Alerts
An alert is a search that runs on a schedule and emails you what is new.
Email me every morning about new water RFPs in Texas.
Alerts need a paid plan.
What you can set
| Name | How the alert is labelled |
| Search | Either search_rfps or search_signals. No other tool can be scheduled. |
| Keywords | The terms to search for |
| States | Two-letter codes, within your coverage |
| Frequency | Daily or weekly |
Results go to the email address on your Civic IQ account.
Only new results
Each run reports only what it has not reported before. A daily alert on a quiet subject will often send nothing, which is the intended behaviour rather than a fault.
Managing them
Ask your assistant to list your alerts, or to delete one by name.
Creating the same search twice updates the first one instead of making a duplicate, so you can safely re-ask for an alert you are not sure you already set.
You can hold up to 25 alerts on an account.
Keywords still widen
An alert runs the same search the tool does, so the same rule applies: a row matching any one of your keywords qualifies, and each extra keyword widens the search rather than narrowing it. A noisy alert is usually a keyword list that is too long.
Set up separate alerts for genuinely different subjects rather than combining them into one. How search behaves explains why.
If alerts are unavailable
Alerts are not switched on for every deployment. Where they are not, the tools say so plainly rather than failing silently.
Setup should only take a few minutes. If you have any questions along the way, just reach out at [email protected] and we'll help you get connected.