WPM can I add a retry to a tranaction before the alert is sent

The simplest way to make that happen is in the alert trigger page check the box that says problem must exist for _ minutes, keeping in mind that WPM transactions are usually on 5 minute intervals, so 10 min = 2 attempts

Interesting - I would assume this interval is configurable, yes?  What happens if I don't want a transaction to run every 5 minutes?  To get around this issue we need to have specific conditions met, like "transaction must fail 2 times consecutively to raise an alert" regardless of the interval between runs.  From what I have seen (and I'm just starting with SW) alerts are extremely flexible and configurable and there are likely multiple ways to make this work. 

Yes, you can adjust the interval that transactions run on. The minimum is one minute.