Event Limit Notifications

Tines Stories: Ask + Answer
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1

Hi team

We have a webhook for case updates in a case management story.

I would like to use the same webhook for event limit notifications but unsure how we test it without actually triggering and seeing the payload of the event limit notifications.
From the webhook and check condition I would like to send a Slack message.

We are limited creating webhooks in Slack itself so need to use a Tines webhook but without consuming a flow.

Thanks

2

Hi Mikhaily! :waving_hand:

Great question. The good news is you don’t have to wait for a real event limit alert to build this. You can send yourself a fake one.

Step 1: Know what the payload looks like

Event limit notifications arrive as a POST request with a predictable body. Here’s the example from the release note:

{
  "notification_type": "tenant_event_limit",
  "notification_description": "This notification is sent when the tenant wide event limit is being approached or has been reached.",
  "payload": {
    "top_story_ids": [1, 2, 3],
    "exceeded_limit": true
  }
}

Once that hits your webhook, you’ll reference the values in your story like this:

  • body.notification_type tells you what kind of alert it is
  • body.payload.exceeded_limit is true if the limit was hit, false if it’s just approaching
  • body.payload.top_story_ids lists the stories using the most events

Story level and team level alerts use the same shape with a different notification_type value, so that field is your best way to tell them apart.

Step 2: Test it by sending the payload yourself

Your webhook doesn’t care who sends it a request. So just send it that sample JSON and you’ll get a real event to build against:

  1. Copy your webhook URL from the webhook action.
  2. In any story, add an HTTP Request action, set the method to POST, paste the URL, and paste the JSON above as the payload.
  3. Run it, then look at the event on your webhook action. You’ll see exactly the structure the real notification will have.

(A curl command or Postman works just as well if you prefer.)

From there you can build your trigger and Slack message and re-run the test as many times as you like.

If you’d rather see a genuine one at least once, you can go to Admin > Event limit alerts, set a low daily limit on a test team, add a low threshold percentage, and run a small story until it crosses. Two things to know before you do: notifications are only sent once every 24 hours per type, so you can’t repeat it quickly, and event counts are cached so the timing can be slightly off. That’s why the manual POST is much nicer for building.

Step 3: Sharing one webhook between case updates and limit alerts

This works fine. Add a Trigger action right after your webhook that checks body.notification_type. If it’s an event limit notification, send it down a new path to Slack. Otherwise let it continue into your existing case update logic. Keeping those as two separate paths on the storyboard will be much easier to follow later than one combined condition.

Worth knowing: a published story can have more than one webhook action, each with its own path. Only send to story entry points are limited to a single webhook. So if you’d prefer to keep things tidy, add a second webhook action just for the alerts and register that URL under Admin > Event limit alerts > Add a webhook.

Step 4: Getting it into Slack without using up a Slack flow

This is the good bit. You don’t need a Slack incoming webhook or a Workflow Builder flow at all, so nothing gets consumed on the Slack side.

Instead, have Tines call the Slack API directly:

  1. Create (or ask your Slack admin for) a Slack app with a bot token that has the chat:write scope, and invite that bot to the channel you want to post in.
  2. Save the token in Tines as a credential (Credentials > New credential > Text), so it’s never sitting in plain text in the story.
  3. Add an HTTP Request action: POST to https://slack.com/api/chat.postMessage, with an Authorization: Bearer <<CREDENTIAL.slack_token>> header, and a payload containing channel and text.

That’s it. Tines is the one making the call, so no Slack webhook and no published Slack flow are involved. The easiest route is to search the Tines story library for “Slack” and drag in the Post a message template, which comes with the request pre-built. You just add your credential and channel.

And if what you meant was avoiding a second Tines story for this, that’s covered too. Everything above can live inside your existing case management story, either hanging off the same webhook or off a second webhook action in the same story.

Docs if you want to read more:

Hope that helps, and shout if you get stuck on any of the steps!

3

Thanks for the comprehensive explanation! @leah

4

No problem. If you have any more questions, reach out!!