# Snoozing alerts and advanced Slack notifications

We've introduced two very cool new features to Oh Dear: the ability to temporarily silence alerts and advanced Slack notifications.

## Snoozing alerts

You can now temporarily silence alerts being sent by Oh Dear. These _snoozes_ can be activated per check we perform. 

Say you receive a notification your site is down, but you know the fix will take a while to finish? You can snooze for 5 minutes, an hour, 4 hours or a day.

![Snooze notification via the dashboard](/uploads/blogs/advanced-slack-notifications/snooze-via-ohdear-dashboard.png)

This way, you won't be distracted and your teammates won't be disturbed by something you're actively working on!

_Want to learn more? Have a look at [our documentation on how snoozing works](/docs/notifications/snoozing)._

## Advanced Slack notifications

We've rolled out a new way of linking your Slack Workspace to Oh Dear. Our first implementation used _Slack Webhooks_, but this new method makes advanced use of the Slack API. This allows two-way communication between your Slack Workspace & Oh Dear.

Here's an example of a test notification being sent:

<video autoplay loop controls width="100%">
  
<source src="/uploads/blogs/advanced-slack-notifications/test-notification-inspire-me.mp4" type="video/mp4">

</video>

_(This might, in fact, be one of the only implementations of Laravel's `php artisan inspire` in the wild!)_

## Snoozing & rechecking alerts via Slack

Now that we have communications established, we can use these Slack notifications to _Snooze_ incoming notifications and request them be re-checked whenever we want.

<video autoplay loop controls width="100%">
  
<source src="/uploads/blogs/advanced-slack-notifications/snooze-notification.mp4" type="video/mp4">

</video>

Let's break down what is happening here:

1. You can immediately request a new check to confirm the issue (or have it re-check the moment you fixed the problem)
2. You can immediately snooze the notification right from Slack, no need to go to the Oh Dear dashboard

We can live-update the Slack notification and append any new data to it. You'll see who snoozed it and who requested the recheck.

If a recovery comes in, it'll be appended to the original messages too.

<video autoplay loop controls width="100%">
  
<source src="/uploads/blogs/advanced-slack-notifications/recovery-message.mp4" type="video/mp4">

</video>

## Clear overview of your channels

As an added benefit: you can now choose which channel to send the alerts to directly from Oh Dear, this will make it more clear which notifications get sent to which channel.

![Choose Slack channel in Oh Dear](/uploads/blogs/advanced-slack-notifications/slack-notifications-pick-channel.png)

Previously, you might have a list of a couple of webhooks, but it isn't obvious which hook is associated with which channel.

Now, you'll see this directly from your Oh Dear notification settings.

## Activate these new Slack implementations in your account

To activate these new Slack notifications, head over to your [Slack notification settings](/team-settings/notifications/slack-api) and link your Slack Workspace to Oh Dear.

For some more reading, have a look at our [documentation on the Slack API integration](/docs/notifications/slack).

We hope you'll enjoy these new powerful notifications!