In short: When something on your site needs a look, Maintena emails your account contact right away. You get clear, branded alerts for things like your site going down or coming back, an SSL certificate about to expire, or a security setting changing, so you can act fast without living in the dashboard.
What it is
Notifications and Alerts is how Maintena tells you when something matters. You do not need to keep a tab open or refresh a page. Our monitoring runs around the clock, and when it spots something worth knowing about, it sends you an email.
Right now, alerts arrive by email. Every alert goes to the contact email on your account, comes from a recognisable Maintena address, and is written in plain language so you know what happened and what to do next.
We are also building an in-app notification area (a bell and an inbox inside your dashboard) so you can see recent alerts without leaving Maintena. That is on the way. For today, email is how we reach you.
How it works
Different parts of Maintena keep watch over your site. When one of them detects something, it hands the message to our email system, which sends it to you. Each email includes a short explanation and a button that takes you straight to the right screen in Maintena.
The alerts you can receive
These alerts are live today. Each is triggered by the matching monitor, so you only get an alert if that monitor is switched on for your site.
| Alert | When it fires | Where it takes you |
|---|---|---|
| Site is down | Your site stops responding | The site's overview |
| Site is back online | Your site recovers after being down | The site's overview |
| SSL certificate expiring soon | Your security certificate is approaching its expiry date | The site's overview |
| Domain expiring soon | Your domain registration is approaching its renewal date | The site's SSL and domain page |
| Security setting changed | A key security setting on your WordPress site changes unexpectedly | The site's security details |
Downtime and recovery alerts come from Uptime monitoring. Certificate and domain alerts come from SSL and Domain. The security change alert comes from Security and Vulnerability. Each of those pages explains the monitor behind the alert in more detail.
Report emails
Alerts are not the only email Maintena sends. When you send a report, or when a scheduled report goes out, it arrives by email too, with the PDF attached and a summary of the key numbers.
Report emails keep a delivery record. On the report itself you can see a Delivery History showing who it was sent to and whether it went out successfully. This gives you a clear paper trail for every report you send.
Who receives alerts
Alerts and reports go to the primary contact email on your account. If several people need to see them, point that contact at a shared inbox or a distribution list your team already uses. Keeping this address current is the single most important thing you can do to make sure alerts land (see below).
What you need to do
For most customers this is already handled during onboarding. It is worth a quick check.
- Confirm your account contact email is correct. This is where every alert and report is sent. If it is wrong or out of date, you will miss alerts. You can review it in your account settings.
- Turn on the monitors you want alerts from. Alerts only fire when the matching monitor is active for a site. If you want downtime alerts, make sure Uptime monitoring is on. For certificate and domain warnings, check SSL and Domain.
- Let trusted senders through. So alerts are not held up by spam filters, add the Maintena sending address to your safe-senders list. Your Success Manager can confirm the exact address to whitelist.
- Send yourself a test. The easiest way to confirm everything works is to send a report to yourself from the Reports screen and check it arrives.
There is nothing to install or configure on your WordPress site for alerts to work. It is all handled on the Maintena side.
Good to know
- Alerts do not replace action, they prompt it. An email tells you what we found. Fixing it may be something your Success Manager handles for you, depending on your plan.
- You will not be buried in email. Alerts are tied to real events. A downtime incident sends one alert when it goes down and one when it recovers, not a stream of reminders.
- Missing alerts? Check your account contact email first, then your spam folder, then that the relevant monitor is switched on. If it still is not arriving, raise a support ticket.
- No extra cost. Alerts and report emails are included with your plan. See the pricing pages for what each plan covers.
On the roadmap
A few things are designed and planned but not live yet. We will never show these as working until they are.
- In-app notification centre. A bell and an inbox inside your dashboard, so you can catch up on recent alerts without opening your email. Coming soon.
- Delivery and open tracking on alerts. Report emails already keep a delivery record; a full sent-and-opened history across every alert is planned.
- Notification preferences. Choosing which alerts you receive, and options like a daily digest or per-person settings, are on the list. For now, all alerts for your active monitors go to your account contact.