--- title: "Quick tour: create and check an alert" slug: "alerts-quick-tour" kind: "HELP_ARTICLE" category: "alerts" locale: "en" canonical: "https://help.forecastcity.com/alerts/alerts-quick-tour" published: "2026-09-08T17:58:35.210Z" updated: "2026-10-27T16:58:09.267Z" description: "A one-page tour of alerts in 4CM-AI Charts: open the editor, build a condition, choose trigger and notifications, then save and check." --- # Quick tour: create and check an alert Set up an alert in seconds so ForecastCity watches 4CastMachine AI forecasts, price levels and indicators accurately for you. Tell or ask AI Trading Assistant by voice or in writing to build the alert for you. Or follow this one-page tour to open the editor, build a condition, choose the options and save. The example: get an alert when EURUSD rises above 1.09 on the 5m chart. ## Open the editor Open EURUSD in 4CM-AI Charts and set the chart to the **5m** timeframe. Then open the alert editor in one of three ways: - Click the lightning icon (**Alerts**) in the top toolbar and press **+**. - Right-click the chart and choose **Add alert on EURUSD at …**. The condition starts with the price you clicked. - Press `Alt+A` on the chart. The condition starts with the current price. You can also tell or ask AI Trading Assistant in your own voice or in writing to create the alert for you. Every kind of alert uses this one window. It opens on the **Conditions** tab and floats over the chart. You can keep using the chart while it is open. ## Build the condition A condition is one row. Read it from left to right: what to watch, the timeframe, what has to happen and the value. If you opened the editor from the chart, the row is already filled in. 1. In the first box, choose **Price**. Always start with this box, because it changes the rest of the row. 2. Leave the second box on **5m**, the chart's timeframe. 3. In the third box, choose **crosses above**. In the last box, type **1.09**. ![The alert editor on the Conditions tab with one price row and the summary beside it.](https://m.forecastcity.com/t/tnt_forecastcity/media/3c/3cb708919739e9dfe94892405f888c668d247868cea22a68a87c6231a7b38ef6.png) The Conditions tab: the condition on the left, and the same alert in plain words on the right. 1. **Price**: what the alert watches. You can also choose a 4CM-AI forecast, a drawing, an indicator or a candlestick pattern here. 2. **crosses above**: what has to happen. 3. The price level to compare with. 4. **Alert me on EURUSD if:** the whole alert in plain words. Read it before you save. The summary on the right now says 5m Price crosses above 1.09. If a box is still empty, it has a faint red outline and **Create** stays grey. The first box lists everything an alert can watch: 4CM-AI, Candles, Price, Line, RSI, EMA, SMA, ATR, MACD, Bollinger, Stoch and Volume. ## Choose when it fires and where it arrives Open the **Options** tab. It holds everything except the conditions. **Trigger** starts on **Once only**, unless you saved your own defaults. With Once only, the alert fires the first time price crosses 1.09, even in the middle of a candle. Then it stops. Do you only care about candles that close above the level, and want to ignore quick spikes? Choose **Once per bar close**. A bar is one candle. A **Confirmation timeframe** box appears. Set it to 5m, like the condition. This alert keeps running after it fires. ![The Options tab of the alert editor with trigger, expiration, message and the notification list.](https://m.forecastcity.com/t/tnt_forecastcity/media/98/983897353271a54c59a805e772ac3bd309fee2f073ccdf583a63cfa6773d969e.png) The Options tab after choosing Once per bar close with a 5m confirmation timeframe. 1. **Trigger**: how often the alert can fire. The line under it describes your choice. 2. **Expiration**: an end date for the alert. Open-ended means it has none. 3. **Message**: leave it on Auto for the automatic message. It says what happened, the price at that moment and whether the alert stays on. 4. **Show in-app notification**: always on. You can tick more places under it. **Schedule** keeps the alert to the days and hours you choose. Outside those hours it does not fire at all. [Choose how often an alert fires and when it is active]() explains these choices in detail. Under **Notifications**, tick where else the alert should reach you: Play sound, Notify my devices, Send email, Telegram, Send to MetaTrader or a webhook. Email, Telegram and webhooks work when your subscription plan includes them. Until you save your own defaults, the places you have already connected (a device, Telegram or MetaTrader) are ticked for you on each new alert. To keep your own choices for every new alert, press **Save as my defaults** at the bottom of the tab. **Reset to defaults** goes back to the starting options. ## Save and check the alert 1. Go back to the **Conditions** tab and read the summary once more. 2. Press **Create**. The window closes. 3. Click the lightning icon (**Alerts**) in the top toolbar. Your alert is in the list with the status Active. Active means the alert is running and waiting for price to cross 1.09. Move the mouse over the alert row to see its buttons: Pause, Edit, Delete and **Explain** (the sparkles icon). Click **Explain** so AI Trading Assistant explains the alert in plain words. Click Edit to open the same window with Save instead of Create. When the alert fires, the **Log** tab of the Alerts panel shows when it happened. If an alert is in the Log but no message reached your phone, check the delivery. The condition worked. ## Add more conditions Press **\+ Add condition** for another row, or press `Enter` in a box you type into. The new row appears right below. Each new row starts with its own **and** or **or**. The editor checks and before or, and draws parentheses on the rows to show which conditions are checked together. Before you build a larger alert, read [Combine several conditions in one alert](). Move the mouse over a row to see its buttons. The gear opens **Details** when the row has extra settings. **( )** puts the row in parentheses with the next row. The bin removes the row. With an active membership, you can also add **4CM-AI** forecast conditions. One alert can then wait for a forecast and for your own chart conditions together. ## Good to know - An alert reacts only to moves that happen after you save it. If EURUSD is already above 1.09 when you press **Create**, price has to go back below 1.09 and cross it again. - Every place you ticked receives the same message: what happened, the price at that moment and whether the alert stays on. Words you type under **Message** come first, with that text under them. - The **Setup** menu at the bottom left saves your conditions as a setup you can reuse later, without creating an alert. Read more in [Organize alerts with setups, groups and watchlists](). ## Related guides - [Step-by-step guides: learn alerts by example]() - [When does an alert fire? Timeframes and repeats]() - [Choose where your alert arrives]() - [Find out why an alert did not arrive]()