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Detailed, actionable Slack alerting for anytime dbt (& other data systems) break
Detailed, actionable Slack alerting for anytime dbt (& other data systems) break

Learn about our sophisticated Slack alerting for whenever dbt breaks

Nicholas Freund avatar
Written by Nicholas Freund
Updated over a week ago

Workstream.io provides detailed and actionable alerting for every dbt user in Slack, for free.

Our alerts provide all of the information that you need about data incidents in Slack, and we bundle test failures into singular incidents across runs, so that you are never surprised by broken data again.

In this support article, we cover how to get started in the next 10 minutes. <-- Click to go directly there if you want to skip the quick rundown of why existing dbt alerting is broken, an overview of our (free) Slack alerting for dbt failures.

Why existing dbt alerting is so broken:

If you are long time users of dbt Cloud (like us), you are probably used to receiving this Slack alert on a regular basis. What is the problem here?

  1. When a dbt test fails (like in this example), this provides no valuable information. Ex: how many tests have failed, and are those a big deal or not?

  2. This does not tell you how many tests failed. So if something new broke in your next run, you have no idea.

  3. These are not actionable, and force you to hunt and peck for information such as lineage and the compiled SQL to assist in your triage.

This is, of course, if you are a dbt Cloud client. If you leverage dbt Core, you are almost certainly in even worse shape.

What our sophisticated Slack alerting does

You can fix this broken paradigm with our sophisticated Slack alerting that:

  • Intelligently bundles test and model failures into incidents that automatically open and close, and persist across dbt runs

  • Provides you all the information you need to know, including:

    • What models, sources and tests failed

    • What downstream models, metrics, dashboards and users might be impacted

    • An canonical incident timeline

  • Let's you take quick action to organize your triage efforts, including assigning ownership, updating status, and creating JIRA tickets

For a quick preview, view this Loom:

How to get started using our (free) Slack alerting for dbt

To leverage our awesome alerting for dbt (and your other data systems), you can follow these steps to get set up in the next 10 minutes.

  1. Go to app.workstream.io and set-up an account using your work email

  2. Once you are logged into app.workstream.io, go to your settings/workspace connections and:

    1. Connect dbt Cloud or Core using the instructions in the links

    2. Connect Slack and select your alerting channels using the instructions

See the below Loom for where to find your workspace connections:

If you need help, reach out to us via Intercom, [email protected], or join our Weekly Office Hours.

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