Scheduling Automated Actions

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In Outcomes, you can establish automated updates, or Automation Rules, that allow you to automatically complete desired tasks when specific conditions are met. For example, you can isolate a specific group of applications, change their phases, and have an email sent to the associated applicants once they meet the application status of your choice.

Workflows differ from Automation Rules in that workflows are run whenever your desired conditions are met. The scheduled updates that occur through Automation Rules can be configured to occur at a specific time and with the desired frequency. With that in mind:

Use Workflows when you need actions to occur in near real time as soon as a trigger event happens (e.g., a phase change, tag addition, or decision change), and when those actions should happen only once per application.
Use Automation Rules when you need a repeating process that runs on a schedule, and when you do not need real‑time execution of actions (e.g., nightly reminders or periodic stage moves).

Building Automation Rules

To create an Automation Rule:

Navigate to the Settings menu and select Automation under Application Review.
From the Automation page, you can review your existing rules, or click Create Rule to create a new rule.
Give your Automation Rule a name, and click Add Filter to begin configuring your rule. Automation rules will act on every record that matches these criteria at the scheduled time.
Select your desired filter and click APPLY. Click Add Filter again to add more filters.
If you've added multiple filters, select whether included applications must match any or all of the filters by clicking AND or OR.
Click the minus sign to remove a filter.
Next, establish what actions should be applied to any applications that meet your criteria. Start by clicking the plus sign under Actions.
Indicate which available action should take place, and click Save.
Click the plus sign again to add additional actions. To add alternate actions based on the segments applications are in, click Choose Segment, and select the Segment that this action should apply to.

Then, add the corresponding ELSE action below by clicking Target Another Segment. Next, click the plus sign to add your alternate action.
You can continue adding alternate actions by clicking Target Another Segment, or remove actions by clicking the More Options icon, and selecting Delete Set.
To establish a timed schedule for this rule, click Choose time(s). Automation rules run only at the times you configure here; they do not run immediately when a field changes. Use Workflows if you need real-time responses to triggers like phase changes or tag updates.
Indicate whether the rule should run once, daily, weekly, or monthly. If necessary, select the day and time the rule should run. To schedule this rule to run more than once on that day, click Add another time and select a new time. Avoid scheduling the same rule to run multiple times within the same hour; allow enough time for one run to complete before the next begins. Click Save to keep the time(s) you selected.
Once you're satisfied with your settings, click Create Rule to save your rule.

Best Practices When Configuring Automation Rules

Review the information below for some best practices and common pitfalls to think about when you're setting up your automation.

Repeated Runs: automation rules run every time they are scheduled. Unless you want a record to continue to qualify, make sure that at least one of your actions removes the record from the rule’s filters or segment (e.g., by setting a property, phase, or tag that disqualifies it). Otherwise, the same applications or contacts can be updated over and over on each run.
Run frequency: automation rules are asynchronous and run at a lower priority than many interactive actions in Outcomes. If you schedule a rule to run very frequently, a new run can begin before the previous run finishes, which can lead to overlapping updates and unexpected results. As a best practice, schedule a given Automation Rule to run once per day. Generally, you should avoid running the rule more than once every two hours.

Running Automation Rules

Automation rules run at their scheduled dates and times. If a rule is still processing when the next scheduled run time arrives, Outcomes may start evaluating the rule again for the same population. With this in mind, avoid scheduling rules too frequently, and consider adding an action that will remove individuals from the targeted population.

You can also run automation rules on demand. To do so:

Navigate to the Automation Rules page.
Click the checkbox next to the Automation Rule you want to run.
Click Run Now.
When the confirmation window appears, click Run Now.

Disabling Automation Rules

Once an automation rule is created, it is active. Automation rules do not have an on/off toggle. To stop a rule from running, either delete it or set its schedule to a one-time run in the past.

To delete an automation rule:

Navigate to the Automation Rules page.
Click the checkbox next to the Automation Rule you want to delete.
Click Delete from the menu.

To change an automation rule's schedule:

Navigate to the Automation Rules page.
Click Edit near When should this workflow run?
Select a different date and time. To ensure the rule doesn't run, set it to run Once, and select a date and time in the past.