Create and manage action groups in the Azure portal

When Azure Monitor data indicates that there might be a problem with your infrastructure or application, an alert is triggered. Azure Monitor, Azure Service Health, and Azure Advisor then use action groups to notify users about the alert and take an action. An action group is a collection of notification preferences that are defined by the owner of an Azure subscription.

This article shows you how to create and manage action groups in the Azure portal. Depending on your requirements, you can configure various alerts to use the same action group or different action groups.

Each action is made up of the following properties:

• Type: The notification that's sent or action that's performed. Examples include sending a voice call, SMS, or email. You can also trigger various types of automated actions. For detailed information about notification and action types, see Action-specific information, later in this article.
• Name: A unique identifier within the action group.
• Details: The corresponding details that vary by type.

For information about how to use Azure Resource Manager templates to configure action groups, see Action group Resource Manager templates.

An action group is a global service, so there's no dependency on a specific Azure region. Requests from clients can be processed by action group services in any region. For instance, if one region of the action group service is down, the traffic is automatically routed and processed by other regions. As a global service, an action group helps provide a disaster recovery solution.

Create an action group by using the Azure portal

1. Go to the Azure portal.

2. Search for and select Monitor. The Monitor pane consolidates all your monitoring settings and data in one view.

3. Select Alerts, and then select Action groups.

   

4. Select Create.

   

5. Enter information as explained in the following sections.

Configure basic action group settings

1. Under Project details, select:

   • Values for Subscription and Resource group.

   • The region.

     Option	Behavior
     Global	The action groups service decides where to store the action group. The action group is persisted in at least two regions to ensure regional resiliency. Processing of actions may be done in any geographic region. Voice, SMS, and email actions performed as the result of service health alerts are resilient to Azure live-site incidents.
     Regional	The action group is stored within the selected region. The action group is zone-redundant. Processing of actions is performed within the region. Use this option if you want to ensure that the processing of your action group is performed within a specific geographic boundary.

   The action group is saved in the subscription, region, and resource group that you select.

2. Under Instance details, enter values for Action group name and Display name. The display name is used in place of a full action group name when the group is used to send notifications.

   

Configure notifications

1. To open the Notifications tab, select Next: Notifications. Alternately, at the top of the page, select the Notifications tab.

2. Define a list of notifications to send when an alert is triggered. Provide the following information for each notification:

   • Notification type: Select the type of notification that you want to send. The available options are:

     • Email Azure Resource Manager Role: Send an email to users who are assigned to certain subscription-level Azure Resource Manager roles.
     • Email/SMS message/Push/Voice: Send various notification types to specific recipients.

   • Name: Enter a unique name for the notification.

   • Details: Based on the selected notification type, enter an email address, phone number, or other information.

   • Common alert schema: You can choose to turn on the common alert schema, which provides the advantage of having a single extensible and unified alert payload across all the alert services in Azure Monitor. For more information about this schema, see Common alert schema.

   

3. Select OK.

Configure actions

1. To open the Actions tab, select Next: Actions. Alternately, at the top of the page, select the Actions tab.

2. Define a list of actions to trigger when an alert is triggered. Provide the following information for each action:

   • Action type: Select from the following types of actions:

     • An Azure Automation runbook
     • An Azure Functions function
     • A notification that's sent to Azure Event Hubs
     • A notification that's sent to an IT service management (ITSM) tool
     • An Azure Logic Apps workflow
     • A secure webhook
     • A webhook

   • Name: Enter a unique name for the action.

   • Details: Enter appropriate information for your selected action type. For instance, you might enter a webhook URI, the name of an Azure app, an ITSM connection, or an Automation runbook. For an ITSM action, also enter values for Work item and other fields that your ITSM tool requires.

   • Common alert schema: You can choose to turn on the common alert schema, which provides the advantage of having a single extensible and unified alert payload across all the alert services in Azure Monitor. For more information about this schema, see Common alert schema.

   

Create the action group

1. To assign a key-value pair to the action group, select Next: Tags. Alternately, at the top of the page, select the Tags tab. Otherwise, skip this step. By using tags, you can categorize your Azure resources. Tags are available for all Azure resources, resource groups, and subscriptions.

   

2. To review your settings, select Review + create. This step quickly checks your inputs to make sure you've entered all required information. If there are issues, they're reported here. After you've reviewed the settings, select Create to create the action group.

