External Notifications

Stratora delivers alert notifications to external systems through multiple channels — email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and generic webhooks. Notifications are configured on escalation team steps, so you control exactly who gets notified, through which channel, and at what point in the escalation process.

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Supported Channels

Channel	Format	Status
Email	HTML (customizable via templates)	Available
Slack	Block Kit messages	Available
Microsoft Teams	Adaptive Cards (v1.4)	Available
Generic Webhook	JSON payload via HTTP POST	Available
SMS	Text messages via Twilio	Available
Voice	Automated voice calls via Twilio	Available (bidirectional mode)

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Email (SMTP)

Email notifications use your organization's SMTP server to deliver HTML-formatted alert emails.

SMTP Configuration

Navigate to Settings → External Notifications → Email / SMTP to configure your mail server.

Field	Required	Description
Host	Yes	SMTP server hostname (e.g., smtp.office365.com)
Port	Yes	SMTP port (typically 587 for STARTTLS, 465 for SSL)
Encryption	Yes	TLS (STARTTLS), SSL (implicit TLS), or None
Username	No	SMTP authentication username
Password	No	SMTP authentication password (encrypted at rest)
From Address	Yes	Sender email address (e.g., alerts@example.com)
From Name	No	Sender display name (default: "Stratora Alerts")
Enabled	Yes	Master toggle

Testing

Enter a recipient email address and click Send Test Email to verify delivery. The test sends a confirmation email through your SMTP server.

Email Content

Alert emails are rendered from customizable email templates that include:

• Severity-colored header banner
• Node name, IP address, and site
• Alert details and timestamps
• "View in Stratora" action button
• Branded footer

Global Email Settings

In addition to per-escalation-team email channels, Stratora has global notification settings that apply as a fallback when alert configurations don't specify an escalation team:

Setting	Default	Description
Email Enabled	Yes	Master switch for fallback email notifications
Recipients	—	Default email addresses
On Trigger	Yes	Send when an alert fires
On Resolve	Yes	Send when an alert resolves
On Acknowledge	No	Send when an alert is acknowledged

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Slack

Slack notifications are delivered via incoming webhooks using Slack's Block Kit format.

Configuration

Each escalation step channel needs:

Field	Required	Description
Webhook URL	Yes	Slack incoming webhook URL
Channel	No	Override the webhook's default channel (e.g., #critical-alerts)
Username	No	Override the bot display name (default: "Stratora")

Message Format

Alert notifications include:

• Severity emoji and header (red circle for critical, orange diamond for warning)
• Node name and severity in a structured fields layout
• Alert summary and description
• Escalation team and step information
• Timestamp footer

Resolution notifications use a green checkmark with the alert name, node, duration, and resolved timestamp.

Testing

Use the Test button when configuring an escalation step channel to send a test message to your Slack webhook.

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Microsoft Teams

Teams notifications are delivered via incoming webhooks using the Adaptive Cards v1.4 format for rich, interactive messages.

Configuration

Each escalation step channel needs:

Field	Required	Description
Webhook URL	Yes	Teams incoming webhook URL

Card Types

Stratora sends four types of Adaptive Cards:

Card	When Sent	Style
Alert	When an alert fires	Red (critical) or yellow (warning) severity styling, with node details, metric values, and an "Acknowledge" action button
Resolved	When an alert resolves	Green styling with node details and alert duration
Acknowledged	When an alert is acknowledged	Yellow styling with acknowledger name and timestamp
Test	When testing the channel	Accent styling with confirmation message

Alert cards include an Acknowledge button that links directly to the alert in Stratora, allowing on-call engineers to acknowledge from the Teams notification without opening the full UI.

Reliable Delivery

Teams notifications are processed through a notification queue with automatic retry:

• Up to 5 delivery attempts per notification
• Exponential backoff between retries (1s, 2s, 4s, 8s, up to 60s max)
• Transient failures (HTTP 408, 429, 502, 503, 504) are retried; permanent failures (4xx) are not
• All delivery attempts are logged for troubleshooting

Testing

Use the Test button to send a test Adaptive Card to your Teams channel and verify the webhook is working.

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Generic Webhooks

Generic webhooks send a JSON payload via HTTP POST to any URL, enabling integration with ticketing systems, automation platforms, PagerDuty, custom dashboards, or any system that accepts webhook callbacks.

