Esprezzo Blog

New: Save time and boost insights with smart contract function alerts

Written by Esprezzo Team | November 8, 2023

We're excited to announce another much-requested Dispatch update: smart contract function alerts!

While developers and product managers have been loving our real-time smart contract event monitoring, being able to use smart contract function calls to trigger alerts and other automated workflows can add even more granular insights and controls. Dispatch can handle alerting, freeing up team and community members to do more and focus on other critical issues.

Many of our conversations with teams building in Web3 have surfaced the same problem: limited time and developer resources. Developers are often stretched thin, building user-facing experiences and internal team-facing tools. This can lead to team members having to repeatedly, manually refresh block explorers to monitor launch or drop activity. Add to that having to communicate findings from this frantic refreshing to other teammates or community members in real-time, and, well, you have a recipe for chaos.

Dispatch is designed to help Web3 teams build better and faster. And while automated alerts and workflows for smart contract event emissions are powerful, being able to use smart contract function calls as triggers unlocks even more bandwidth.

Tracking events provides insights into how entities are interacting with your contract or dApp; smart contract functions provide more granular insight into why an event was emitted. As you may know, smart contract functions can be called by external parties or other smart contracts, executing code to modify data or carry out some pre-programmed logic — like trades, swaps, and claims. In some contracts, calling multiple functions can result in the same event being emitted.  

Monitoring function calls means you can more easily identify specific smart contract activity pertinent to your project and community. In addition, you may also be able to identify potential risks if unexpected functions fire within your contract.

Set up alerts and automations for smart contract functions

Whether you're interested in monitoring forge and quest activity for Web3 games, claims, and redemptions for phygital collectibles, or trying to stay ahead of potential security incidents, Dispatch gives you, your team and community the ability to see what’s happening in just a few clicks.

In addition to messaging apps and email, Dispatch supports webhooks, so you can send real-time smart contract activity wherever you need it.

Function types

Dispatch supports monitoring of smart contract functions with payable and nonpayable state mutability types — in other words, functions that modify a contract’s state. We don’t currently support monitoring for read-only functions (pure or view state mutability types).

Excited to get started? In the next section, we'll guide you through the process. Not a developer? No problem, no coding is needed—just a few simple clicks.

Getting started: Tracking smart contract functions

Dispatch's user-friendly interface makes it easy and fast to set up the alerts you need.

To follow along, you’ll need a Dispatch beta account. If you don’t have one yet, sign up.

Let’s get started! Here’s an example: auto-posting in a Discord server when a profile has been created on Lens Protocol.

1. Choose the “Smart contract activity” Trigger

From the Dashboard, select a Trigger for your alert or automation by clicking the dropdown under “When this happens…” and select “Smart contract activity”.

2. Select an Action

The Action, what you’re selecting from the “do this” menu, is where you want your smart contract activity to be sent. In this example, we'll select 'Discord'.

3. Select Trigger Conditions

In this step, you will select the network, smart contract, and contract function calls that will trigger your alerts.

Start by selecting the network that the contract is on. Next, try searching for the contract you want to monitor. If you don’t see the smart contract you need in the list, don't worry. Just click the "Add a smart contract" button to add your own. Currently we only support monitoring of verified smart contracts.

Once you’ve selected or added a smart contract, Dispatch pulls the events and functions. Check all the desired functions.

4. Select an Action Type

If you already chose Discord from the Dashboard, you can hit the “Continue” button to choose the details: the Discord server and channel where you want the alerts to be delivered.

5. Test the Action (optional)

Send a quick test message to make sure Dispatch is able to send data to the destination you’ve selected.

6. Name your Patch and turn it on 🚀

All that’s left is to give your Patch a name and turn it on! You can use the name automatically generated by Dispatch or enter your own.

And that’s how to start getting alerts and automating using smart contract functions. We’d like to give a special thank you to our community of beta testers who continue to help us improve and make Dispatch more helpful.

Since launching the beta, we've welcomed many teams like sportsbook platform Setoros Protocol and phygital brand Endstate, helping them eliminate manual processes so they can ship faster. Want to join our closed beta?