   

Note

When you configure an action to notify a person by email or SMS, they receive a confirmation that indicates they were added to the action group.

Test an action group in the Azure portal (preview)

When you create or update an action group in the Azure portal, you can test the action group.

1. Define an action, as described in the previous few sections. Then select Review + create.

   Note

   If you're editing an already existing action group, you must save changes to the action group before you begin testing.

2. On the page that lists the information you entered, select Test action group.

   

3. Select a sample type and the notification and action types that you want to test. Then select Test.

   

4. If you close the window or select Back to test setup while the test is running, the test is stopped, and you don't get test results.

   

5. When the test is finished, a test status of either Success or Failed appears. If the test failed and you want to get more information, select View details.

   

You can use the information in the Error details section to understand the issue. Then you can edit, save changes, and test the action group again.

When you run a test and select a notification type, you get a message with "Test" in the subject. The tests provide a way to check that your action group works as expected before you enable it in a production environment. All the details and links in test email notifications are from a sample reference set.

Azure Resource Manager role membership requirements

The following table describes the role membership requirements that are needed for the test actions functionality:

User's role membership	Existing action group	Existing resource group and new action group	New resource group and new action group
Subscription contributor	Supported	Supported	Supported
Resource group contributor	Supported	Supported	Not applicable
Action group resource contributor	Supported	Not applicable	Not applicable
Azure Monitor contributor	Supported	Supported	Not applicable
Custom role	Supported	Supported	Not applicable

Note

You can run a limited number of tests per time period. To check which limits apply to your situation, see Rate limiting for voice, SMS, emails, Azure App Service push notifications, and webhook posts.

When you configure an action group in the portal, you can opt in or out of the common alert schema:

• To find common schema samples for all sample types, see Alert payload samples.
• To find non-common schema alert definitions, see Non-common alert schema definitions for Test Action Group.

Create an action group with a Resource Manager template

You can use an Azure Resource Manager template to configure action groups. Using templates, you can automatically set up action groups that can be reused in certain types of alerts. These action groups ensure that all the correct parties are notified when an alert is triggered.

The basic steps are:

1. Create a template as a JSON file that describes how to create the action group.

2. Deploy the template by using any deployment method.

Resource Manager templates for an action group

To create an action group by using a Resource Manager template, you create a resource of the type Microsoft.Insights/actionGroups. Then you fill in all related properties. Here are two sample templates that create an action group.

The first template describes how to create a Resource Manager template for an action group where the action definitions are hard-coded in the template. The second template describes how to create a template that takes the webhook configuration information as input parameters when the template is deployed.

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "actionGroupName": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "Unique name (within the Resource Group) for the Action group."
      }
    },
    "actionGroupShortName": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "Short name (maximum 12 characters) for the Action group."
      }
    }
  },
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.Insights/actionGroups",
      "apiVersion": "2021-09-01",
      "name": "[parameters('actionGroupName')]",
      "location": "Global",
      "properties": {
        "groupShortName": "[parameters('actionGroupShortName')]",
        "enabled": true,
        "smsReceivers": [
          {
            "name": "contosoSMS",
            "countryCode": "1",
            "phoneNumber": "5555551212"
          },
          {
            "name": "contosoSMS2",
            "countryCode": "1",
            "phoneNumber": "5555552121"
          }
        ],
        "emailReceivers": [
          {
            "name": "contosoEmail",
            "emailAddress": "devops@contoso.com",
            "useCommonAlertSchema": true

          },
          {
            "name": "contosoEmail2",
            "emailAddress": "devops2@contoso.com",
            "useCommonAlertSchema": true
          }
        ],
        "webhookReceivers": [
          {
            "name": "contosoHook",
            "serviceUri": "http://requestb.in/1bq62iu1",
            "useCommonAlertSchema": true
          },
          {
            "name": "contosoHook2",
            "serviceUri": "http://requestb.in/1bq62iu2",
            "useCommonAlertSchema": true
          }
        ],
         "SecurewebhookReceivers": [
          {
            "name": "contososecureHook",
            "serviceUri": "http://requestb.in/1bq63iu1",
            "useCommonAlertSchema": false
          },
          {
            "name": "contososecureHook2",
            "serviceUri": "http://requestb.in/1bq63iu2",
            "useCommonAlertSchema": false
          }
        ],
        "eventHubReceivers": [
          {
            "name": "contosoeventhub1",
            "subscriptionId": "replace with subscription id GUID",
            "eventHubNameSpace": "contosoeventHubNameSpace",
            "eventHubName": "contosoeventHub",
            "useCommonAlertSchema": true
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ],
  "outputs":{
      "actionGroupId":{
          "type":"string",
          "value":"[resourceId('Microsoft.Insights/actionGroups',parameters('actionGroupName'))]"
      }
  }
}

