Before you start
Confirm these in advance — chasing any of them down mid-setup is annoying. None take more than a minute to check.
| Prerequisite | Details |
|---|---|
| OKRsignal widgets already set up | CXOrelay monitors OKRsignal widgets — it doesn't create them. You should already have at least one OKRsignal widget configured on an ADO dashboard, with at least one Signal defined on it. If you haven't done this yet, set up OKRsignal first and come back. To use OKRsignal, your Org Admin needs to install the CXOsignal dashboard extension into your ADO organization (it's one extension that contains 2 widgets — OKRsignal and CXOrelay), so by the time you reach this guide the CXOrelay widget is already available for you to place on a dashboard. |
| One (preferably two) dedicated machines |
Any Mac or Windows PC released in the last 5 years will due. CXOrelay runs in a web browser. The machine hosting CXOrelay just needs to be able keep the browser tab open (see "Always on browser setup"). Strong recommendation: use a dedicated machine whose only job is running CXOrelay. Don't run CXOrelay on your personal laptop. CXOrelay needs a machine that is always on and always displays the web page showing CXOrelay, without a screen saver or the browser's tab sleeping feature turning the page off. A laptop where you move your browser window into the background (or close the browser), that sleeps when you close the lid, reboots for OS updates, or drops Wi-Fi when you walk into the elevator will cause CXOrelay to go offline without warning. A dedicated laptop with the lid open or dedicated PC workstation will work. What matters is that nothing closes the browser tab showing CXOrelay. Strong recommendation: run two CXOrelay instances on two separate machines for fault tolerance. A single dedicated machine still has one power supply, one network interface, one set of macOS update reboots, and one physical location. Two relays on two separate machines mean that any single machine going down doesn't stop notifications — the surviving relay continues evaluating and delivering. CXOrelay's peer-discovery (visible in the "Other CXOrelay instances" panel of each CXOrelay widget) is designed for exactly this active-active topology. Both relays run identically and de-dup deliveries automatically so recipients don't get duplicate emails. The second machine doesn't have to be the same hardware as the first — a Mac mini in the office plus a spare Windows laptop is a perfectly good two-host configuration. |
| A modern browser | Safari 16+ or Chrome 100+ or Edge for Mac 100+. CXOrelay works in Safari, Chrome, and Edge browsers. |
| An identity decision | You'll need to decide which Microsoft account CXOrelay will use to send notification emails: a dedicated service account (strongly recommended) or your personal Microsoft account. The Why use a service account page walks through both options. Read it before starting the admin tasks. The rest of this guide is written assuming the service-account path. Substitute "your account" for "the service account" if you go the personal-account route. |