Alert Channels
Connect Slack, email, SMS, PagerDuty, and other destinations so alerts reach the right people.
A channel is a destination where Ionhour can deliver a notification — a Slack channel, an inbox, a phone number, a PagerDuty service. This page covers how to connect and manage channels. Deciding which channels get used for which alerts happens on a separate page — see Alert Routing once you've connected a few channels here.
Channels live at the workspace level. Once a channel is connected, it becomes available as a destination anywhere you configure notifications — Alert Routing rules and Escalation Policies alike.
The Channels Page
Open Alerting > Channels to see every supported channel type laid out as a grid of cards, grouped into three categories: Messaging, Phone & SMS, and Ticketing & On-Call. Each card shows an icon, a short description, and a Connect button. Once you've connected at least one of that type, the card also shows a Connected badge (with a count if you've connected more than one) and a Details button that jumps to that type's filtered list of channels — the button just relabels itself to Add so you can still connect another instance of the same type.
Above the grid, an All / Connected / Disconnected tab lets you filter cards by connection status, and a search box filters cards by name or description — handy once you have more than a handful of types to scroll through.
Locked and plan-limited channels
Some channel types are only available on certain plans — their card shows a locked state, and clicking it takes you to the upgrade page instead of the connect flow. Separately, your plan may cap the total number of channels you can connect; a counter near the top of the page shows how many you've used, and connecting a new one is blocked once you hit that limit.
Here's what each channel type does:
| Category | Channel | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Messaging | Sends alert emails to workspace members or any address you add | |
| Messaging | Slack | Posts alerts to a Slack channel |
| Messaging | Discord | Posts alerts to a Discord server |
| Messaging | Microsoft Teams | Posts alerts to a Teams channel |
| Messaging | Telegram | Sends alerts to a Telegram chat via a bot |
| Messaging | Google Chat | Posts alerts to a Google Chat space |
| Phone & SMS | SMS | Texts workspace members |
| Phone & SMS | Phone Call | Calls workspace members |
| Phone & SMS | Sends WhatsApp messages to workspace members | |
| Ticketing & On-Call | PagerDuty | Creates a PagerDuty incident |
| Ticketing & On-Call | OpsGenie | Creates an OpsGenie alert |
| Ticketing & On-Call | Jira | Creates a Jira issue |
| Ticketing & On-Call | YouTrack | Creates a YouTrack issue |
Messaging Channels
Email is the simplest channel — no external account required.
Connect Email
- Click Connect on the Email card.
- Give the channel a name (e.g. "On-Call Inbox") and an optional description.
- Choose recipients: pick from existing workspace members, type in extra email addresses, or both.
- Save the channel.
Workspace members you pick are ready to receive alerts right away. If you type in an address that isn't already recognized in your workspace, that address gets a verification email and won't receive alerts until someone clicks the link in it. This is useful if you want a shared address like ops@yourcompany.com to always get paged, independent of any one person's account.
Slack
Slack connects through its own sign-in and approval screen, so there's no webhook URL to copy and paste.
Connect Slack
- Click Connect on the Slack card.
- You're taken to Slack to authorize Ionhour and choose the channel that should receive alerts.
- After you approve, you're redirected back to Ionhour and asked to name the connection (and optionally add a description).
- Save, and the channel is ready to receive alerts.
Discord, Microsoft Teams & Google Chat
These three all work the same way: each platform gives you an incoming webhook URL, and Ionhour posts alerts to it.
Connect a webhook-based chat channel
- In Discord, Teams, or Google Chat, create an incoming webhook for the channel or space you want alerts posted to, and copy its URL.
- Back in Ionhour, click Connect on the matching card.
- Give the channel a name and optional description, then paste the webhook URL.
- Save the channel.
Telegram
Connect Telegram
- Click Connect on the Telegram card.
- Give the channel a name and optional description.
- Enter your bot token (create a bot via Telegram's BotFather if you don't have one yet) and the chat ID of the group or channel alerts should post to.
- Save the channel.
Phone & SMS Channels
SMS, Phone Call, and WhatsApp all share the same setup: instead of an external account, you pick which workspace members should be reached.
Connect an SMS, Phone Call, or WhatsApp channel
- Click Connect on the matching card.
- Give the channel a name and optional description.
- Select up to five workspace members to receive this type of alert.
- Save the channel.
Phone number required
Each selected member needs a verified phone number on their own account before they'll receive calls, texts, or WhatsApp messages — set that up under Account Settings. A member can also opt out of a specific channel later; opted-out members are shown separately when you edit the channel.
Ticketing & On-Call Channels
PagerDuty, OpsGenie, Jira, and YouTrack create an incident or issue directly in your existing tool whenever an alert fires.
Give the channel a name and optional description, then paste the Integration Key from your PagerDuty service (found under Service → Integrations → Events API v2).
Give the channel a name and optional description, then paste the API Key from your OpsGenie team (found under Settings → Integrations → API).
Give the channel a name and optional description, then fill in:
- Jira Host — your Jira Cloud hostname, without
https://(e.g.your-team.atlassian.net) - Email — the address tied to your Jira API token
- API Token — generate one from your Atlassian account's security settings
- Project Key — where issues should be created (e.g.
OPS) - Issue Type — optional; defaults to "Task"
Give the channel a name and optional description, then fill in:
- YouTrack Host — your instance hostname, without
https://(e.g.your-team.youtrack.cloud) - Permanent Token — generate one from your YouTrack profile's Authentication settings
- Project ID — the short name or ID of the project where issues should be created
Managing Connected Channels
Click the settings icon on the Channels page to open the full list of connected channels. From there, for each one you can:
- Test it — sends a sample notification so you can confirm it's working
- Edit its name, description, or credentials
- Enable / disable it without deleting it — a disabled channel stops receiving alerts but keeps its configuration
- Delete it — this removes it as a destination everywhere it was used in routing or escalation policies
You can filter this list by channel type or by enabled/disabled status, or jump straight to a single type's list from its card on the main Channels page.
Connecting a channel doesn't send it anything on its own. Head to Alert Routing to decide which events use which channels, or attach channels directly to an Escalation Policy step for on-call paging.