Determining usefulness of a data alert

An alert may provide a user with notification when a trigger condition regarding the operation of an enterprise is satisfied. Prior to setting the alert, a proposed alert with the trigger condition may be received. The trigger condition may be compared with a database of operational data related to operation of the enterprise over a period of time to obtain historical trigger data. The historical trigger data may indicate how the proposed alert would have functioned if applied to the operational data for the period of time, for example, by indicating how many times the alert would have been triggered during the period of time. The historical trigger data may be provided to a user, and may facilitate user determination of whether the proposed alert will perform as desired. Once the desired proposed alert has been entered, the user may set the proposed alert as an actual alert.