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "actionGroupName": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "Unique name (within the Resource Group) for the Action group."
      }
    },
    "actionGroupShortName": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "Short name (maximum 12 characters) for the Action group."
      }
    },
    "webhookReceiverName": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "Webhook receiver service Name."
      }
    },    
    "webhookServiceUri": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "Webhook receiver service URI."
      }
    }    
  },
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.Insights/actionGroups",
      "apiVersion": "2021-09-01",
      "name": "[parameters('actionGroupName')]",
      "location": "Global",
      "properties": {
        "groupShortName": "[parameters('actionGroupShortName')]",
        "enabled": true,
        "smsReceivers": [
        ],
        "emailReceivers": [
        ],
        "webhookReceivers": [
          {
            "name": "[parameters('webhookReceiverName')]",
            "serviceUri": "[parameters('webhookServiceUri')]",
            "useCommonAlertSchema": true
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ],
  "outputs":{
      "actionGroupResourceId":{
          "type":"string",
          "value":"[resourceId('Microsoft.Insights/actionGroups',parameters('actionGroupName'))]"
      }
  }
}

Manage your action groups

After you create an action group, you can view it in the portal:

1. On the Monitor page, select Alerts.

2. Select Manage actions.

3. Select the action group that you want to manage. You can:

   • Add, edit, or remove actions.
   • Delete the action group.

Action-specific information

The following sections provide information about the various actions and notifications that you can configure in an action group.

Note

To check numeric limits on each type of action or notification, see Subscription service limits for monitoring.

Automation runbook

To check limits on Automation runbook payloads, see Automation limits.

You might have a limited number of runbook actions per action group.

Azure App Service push notifications

To enable push notifications to the Azure mobile app, provide the email address that you use as your account ID when you configure the Azure mobile app. For more information about the Azure mobile app, see Get the Azure mobile app.

You might have a limited number of Azure app actions per action group.

Email

Ensure that your email filtering and any malware/spam prevention services are configured appropriately. Emails are sent from the following email addresses:

• azure-noreply@microsoft.com
• azureemail-noreply@microsoft.com
• alerts-noreply@mail.windowsazure.com

You might have a limited number of email actions per action group. For information about rate limits, see Rate limiting for voice, SMS, emails, Azure App Service push notifications, and webhook posts.

Email Azure Resource Manager role

When you use this type of notification, you can send email to the members of a subscription's role. Email is only sent to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) user members of the role. Email isn't sent to Azure AD groups or service principals.

A notification email is sent only to the primary email address.

If your primary email doesn't receive notifications:

1. In the Azure portal, go to Active Directory.

2. On the left, select All users. On the right, a list of users appears.

3. Select the user whose primary email you want to review.

   

4. In the user profile, look under Contact info for an Email value. If it's blank:

   1. At the top of the page, select Edit.
   2. Enter an email address.
   3. At the top of the page, select Save.

   

You might have a limited number of email actions per action group. To check which limits apply to your situation, see Rate limiting for voice, SMS, emails, Azure App Service push notifications, and webhook posts.

When you set up the Resource Manager role:

1. Assign an entity of type User to the role.
2. Make the assignment at the subscription level.
3. Make sure an email address is configured for the user in their Azure AD profile.

Note

It can take up to 24 hours for a customer to start receiving notifications after they add a new Azure Resource Manager role to their subscription.

Event Hubs

An Event Hubs action publishes notifications to Event Hubs. For more information about Event Hubs, see Azure Event Hubs—A big data streaming platform and event ingestion service. You can subscribe to the alert notification stream from your event receiver.

Functions

An action that uses Functions calls an existing HTTP trigger endpoint in Functions. For more information about Functions, see Azure Functions. To handle a request, your endpoint must handle the HTTP POST verb.

When you define the function action, the function's HTTP trigger endpoint and access key are saved in the action definition, for example, https://azfunctionurl.azurewebsites.net/api/httptrigger?code=<access_key>. If you change the access key for the function, you must remove and re-create the function action in the action group.

You might have a limited number of function actions per action group.

