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jeffrey_coleman
jeffrey_coleman
Helper ⭐️
Sep 21, 2015 7:05 PM UTC

The Rules Engine actions are backwards

I've had a problem for a while now... I think when it comes to the actions in the roles engine, the whole thing is backwards.

Rather than saying what I want done and then setting criteria for that action, the engine should let me set the criteria, and then say what should be done. Whenever there are multiple actions, this inverted order would be much simpler to build and understand.

For example, when a deal closes, I have several actions that need to be triggered, and the differ based on the tier. As it stands I have totally independent actions. I'd like to be able to say, for strategic customers, do these 3 things. That would also work well for setting health scores (for strategic customers, this value means green/yellow/red, etc.) And there's no downside for single-action rules.

      6 replies

      gaurav_kotak
      gaurav_kotak
      Expert ⭐️
      Sep 21, 2015 7:25 PM UTC
      This is a good suggestion Jeff. Thank you for this feedback.

      We are making various improvements this quarter around searching for rules, error messaging and activity tracking; and some on setting actions. We want to continue making improvements to Set Actions next quarter and will look to incorporate your suggestion. May I connect with you once we make some progress on defining these improvements?

      Thanks!
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      jeffrey_coleman
      jeffrey_colemanAuthor
      Helper ⭐️
      Sep 22, 2015 3:20 PM UTC
      I'm going to just tack on here to avoid creating extra threads... Another thing I've noticed when building rules with multiple actions is how frustrating the progressive load is. Trying to get to action 7 of 10 is brutal. I scroll, more loads... and then i'm back to action 2... I scroll... action 3... Finally there's 7... then I save and I'm back to action 1. Maybe start with them collapsed if there are more than 2 or 3?
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        kristin_f3c469
        kristin_f3c469
        Contributor ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
        Feb 12, 2016 4:18 AM UTC
        Things to add for configuring Actions and associated criteria:
        • Allow for OR combinations in the rules, and the ability to configure the AND/OR logic
        • Ability to set criteria for actions, and then exit when there is a match. As is, with multiple conditional Actions, like setting a Score, each Action has to be mutually exclusive otherwise the Score gets reset with each match, until the last match wins. I want to be able to prioritize and have the first match win, and then exit.
        • My criteria compares fields to a value with greater than/less than options. If the field value is NULL, I get an error. So for every Action I have to add an additional criteria for Field Value Not NULL. Seems to me the Action should just ignore NULL and evaluate as false.

        thanks
        Kristin
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          darkknight
          darkknight
          Expert ⭐️
          May 25, 2016 11:32 AM UTC
          This is a great idea I support as well.  Instead of "Perform Action IF Criteria = TRUE" make it "IF Criteria = TRUE then  Perform Action."

          This way you can also group multiple actions together under the same criteria set, rather than have to set separate action/criteria combinations, when they all match the same criteria setting.

          Also, need include similar functionality to this:  https://community.gainsight.com/gainsight/topics/gainsight-dashboards-need-ability-to-add-multiple-e...  I believe this would also address Kristin's not of "OR" combinations in the rules.

          If I can, for example say  "IF  SuperRegi NA, LATAM"  and have the comma-separated list function as an OR statement, that would save time and additional lines in a rule.
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          Jeff Kirkpatrick
            darkknight
            darkknight
            Expert ⭐️
            Dec 8, 2017 11:20 PM UTC
            Has any further consideration been given to this?  It really would make rules engine setup actions easier to manage.
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            Jeff Kirkpatrick
            darkknight
            darkknight
            Expert ⭐️
            Jun 17, 2018 4:12 PM UTC
            SUPER wishing I had this today.  *sigh*
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            Jeff Kirkpatrick
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