Alerts are new in Configuration Manager. When compared to status messages, alerts can provide more features and improvements. For example, alerts are state-based, meaning that they execute immediately as the condition changes and they provide a near real-time monitoring experience and subscription. Alerts in Configuration Manager are limited in functionality and should not be considered as a monitoring solution. If you need monitoring tools, use System Center Operations Manager, which is an enterprise-level alerting, notification, and performance metric tool.

Alerts are located in the monitoring workspace of the Configuration Manager console. The overview node provides a list of the recent alerts. Clicking on the Alerts node will display the list of available alerts in the List pane and give details about the selected alert in the Details pane.

Alerts are displayed in the following five states: