Metabase Alerts vs. Bonnard: Last-Mile Reports
Metabase alerts help teams track metrics, but they stop short of real automation. Learn how Bonnard Signals turn your existing Metabase data into intelligent reports & notifications that drive action — not just alerts.
Key Takeaways
- ✓Metabase alerts deliver raw data — just numbers without context, analysis, or next steps
- ✓Bonnard adds AI intelligence — automatic analysis, conversational follow-ups, and smart routing
- ✓Teams save 4+ hours per week — no more manual investigation or context gathering
- ✓Setup takes 15 minutes — connect Metabase, configure signals, and start getting actionable insights
Metabase introduced Alerts to help users stay informed when metrics change, e.g., "Notify me when daily sales drop below $10,000." Alerts are triggered by question results and delivered to email, Slack, or via webhook. In the latest versions, they've gained scheduling control and reliability, with Dashboard Subscriptions replacing Pulses for scheduled reports.
But here's the problem: alerts still only deliver data snapshots, not insights. They tell you something changed, but not why or what to do next. Your team gets a number in Slack, then has to open Metabase, investigate the context, figure out what caused the change, decide on next steps, and manually share findings with stakeholders. Alerts create more questions than they answer.
Here's what Metabase alerts can't do in 2025:
| Area | Limitation |
|---|---|
| Context | Alerts show numbers, not meaning, no AI explanation or trend summary. |
| Routing | Fixed delivery targets (Slack/email); no conditional or multi-channel logic. |
| Interaction | Recipients can't ask follow-up questions or refine the query. |
| Personalization | All recipients get the same message, no tailored insights per team. |
| Scalability | Managing many alerts across multiple dashboards quickly becomes chaotic. |
| Automation Depth | Webhooks exist but require custom code or third-party setup for anything advanced. |
The Real Cost: Ignoring notifications. Teams that rely heavily on Metabase alerts experience notification overload (50+ alerts per day that people start ignoring), constant context switching (every alert requires opening Metabase to investigate), manual triage (someone has to decide which alerts matter and explain them to others), and delayed action (time wasted investigating means slower response to real issues). The irony? Alerts were supposed to save time.
How to Set Up Metabase Alerts
Setting up Metabase alerts is straightforward—it takes just a few clicks:
Navigate to your report in Metabase
Click on report settings
Select frequency and delivery time
Toggle on Slack notifications
Click "Pick a user or channel..."
Type and select your target channel or user
Click "Done"
What you get: Threshold-based notifications delivered to Slack on your schedule. When a metric crosses your defined threshold, everyone in the channel gets the same alert.
What you're still missing: Context, analysis, interactivity, and personalization. The alert arrives, but your team still has to open Metabase, investigate the cause, figure out what changed, and manually share findings with stakeholders.
Why Bonnard Signals work differently
Bonnard Signals don't just notify — they analyze, explain, and enable action. Here's the core comparison:
| Feature | Metabase Alerts | Bonnard Signals |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery format | Raw numbers | Contextual insights with natural language explanations |
| Analysis depth | None | AI-powered trend analysis and root cause identification |
| Interactivity | Static message | Conversational follow-ups in Slack |
| Personalization | Same message for all | Role-based, personalized insights per team |
| Context | None | Automatic period-over-period comparisons and historical trends |
| Action recommendations | None | AI-generated next steps based on data patterns |
Bonnard automatically identifies what changed, explains the underlying drivers, compares to historical patterns, and suggests next actions.
Conversational Intelligence
Recipients can respond directly in Slack with follow-up questions like "Why did returning customers drop?" and receive instant analysis without opening Metabase or writing SQL. The bot synthesizes data from multiple sources and provides contextualized answers in natural language.
Smart Routing
Bonnard sends different insights to different teams based on relevance:
- Sales gets revenue alerts with customer segment breakdown
- Product gets engagement metrics with feature usage trends
- Support gets ticket volume with sentiment analysis
- Executives get strategic summaries with recommendations
One data source, personalized insights for every stakeholder.
Switching from Alerts to Signals
Getting started takes about 15 minutes:
Sign up at app.bonnard.ai/sign-up
Connect your Metabase instance via API key
Select the cards you want to sync from your Metabase dashboards
Create a report with AI-powered analysis enabled
Review the AI-generated insights and analysis
Configure delivery channels and schedule for your audience
Publish your intelligent report
Conclusion
Metabase alerts tell you what changed. Bonnard Signals tell you why it matters and what to do about it. The difference is hours saved every week and faster, smarter decisions.
By automating the last-mile between data and action, Bonnard eliminates alert fatigue, reduces context switching, and empowers teams to respond to insights immediately—without opening Metabase or waiting for analyst reports. Organizations using Bonnard's smart reporting platform report significant time savings (5+ hours per week per team), faster decision-making, and dramatically improved adoption of data-driven practices across non-technical stakeholders.
The goal isn't to abandon Metabase, it's to make it work smarter by augmenting static alerts with intelligent, conversational insights that drive action. Get started with Bonnard today.
Make Metabase faster and easier for everyone.
Save 5+ hours per week with Bonnard's AI-powered reporting. No more manual exports, no more copy-paste—just automated insights delivered where your team works.