BAM alerts are a set of rules that define events and actions. If alerts are configured, the BAM server will continuously monitor the information for certain conditions, and execute the related actions defined in alert rules.

Alert rules are fired when an event occurs or certain conditions are met. Examples of events are: in a specific amount of time, when a report changes, when a data field changes in a data object, or when a data field changes to meet specified conditions, and so on.

Actions define a set of operations that the BAM server can perform, for example, sending e-mails, invoking web services or Java code, and so on. In a typical production environment, alerts are also used for purging data from the Data Objects, which can be scheduled for older data at non-peak hours.