Ovid Automatic Alerts

Alerts or current awareness searches, can be run on Ovid; results are automatically e-mailed to the requester. The major feature of the alert program is that it allows Ovid to find, execute, and e-mail the output from searches each time a selected database is updated. Alerts can be set up in any (or all) Ovid databases. You can set up the alerts yourself, on your account, or one of our librarians can set it up for you. Database updates are weekly for Medline and PreMedline, and monthly for Cinahl.

To set up an alert, follow the steps below:

1. Perform a complete search in the desired database. All terms must logically be pulled together in the last statement, because this will be used to generate the final printout. It is very important that the final search statement must be a summary of the entire strategy.
2. Click on "Save Search History" and then click on "as an AutoAlert (SDI) Service"
3. Name strategy and modify fields, e-mail address, etc. as desired.
4. Click on "Save Search"

To delete an alert strategy follow these steps:

1. Click on "Saved searches" button.
2. Select the searche(s) to be deleted.
3. Click on "Delete searche(es)" button.