Note

The function must have access to the storage account. If not, no keys will be available and the function URI won't be accessible. Learn about restoring access to the storage account

ITSM

An ITSM action requires an ITSM connection. To learn how to create an ITSM connection, see ITSM integration.

You might have a limited number of ITSM actions per action group.

Logic Apps

You might have a limited number of Logic Apps actions per action group.

Secure webhook

When you use a secure webhook action, you must use Azure AD to secure the connection between your action group and your protected web API, which is your webhook endpoint.

The secure webhook action authenticates to the protected API by using a Service Principal instance in the Azure AD tenant of the "AZNS AAD Webhook" Azure AD application. To make the action group work, this Azure AD Webhook Service Principal must be added as a member of a role on the target Azure AD application that grants access to the target endpoint.

For an overview of Azure AD applications and service principals, see Microsoft identity platform (v2.0) overview. Follow these steps to take advantage of the secure webhook functionality.

Note

Basic authentication isn't supported for SecureWebhook. To use basic authentication, you must use Webhook.

If you use the webhook action, your target webhook endpoint must be able to process the various JSON payloads that different alert sources emit. If the webhook endpoint expects a specific schema, for example, the Microsoft Teams schema, use the Logic Apps action to transform the alert schema to meet the target webhook's expectations.

1. Create an Azure AD application for your protected web API. For more information, see Protected web API: App registration. Configure your protected API to be called by a daemon app and expose application permissions, not delegated permissions. For more information about these permissions, see If your web API is called by a service or daemon app.

   Note

   Configure your protected web API to accept V2.0 access tokens. For more information about this setting, see Azure Active Directory app manifest.

2. To enable the action group to use your Azure AD application, use the PowerShell script that follows this procedure.

   Note

   You must be assigned the Azure AD Application Administrator role to run this script.

   1. Modify the PowerShell script's Connect-AzureAD call to use your Azure AD tenant ID.
   2. Modify the PowerShell script's $myAzureADApplicationObjectId variable to use the object ID of your Azure AD application.
   3. Run the modified script.

   Note

   The service principal must be assigned an owner role of the Azure AD application to be able to create or modify the secure webhook action in the action group.

3. Configure the secure webhook action.

   1. Copy the $myApp.ObjectId value that's in the script.
   2. In the webhook action definition, in the Object Id box, enter the value that you copied.

   

Secure webhook PowerShell script

Connect-AzureAD -TenantId "<provide your Azure AD tenant ID here>"

# Define your Azure AD application's ObjectId.
$myAzureADApplicationObjectId = "<the Object ID of your Azure AD Application>"

# Define the action group Azure AD AppId.
$actionGroupsAppId = "461e8683-5575-4561-ac7f-899cc907d62a"

# Define the name of the new role that gets added to your Azure AD application.
$actionGroupRoleName = "ActionGroupsSecureWebhook"

# Create an application role with the given name and description.
Function CreateAppRole([string] $Name, [string] $Description)
{
    $appRole = New-Object Microsoft.Open.AzureAD.Model.AppRole
    $appRole.AllowedMemberTypes = New-Object System.Collections.Generic.List[string]
    $appRole.AllowedMemberTypes.Add("Application");
    $appRole.DisplayName = $Name
    $appRole.Id = New-Guid
    $appRole.IsEnabled = $true
    $appRole.Description = $Description
    $appRole.Value = $Name;
    return $appRole
}

# Get your Azure AD application, its roles, and its service principal.
$myApp = Get-AzureADApplication -ObjectId $myAzureADApplicationObjectId
$myAppRoles = $myApp.AppRoles
$actionGroupsSP = Get-AzureADServicePrincipal -Filter ("appId eq '" + $actionGroupsAppId + "'")

Write-Host "App Roles before addition of new role.."
Write-Host $myAppRoles

# Create the role if it doesn't exist.
if ($myAppRoles -match "ActionGroupsSecureWebhook")
{
    Write-Host "The Action Group role is already defined.`n"
}
else
{
    $myServicePrincipal = Get-AzureADServicePrincipal -Filter ("appId eq '" + $myApp.AppId + "'")

    # Add the new role to the Azure AD application.
    $newRole = CreateAppRole -Name $actionGroupRoleName -Description "This is a role for Action Group to join"
    $myAppRoles.Add($newRole)
    Set-AzureADApplication -ObjectId $myApp.ObjectId -AppRoles $myAppRoles
}

