Need better alert content

When Events trigger and alerts are send to end users, there is a need to have important information as part of the alert.   For example, let's say I setup a threshold to monitor for sustained CPU usage greater than 80%.  When the Alert is sent, it is important to the  person receiving the alert to understand whether the CPU usage was 81% or 99%.  If it is 81%, I might simply keep an eye on the system.  If it is 99% or 100% I just react to the problem.

Currently, within Instana, the only customization of Alert content is the ability to add custom payloads.  But, the Custom Payloads are limited to a set of String parameters that help identify the entity.   None of the metric values area availlable.  In addition, none of the properties are available to be used in Custom Payloads.

Ideally, I would like to see ALL metrics within a given entity included in an Alert.  If that's not possible, allow for customers to choose the metrics and properties to be included via custom payload.

One thing that needs to be considered when showing metric data in the Alert is whether to show a point in time metric, a historical average, etc.  or  to show a small historical graph.  In an ideal world, if the alert channel technology supports the ability to show graphs, we would include a small graph.   We would need to think about the time range.   Let's say I setup my threshold to monitor over a 60 seocnd interval.   I could show a 60 second graph or I could show a graph with the previous 4 or 5 minutes.  If we show a single data point, I would recommend using whatever formula is in the Event/SmartAlert.   For example, if the Event  monitors for 60 seconds using an Average and waits for 2 consecutive true samples, then use an Average over that 120 second time window.