Configuration

Each escalation step channel needs:

Field	Required	Description
Webhook URL	Yes	Destination URL
Custom Headers	No	Key-value pairs added to the HTTP request (e.g., Authorization, X-API-Key)

Alert Payload

{
  "type": "alert",
  "source": "stratora",
  "timestamp": "2026-01-15T20:45:00Z",
  "alert_id": "...",
  "node_id": "...",
  "node_name": "SERVER-01",
  "severity": "critical",
  "summary": "High CPU Usage on SERVER-01",
  "description": "CPU has been above 95% for 5 minutes",
  "alert_type": "metric",
  "alert_key": "cpu_high",
  "triggered_at": "2026-01-15T20:45:00Z",
  "escalation": "IT On-Call",
  "escalation_step": 1,
  "details": {}
}

Resolution Payload

{
  "type": "alert_resolved",
  "source": "stratora",
  "timestamp": "2026-01-15T20:52:00Z",
  "alert_id": "...",
  "node_id": "...",
  "node_name": "SERVER-01",
  "severity": "critical",
  "summary": "High CPU Usage on SERVER-01",
  "alert_type": "metric",
  "alert_key": "cpu_high",
  "triggered_at": "2026-01-15T20:45:00Z",
  "resolved_at": "2026-01-15T20:52:23Z",
  "duration": "7 minutes 23 seconds",
  "escalation_team": "IT On-Call",
  "escalation_step": 1,
  "details": {}
}

Testing

Use the Test button to send a test payload to your webhook URL:

{
  "type": "test",
  "source": "stratora",
  "timestamp": "2026-01-15T20:45:00Z",
  "message": "This is a test notification to verify your escalation team webhook configuration."
}

A successful test confirms the URL is reachable and returns an HTTP 2xx response. Custom headers are included in the test request.

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SMS (Twilio)

Stratora sends SMS alert notifications and receives ACK/Escalate replies via Twilio. Bring your own Twilio account — Community, Pro, and Enterprise editions are all supported.

Prerequisites

• A Twilio account (free dev accounts work for testing)
• A phone number with SMS capability (toll-free recommended for production volume)
• For polling mode: a Twilio Sync Service and a Twilio Function to handle inbound SMS
• For bidirectional mode: Stratora must be reachable from the internet at the configured external_url

Configuration

Navigate to Settings → External Notifications → SMS & Voice.

Field	Required	Description
Account SID	Yes	Twilio account SID (ACxxxxxxxx)
Auth Token	Yes	Twilio auth token (encrypted at rest)
From Number	Yes	E.164 format (e.g., +18005551234)
Mode	Yes	Bidirectional, Polling, or Outbound Only
ACK & Escalate	No	Include reply instructions in SMS body (default: on)

Credential changes (Account SID, Auth Token, From Number) take effect immediately after saving — no restart needed. Mode changes require a backend service restart; the UI displays an amber warning banner when this applies.

Modes

Mode	Inbound Handling	Best For
Bidirectional	Twilio sends inbound SMS directly to Stratora via webhook	Internet-accessible deployments
Polling	Stratora polls a Twilio Sync Map for reply actions	Air-gapped or outbound-only networks
Outbound Only	No inbound handling — SMS body omits reply instructions	Send-only alerting

Bidirectional Mode Setup

1. Save your Twilio credentials and select Bidirectional mode
2. Copy the webhook URL displayed in the settings page
3. In the Twilio Console → Phone Numbers → Active Numbers → select your number → Messaging → "A message comes in" → paste the webhook URL
4. Stratora validates inbound requests using X-Twilio-Signature (HMAC-SHA1) — spoofed requests are rejected

caution

The webhook URL must match your server.external_url setting exactly. If external_url is wrong, all signature validations will fail silently.

Polling Mode Setup

Polling mode is designed for air-gapped or segmented networks where Stratora cannot receive inbound connections from the internet.

1. Create a Sync Service in the Twilio Console, copy the Service SID
2. Create a Sync Map named alert-actions (or configure a custom name)
3. Create a Twilio Function to handle inbound SMS and write to the Sync Map:

// Twilio Function: parse inbound SMS, write to Sync Map
exports.handler = async function(context, event, callback) {
  const client = context.getTwilioClient();
  const body = (event.Body || '').trim().toUpperCase();
  const parts = body.split(/\s+/);
  if (parts.length < 2 || !['ACK', 'ESCALATE'].includes(parts[0])) {
    return callback(null, new Twilio.twiml.MessagingResponse());
  }
  const syncService = 'YOUR_SYNC_SERVICE_SID';
  const mapName = 'alert-actions';
  await client.sync.v1.services(syncService).syncMaps(mapName).syncMapItems.create({
    key: `${Date.now()}-${event.From}`,
    data: { action: parts[0], token: parts[1].toLowerCase(), from: event.From, ts: new Date().toISOString() },
    ttl: 3600,
  });
  return callback(null, new Twilio.twiml.MessagingResponse());
};

4. Set the Function URL as the inbound SMS webhook on your Twilio phone number
5. In Stratora settings, enter the Sync Service SID and set mode to Polling
6. Stratora polls the Sync Map every 15 seconds (configurable) and processes ACK/ESCALATE items

Outbound Only Mode

No inbound handling. SMS alerts are sent but reply instructions (ACK/ESCALATE tokens) are omitted from the message body. Recipients are directed to log in to Stratora to manage alerts.