# Create the service principal if it doesn't exist.
if ($actionGroupsSP -match "AzNS AAD Webhook")
{
    Write-Host "The Service principal is already defined.`n"
}
else
{
    # Create a service principal for the action group Azure AD application and add it to the role.
    $actionGroupsSP = New-AzureADServicePrincipal -AppId $actionGroupsAppId
}

New-AzureADServiceAppRoleAssignment -Id $myApp.AppRoles[0].Id -ResourceId $myServicePrincipal.ObjectId -ObjectId $actionGroupsSP.ObjectId -PrincipalId $actionGroupsSP.ObjectId

Write-Host "My Azure AD Application (ObjectId): " + $myApp.ObjectId
Write-Host "My Azure AD Application's Roles"
Write-Host $myApp.AppRoles

SMS

For information about rate limits, see Rate limiting for voice, SMS, emails, Azure App Service push notifications, and webhook posts.

For important information about using SMS notifications in action groups, see SMS alert behavior in action groups.

You might have a limited number of SMS actions per action group.

Note

If you can't select your country/region code in the Azure portal, SMS isn't supported for your country/region. If your country/region code isn't available, you can vote to have your country/region added at Share your ideas. In the meantime, as a workaround, configure your action group to call a webhook to a third-party SMS provider that offers support in your country/region.

Countries with SMS notification support

Country code	Country
61	Australia
43	Austria
32	Belgium
55	Brazil
1	Canada
56	Chile
86	China
420	Czech Republic
45	Denmark
372	Estonia
358	Finland
33	France
49	Germany
852	Hong Kong
91	India
353	Ireland
972	Israel
39	Italy
81	Japan
352	Luxembourg
60	Malaysia
52	Mexico
31	Netherlands
64	New Zealand
47	Norway
351	Portugal
1	Puerto Rico
40	Romania
7	Russia
65	Singapore
27	South Africa
82	South Korea
34	Spain
41	Switzerland
886	Taiwan
971	UAE
44	United Kingdom
1	United States

Voice

For important information about rate limits, see Rate limiting for voice, SMS, emails, Azure App Service push notifications, and webhook posts.

You might have a limited number of voice actions per action group.

Note

If you can't select your country/region code in the Azure portal, voice calls aren't supported for your country/region. If your country/region code isn't available, you can vote to have your country/region added at Share your ideas. In the meantime, as a workaround, configure your action group to call a webhook to a third-party voice call provider that offers support in your country/region.

Countries with Voice notification support

Country code	Country
61	Australia
43	Austria
32	Belgium
55	Brazil
1	Canada
56	Chile
420	Czech Republic
45	Denmark
358	Finland
353	Ireland
972	Israel
352	Luxembourg
60	Malaysia
52	Mexico
31	Netherlands
64	New Zealand
47	Norway
351	Portugal
65	Singapore
27	South Africa
46	Sweeden
44	United Kingdom
1	United States

For information about pricing for supported countries/regions, see Azure Monitor pricing.

Webhook

Note

If you use the webhook action, your target webhook endpoint must be able to process the various JSON payloads that different alert sources emit. You can't pass security certificates through a webhook action. If the webhook endpoint expects a specific schema, for example, the Microsoft Teams schema, use the Logic Apps action to transform the alert schema to meet the target webhook's expectations.

Webhook action groups use the following rules:

The retry logic below assumes that the failure is retriable. The status codes: 408, 429, 503, 504, or HttpRequestException, WebException, TaskCancellationException are considered “retriable”.

When a webhook is invoked, if the first call fails, it will be retried at least 1 more time (retry), and up to 5 times (5 retries) at various delay intervals (5, 20, 40 seconds).

• The delay between 1st and 2nd attempt is 5 seconds

• The delay between 2nd and 3rd attempt is 20 seconds

• The delay between 3rd and 4th attempt is 5 seconds

• The delay between 4th and 5th attempt is 40 seconds

• The delay between 5th and 6th attempt is 5 seconds

• After retries attempted to call the webhook fail, no action group calls the endpoint for 15 minutes.

For source IP address ranges, see Action group IP addresses.

Next steps

• Learn more about SMS alert behavior.
• Gain an understanding of the activity log alert webhook schema.
• Learn more about the ITSM Connector.
• Learn more about rate limiting on alerts.
• Get an overview of activity log alerts and learn how to receive alerts.
• Learn how to configure alerts whenever a Service Health notification is posted.