate feedback channels, mismatch of expectations.
Recommendations: Encourage visibility, address disengagement, educate on the recognition system, share opportunities, foster a culture of appreciation, improve feedback channels, and align expectations.
No Performance Review for Contributor for X months:
Possible causes: Communication breakdown, system or process issues, overlooked scheduling, organizational changes, contributor performance status, procrastination or oversight, feedback mechanism improvement.
Recommendations: Initiate communication, address system issues, review scheduling practices, communicate changes, confirm performance status, address procrastination, and enhance the feedback mechanism.
Work Quality
More than X hours for PR's Cycle Time:
Possible causes: Complex changes, resource constraints, unclear requirements, integration challenges, testing bottlenecks, reviewer workload, process inefficiencies, lack of automated testing.
Recommendations: Evaluate complexity, address resource limitations, clarify requirements, resolve integration issues, optimize testing, balance reviewer workload, improve processes, and implement automated testing.
More than X hours for PR's Pickup Time:
Possible causes: Assignee availability, lack of visibility, skill set mismatch, incomplete information, team coordination, assignee overload, prioritization challenges, vacation or time-off.
Recommendations: Check assignee availability, improve visibility, ensure skill alignment, provide complete information, strengthen coordination, balance workload, establish prioritization criteria, and plan for absences.
No reviewer assigned to PR for X hours:
Possible causes: Team communication gap, reviewer unavailability, skill set mismatch, assignee oversight, prioritization challenges, reviewer coordination issues, automation lapses, unexpected absence.
Recommendations: Strengthen communication, check reviewer availability, ensure skill alignment, remind contributors, establish prioritization, improve coordination, optimize automation, and plan for absences.
More than X hours for PR's Review Time:
Possible causes: Reviewer workload, complex changes, reviewer availability, communication breakdown, overlooked notifications, insufficient testing, reviewer changeover, documentation clarifications.
Recommendations: Assess reviewer workload, evaluate complexity, check availability, facilitate communication, ensure notifications, improve testing, communicate changeovers, and address documentation.
Activity
No opened issue for team for X working days:
Possible causes: Stable period, communication breakdown, project completion, resource constraints, lack of problem awareness, shift in priorities, lack of reporting culture, process optimization.
Recommendations: Validate stability, facilitate communication, assess project status, evaluate resources, promote continuous improvement, validate priorities, encourage reporting, and monitor process impact.
No closed issue for team for X working days:
Possible causes: Resource constraints, incomplete issue resolution, shift in priorities, communication breakdown, lack of motivation, insufficient testing, complexity of issues, lack of clear processes.
Recommendations: Evaluate resources, address resolution challenges, validate priorities, facilitate communication, address motivation, improve testing, address complexity, and clarify processes.
More than X comments for a single PR:
Possible causes: Detailed review process, complex changes, communication style, lack of initial clarity, iterative development, collaborative discussion, reviewer overload, coding standards discussions.
Recommendations: Review comment nature, streamline communication, improve initial clarity, optimize iteration, guide discussions, balance reviewer workload, clarify standards.
More than X comments for a single issue:
Possible causes: Issue complexity, communication style, lack of clear resolution, iterative problem-solving, collaborative decision-making, lack of documentation, reviewer overload, external factors.
Recommendations: Evaluate complexity, encourage concise communication, identify a clear resolution, streamline the process, guide decision-making, improve documentation, balance workload, address external factors.
More than X PRs opened by Contributor:
Possible causes: Iterative development, parallel work streams, feature branch management, lack of pull request collaboration, continuous integration challenges, project structure complexity, communication breakdown, project scope expansion.
Recommendations: Acknowledge iterative development, coordinate parallel work, review branch management, promote collaboration, address integration challenges, simplify structure, facilitate communication, and assess scope expansion.
More than X Code Reviews assigned to Contributor:
Possible causes: Workload distribution, specialized expertise, communication of workload limits, code review process efficiency, team collaboration practices, knowledge sharing gaps, reviewer availability, ineffective prioritization.
Recommendations: Balance workload, leverage expertise, encourage communication, optimize processes, promote collaboration, address knowledge gaps, assess availability, and establish prioritization.
Recommendations
Keep alert thresholds actualized: Regularly review and adjust alert thresholds to ensure they accurately identify bottlenecks without overwhelming you with false or unimportant notifications.
Share your ideas for additional alerts: If you have specific needs or areas you want to monitor, suggest additional alerts that can be added to the system.
By actively configuring and managing your alerts, you can create a proactive and efficient development environment that helps you identify and address issues before they become major problems.