The best instructions for real time alerts is never ever use those! Usually those generate more issues inside and outside of splunk e.g. in email systems when there are some mistakes in configuration or even any mistakes. Instead of real time alert you should use scheduled alerts. Just select suitable time schedule for based on individual alert. When you are creating those check if there are regularly some latency when indexing events and if, then adjust earliest and latest based on that. For sending emails, you could add needed configuration for base splunk email settings or add some alert actions to do it. Personally I prefer to add links to alert into its body, never add real data into it. Time by time there could be some static or similar content. But never send real events outside of splunk. More instructions can found from community/answers and also alerting manual.
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