Notifications

Author: Chiam Hui Cheang, 2BrightSparks Pte. Ltd.

SyncBack has different ways to notify you about a profile having been run.

We recommend that it is best to always be notified (not only when a profile fails), because if you choose to only receive notifications when the profile run failed, then in the case where the notifications themselves fail to be sent (e.g. your email password may have changed, hence the email cannot be sent), you will not receive the email even when the profile fails. By choosing to always be notified then if you fail to receive the notifications you will know there is a problem.

Email

Email notification (Modify Profile > Expert > Log > Email Log) is the easiest method to be notified about your profile run if you have an existing email address. You can further customize your email settings (Modify Profile > Expert > Log > Email Log > Advanced) such as the email body.

If you run your profile frequently, and are worried that the emails may be fill your mailbox, you can choose to set up another email address for this so you can check on your profile run periodically.

For Gmail accounts, you may refer to our article for the configuration.

For Office 365 accounts, you may need to use a Linked Account for the email under burger menu > Linked Cloud Account > Cloud-based Office 365 (Exchange Web Services), and when modifying or creating a profile click on the "Use my account" button in the Modify > Expert > Log > Email Log page.

Pushover (not available in SyncBackFree)

A Pushover message (Modify Profile > Expert > Log > Pushover) is similar to an SMS but without the costs. They can be sent if a profile run fails and/or succeeds. Pushover messages can be received on a wide range of devices, e.g. iOS, Android, macOS and Windows.

To use this feature, you must create a Pushover account.

Note: Pushover has strict limits on the number of messages that can be sent per month. Those limits apply globally to SyncBackSE and SyncBackPro and are reset at midnight (Central U.S.) on the first day of each month. If that limit is met, then no more messages can be sent by anyone until the limit is reset. SyncBack will limit how many Pushover messages you can send per day.

We strongly recommend that you create your own application token and use that. That way you can have your own limits which will be more than enough.

Refer to our article on using Pushover with SyncBackPro/SE.

Webhooks (not available in SyncBackFree)

Webhooks (Modify Profile > Expert > Log > Webhooks) are automated messages to a web server or service. Many services support webhooks, e.g. Microsoft Teams.

For the Webhook URL, and message (if they are required to be in a certain format), please consult the server or service you are using. Often the message is in JSON format, but not always.

SysLog (only available in SyncBackPro)

SyncBackPro can communicate with a SysLog server (as specified in RFC 3164). When certain tasks are performed, e.g. profiles run, a message is sent to the specified SysLog server. You can configure this setting in the Global Settings (burger menu > Global Settings > SysLog page).

Free Windows SysLog servers are available.

SyncBack Management System - SBMS (only available in SyncBackPro)

SBMS is a tool that can be used by IT administrators to manage and monitor multiple remote installations of SyncBackPro. One usage of SBMS is tracking the status of profile run results and history.

Refer to our Managing Remote SyncBackPro Profiles with SBMS article for more information. SBMS is free to use with SyncBackPro V10 (or newer).

Scheduler Monitor Service - introduced in SyncBack V11

SyncBack V11 introduced the Scheduler Monitor Service. The sole purpose of this service is to check to see if the Windows Task Scheduler has failed to run any scheduled profiles. For example, you may have scheduled a profile to run even when you are not logged in. In that case you must provide your Windows password when creating the scheduled task. If your password later changes, and you do not update any schedules to use your new password, then the scheduler will fail to start your profile as it using your old password.

Note that if you have installed SyncBack just for yourself, i.e. not as an Administrator for All Users, then the Scheduler Monitor Service is not installed (as it is a Windows service and so must be installed by an Administrator).

Conclusion

This article gave an overview of the different notification methods available in SyncBack, which will help you with the decision on the notification type (or a combination of them) to use based on your needs.

Email notifications are supported by SyncBackPro, SyncBackSE and SyncBackFree. However, Pushover and Webhooks notifications are not available in SyncBackFree. SysLog and SBMS can only be used with SyncBackPro.