Alerts

An alert notifies the people following your places about conditions, updates, and events — high water on a river, a guided hike next weekend, new parking information. Alerts can apply to specific locations or to your whole organization, and they can carry images, documents, and paper maps.

If you need to actually close a place, use a closure instead.

You'll find Alerts under Outreach in the Manager sidebar.

Alerts Versus Closures

An alert is a communication. Use it to share news, conditions, hazards, or announcements that don't necessarily close anything. Alerts can apply to specific locations or your whole organization, can include images and documents, and they notify followers.

A closure restricts access. Use it when a place is actually closed or has limited access. A closure always applies to one or more specific locations and, on its own, doesn't notify your followers.

The two work hand in hand: a closure restricts access on the map, and an alert is what tells people about it. The easiest way to notify visitors about a closure is to create the alert when Manager prompts you — see Creating an Alert From a Closure.

Creating an Alert

1. Go to Outreach → Alerts and select Create Alert (or New Alert).
2. Fill in the Details section:
• Title (required) — a short, scannable headline, like "High Water on River Trail." The recommended maximum is 80 characters.
• Level (required) — sets the alert's color and urgency. See Levels below.
• Body (required) — the full message. The body is a rich text editor, so you can format the text, add links, and structure the content.
3. Fill in the Timing section (both optional):
• Start Date — when the alert becomes active. Leave it blank to activate immediately.
• End Date — when the alert expires. Leave it blank for an alert with no set end.
4. In Where It Applies, choose the organization and locations this alert covers:
• Your current organization is attached by default.
• Add specific areas, trails, points of interest, or outings to target the alert. Leave the locations empty to send an organization-wide alert.
5. In Media (optional), attach images, documents, or paper maps to show with the alert.
6. Select Create Alert.

When the alert becomes active, OuterSpatial notifies the people following the affected locations (or your whole organization, for an organization-wide alert).

Good to know: all times are shown in your organization's time zone.

Levels

The level sets the alert's color and signals its urgency:

• Info — general information and announcements.
• Warning — conditions visitors should be aware of before they go.
• Danger — serious hazards or urgent situations.
• Emergency — the most severe alerts. They pin to the top of the visitor app and can't be dismissed, so reserve them for genuine emergencies.

Choose the level that matches how much attention the alert deserves.

Alert Status

Manager calculates an alert's status from its dates and whether it's archived — you don't set it directly:

• Active — currently showing to visitors and able to notify followers.
• Scheduled — has a start date in the future and hasn't begun yet.
• Expired — its end date has passed.
• Archived — you've manually archived it (see Archiving an Alert).

The Alerts list has a tab for each status: Active, Scheduled, Expired, and Archived.

Finding an Alert

On the Alerts list you can search by title, body, or affected location, and filter by:

• Level (Info, Warning, Danger, Emergency)
• Location type (area, trail, point of interest, outing)
• Whether a notification has been sent

You can also sort by start or end date. Each alert shows whether its notification has gone out.

To see alerts for one specific place, open that location and go to its Alerts tab.

Editing an Alert

Open the alert and select Edit. You can change the title, level, body, timing, locations, and media. Save your changes when you're done.

Editing an alert does not automatically re-notify followers. To send the notification again, use Resend Notification.

Resending a Notification

If you need to notify followers again — for example, after a significant update — open an active alert and select Resend Notification. This sends the alert notification again to everyone following the affected locations. Resending is only available while the alert is active.

Archiving an Alert

When an alert is no longer relevant, archive it to remove it from visitors:

1. Open the alert and select Archive Alert.
2. Confirm. The alert stops showing to visitors.

Archived alerts aren't deleted — you can still find them under the Archived tab for your records. There's no permanent delete in Manager.

Creating an Alert From a Closure

When you create or end a closure, Manager offers to create a matching alert so followers are notified. The alert is pre-filled from the closure:

• Title comes from the closure's name, or its reason (for example, "Weather Closure").
• Body comes from the closure's description.
• Level is set to Warning, or Emergency if the closure was marked as an emergency.
• Dates and locations match the closure.

You can adjust anything before saving. This is the recommended way to notify visitors about a closure — the closure restricts access, and the alert tells people about it.

Tips

• Write a clear, specific title. It's the first (and sometimes only) thing visitors read.
• Match the level to the stakes. Reserve Danger for genuine hazards, and Emergency — the top of the scale — for true emergencies, so each keeps its weight.
• Use media to add context. A photo of the washout or a PDF detour map helps visitors far more than text alone.
• Schedule ahead for known events by setting a future start date.
• Archive when it's over so your active alerts stay relevant.