The four kinds of alert
The first two are the ladder. The last two are breaches – they have no percentage, they are true or false.
The ladder
The four rungs are fixed at 50, 75, 90 and 100 percent. A rung fires only on the crossing – the moment usage moves from below it to at or above it. Re-evaluating the same position fires nothing, and usage dropping back down crosses nothing.Money budget – $40,000
Hours budget – 600 hours
The two ladders are separate
A money budget and an hours budget use different counters and different alert copy.Fires once – and what that really means
Each rung fires once per project, per pool.
A monthly budget re-arms the whole 50/75/90/100 sequence at the start of each month, read in your workspace timezone. See recurring retainers.
Crossing several rungs at once
Sometimes a single time entry crosses more than one rung. Logging 10 hours against a 1-hour budget crosses all four at once. The alert copy handles that honestly. Instead of saying “reached 50%” while the project sits at 1000%, the message leads with the real figures – how much has been used and what the budget was.The two breach alerts
Forecast over budget
Fires when the projected cost to complete exceeds the budget – even though the project has not spent it yet. This is the early-warning alert. A project at 40% utilisation with a large remaining estimate is heading over long before it gets there. Headline: Forecast exceeds project budget.Margin below floor
Fires when the projected profit margin drops under the Alert if margin falls below percentage on the project’s Budget card. If that field is blank, this alert can never fire on the project. Headline: Forecast margin below threshold. See set a project budget for where the floor is entered.Who gets told
Recipients are the project managers plus workspace Owners and Admins.- Delivered in-app and by email by default.
- The person whose action triggered the alert is excluded – you are never emailed about your own click.
- Each person can tune their own notification preferences.
What an over-budget email says
An over-budget message states where the project actually stands, then asks for a decision:Please review the project and decide whether to:An hours-budget message also names the entry that tipped it over and who logged it, because that is the reader’s first question.
- Increase the budget
- Approve the overage
- Pause further work on the project
Example
Harbor Logistics – Mobile App. 600 hours, one-time.
Check the maths: 302 ÷ 600 = 50.33%; 454 ÷ 600 = 75.67%; 543 ÷ 600 = 90.5%; 604 ÷ 600 = 100.67%.
At each rung, Priya Raman and Northwind’s owners and admins get an in-app notification and an email. On 2 July the email says the total logged time has reached 604 hours, which exceeds the allocated budget of 600 hours, and offers the three decisions.
The project’s health chip is now Over budget.
The in-app Alerts list
Every project’s Overview has an Alerts panel listing fired, non-dismissed alerts.What Dismiss does and does not do
Dismiss removes the row from the in-app list. That is all.
Dismissing is housekeeping. It can never accidentally cause a duplicate alert later.
Health and alerts are different things
They are related but not the same.
A project can be red without any un-dismissed alert, if someone dismissed them all. And a project can have an old 50% alert on screen while it is perfectly healthy today. Read health for the current position; read alerts for what happened.
See how budgets work for the health rules.
Permissions
Common questions
Why did I only get one alert when the project jumped from 40% to 95%?
Why did I only get one alert when the project jumped from 40% to 95%?
You should have received the 50%, 75% and 90% rungs. Each crossing is detected on the move, so a single large entry can fire several. Check your notification preferences if some are missing.
I raised the budget. Why no new alerts?
I raised the budget. Why no new alerts?
On a one-time budget each rung fires once, ever. Raising the ceiling does not un-fire a rung that has already gone.
Can I change the 50/75/90/100 thresholds?
Can I change the 50/75/90/100 thresholds?
No. The four rungs are fixed.
Can I turn budget alerts off?
Can I turn budget alerts off?
Not per project. Each person tunes their own delivery in their notification settings. Leaving the Alert if margin falls below field blank does switch off the margin alert for that project.
Why did I not get an alert about my own time entry?
Why did I not get an alert about my own time entry?
You are excluded as the actor from an event you triggered. Your project’s other managers were notified.
Do task caps fire alerts?
Do task caps fire alerts?
No. Caps are informational and never alert. See task-level caps.
Why does my hours budget alert before my money budget?
Why does my hours budget alert before my money budget?
Because the hours ladder counts every logged hour and the money ladder counts only approved cost. The hours ladder always runs ahead.
Troubleshooting
Related guides
How budgets work
Utilisation, forecast and the health rules.
Set a project budget
Setting the amount and the margin floor.
Recurring retainers
Why the ladder re-arms monthly.
Hours vs money budgets
Why the two ladders move at different speeds.
Profitability and margin
The margin the floor alert watches.
Budget permissions
Who can arm and change an alert.