1. A computer-implemented method for enabling a user to configure an alert based on search results generated by a query, the method comprising: presenting an alert user interface (UI) to a user, wherein the alert UI enables the user to configure one or more alert actions to be performed based on the search results; receiving alert configuration information from the user through the alert UI, wherein the alert configuration information includes tokens representing parameters associated with the query and the search results; and while generating an alert associated with the search results, performing a token substitution for the tokens in the alert configuration information to generate a payload that is communicated to alert-generating functionality, so that the parameters can be used by the alert-generating functionality in performing the one or more alert actions.