In Grafana OSS and Grafana Enterprise, you can use a webhook contact point to send alerts to [Grafana IRM](ref:irm). Grafana IRM can then route alerts based on escalation chains for your team's workflows.
These instructions apply only to Grafana OSS and Grafana Enterprise. To configure IRM for Grafana Cloud Alerting, refer to the [Grafana Cloud documentation](ref:irm-contact-point-in-gc).
First, enable an integration in IRM to accept alerts from Grafana Alerting. You can either create a new integration or use an existing **Alertmanager** or **Webhook** integration in IRM.
1. Provide a title, description, and assign it to a team, then click **Create Integration**.
1. On the integration details page, copy the **HTTP Endpoint** URL to use in the next section.
## Configure a webhook contact point in Grafana Alerting
Next, configure the contact point in Grafana Alerting to send alert notifications to Grafana IRM.
In **Grafana OSS** and **Grafana Enterprise**, you need to create a **Webhook** contact point using the HTTP endpoint URL you copied in the previous step.
## Enable heartbeat monitoring in Grafana IRM (optional)
Enabling the heartbeat in the IRM integration acts as a monitoring for your Grafana Alerting setup. If Grafana Alerting stops sending alerts—due to downtime or misconfiguration—Grafana IRM creates a new alert group to notify you.
To set up heartbeat monitoring, you must enable the heartbeat in IRM and create an alert rule that continuously sends alerts to the heartbeat endpoint.
#### Enable the heartbeat for the IRM integration
1. In **IRM**, select the IRM integration you configured earlier.
1. Click the ⋮ (three dots) on top right, then select **Heartbeat Settings**.
1. Copy the **Endpoint** URL—this will be used in a new contact point in Grafana Alerting.
1. Set the **heartbeat interval**, time period after which Grafana IRM starts a new alert group if it doesn’t receive a heartbeat.
#### Create another Webhook contact point in Grafana Alerting
Follow the same steps as before to create a webhook contact point in Grafana Alerting:
1. From the **Integration** list, select **Webhook**.
1. In the **URL** field, enter the endpoint URL of the heartbeat.
1. Click **Save contact point**.
You can now click the **Test** button to send an alert to the heartbeat endpoint. In **IRM**, verify the heartbeat status in the **Hearbeat** column on the **Integrations** page.
{{<figuresrc="/media/docs/alerting/view-heartbeat-status-on-irm.png"max-width="750px"caption="Heartbeat status column in the Grafana IRM Integrations page">}}
#### Create an alert rule in Grafana Alerting
Create a [Grafana-managed alert rule](ref:configure-grafana-alerts) with the following settings:
- **Always firing** – Use a query and alert condition that constantly fire. For example, select a Prometheus data source and set the query to `vector(1) > 0`.
- Configure a [pending period](ref:pending-period) that is shorter than the **hearbeat interval**.
- Choose the **webhook contact point** you created for the heartbeat to forward alerts.
- Adjust [timing options](ref:timing-options) in the alert rule or notification policy to ensure alerts are forwarded before the **heartbeat interval** elapses:
- **Group wait**: `0s`
- **Group interval**: `1s`
- **Repeat interval**: shorter than the **hearbeat interval**.
After it's created, the alert rule acts as a heartbeat, verifying that Grafana Alerting is running and sending alerts to Grafana IRM.