Configuring Recipients

SMS notifications are sent to escalation team rotation members who have SMS enabled:

1. Go to Alerting → Escalation Teams → select a team
2. Add or edit an escalation step with the SMS channel
3. On each rotation member, enter a phone number (E.164 format) and enable the SMS toggle

Phone numbers are masked in all server logs for privacy (+1***1234).

ACK and Escalate via SMS Reply

When ACK & Escalate is enabled and the mode supports inbound handling:

• Reply format: ACK <token> or ESCALATE <token> (case-insensitive)
• Tokens are single-use with a 24-hour TTL
• ACK: acknowledges the alert; ACK notifications sent to all other channels
• ESCALATE: manually advances the escalation to the next step

Testing

1. Check Connectivity — verifies api.twilio.com:443 is reachable from the server
2. Send Test SMS — sends a test message to a phone number you specify, returns the Twilio message SID on success

Toll-Free Number Verification

Twilio requires toll-free number verification for production SMS volume. Free dev accounts have throughput caps that are sufficient for testing but not for production.

Submit verification in the Twilio Console before production use: Twilio Toll-Free Verification

Troubleshooting

• Check backend logs for [Twilio/SMS], [Twilio/Webhook], [Twilio/Sync] prefixed lines
• Verify config source at startup: [Twilio] config loaded from database or [Twilio] config loaded from config.yaml (no DB record found)
• Mode changes require a server restart — the UI warns when this applies
• In bidirectional mode, confirm server.external_url matches the URL configured in Twilio

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Voice Calls

Stratora can call escalation team members when an alert fires. The call uses text-to-speech to announce the alert, then prompts for a DTMF response.

What you hear

"Stratora alert. CRITICAL on SERVER-01, site HQ. High CPU Usage. Press 1 to acknowledge. Press 2 to escalate. Press 3 to repeat this message."

DTMF responses

Key	Action
1	Acknowledge the alert
2	Escalate to the next step
3	Repeat the message
No input (10s timeout)	No action — log in to Stratora to manage the alert

Requirements

• Bidirectional mode only — Twilio must be able to fetch TwiML from Stratora (voice polling mode is not yet supported)
• server.external_url must be set and reachable from the internet
• Rotation member must have a phone number (E.164) and Voice enabled

Enabling voice for a team member

1. Go to Alerting → Escalation Teams → select a team
2. Edit a rotation member
3. Enter a phone number in E.164 format (e.g., +18005551234)
4. Enable the Voice toggle
5. Save the team

Resolution calls

When an alert resolves, members with voice enabled receive a call:

"This is a Stratora resolved notification. High CPU Usage on SERVER-01 has been resolved. Goodbye."

No keypress is required for resolution calls.

Toll-free number verification

Twilio requires toll-free numbers to be verified before carriers will deliver calls and SMS at production volume. During verification (typically 2–5 business days), messages may show as UNDELIVERED with error 30032 — this is expected and resolves automatically once verification clears.

Submit verification at: Twilio Toll-Free Verification

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How Notifications Connect to Alerting

Notifications are delivered through the escalation team system:

1. An alert configuration is linked to an escalation team
2. When an alert fires, the escalation engine starts at Step 1
3. Each step has one or more channels (email, Slack, Teams, webhook)
4. If the alert isn't resolved, the engine advances through steps with configured delays
5. When the alert resolves, resolution notifications are sent to all channels that were previously notified

For on-call rotation teams, channels can dynamically target the current on-call person, next on-call, or all rotation members instead of static recipients.

See Escalation Teams for full details on multi-step escalation, schedules, and on-call rotation.

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Notification Audit Trail

All notification delivery attempts are recorded in an audit log, including:

• Notification type and channel
• Delivery status (sent, failed, retried)
• HTTP response code and response time
• Alert and device information
• Escalation team and step

This audit trail helps diagnose delivery issues and provides evidence of notification compliance.