Scheduling Rules

Basic

The basic schedule type allows you to schedule a rule on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

• Frequency: Select any of the following radio-buttons to run the rules accordingly
  • Daily 
  • Weekly
  • Monthly
  • Yearly
• Every weekday (MON-FRI): Select this option to run the rule every weekday.
• Every day: Select this option to run the rule every day.
• Start Date: Select the start date for the rule runs.
• End Date: Select the end date for the rule runs (Optional).
• Preferred Start Time: Select the preferred start time in hours and minutes.
• Time Zone: This is set automatically depending on the Timezone selected in the Application settings > Timezone pane. For more information about Timezone Standardization, refer to the Timezone Standardization in Gainsight article.
• Rule run preference: Select how to run the rule from the following options:
  • Optimize run with other Rules: Select this option to stop other rules from running while this rule is running if they are dependent on the same objects. This option is selected by default.
  • Run independent of other Rules: Select this option to allow all other rules to run in parallel with this rule while it is running.
• Send notification email: This will send emails On Success/Failures to additional specified email addresses.
• Run for historical periods: If the start date provided is in the past, checking this option will run the rule from the selected start date to the present date. The number of runs is limited when the rules are run for a historical period. Refer to the following additional note:
  Additional Note: Historical Periods
  When the start date in this scheduler is set to a date in the past, it will run for the historic period, and load data.

Example: If you have the rule scheduled to run daily, then you can run it for the historical period of last 200 days. In the case of a weekly schedule, it will be for the last 200 weeks max. This basically helps prevent a huge number of rule runs being triggered by mistake, or when you do not realize how much time it is going to take for all the runs to complete. It puts all of the other rules in queue and delays other rule runs.

Events Framework

You can now run a rule using an event from the Events Framework in Gainsight. In the Schedule step of a Bionic Rule, a new option is introduced for this purpose. Using the Schedule Type as Event, you can run the rule using CURL command. CURL command is a handy way to trigger a rule outside of Gainsight. In a broader sense, event-based triggering of a rule enables you to integrate rules deeper with non-Gainsight services if you have developer support. Events-based triggering of a rule helps you avoid unnecessary scheduling of a rule. For example, you might have scheduled a rule to run every two hours to check if the S3 bucket has data, this rule runs every two hours adding some load to the server. In this scenario, you can trigger the rule using CURL command only when you are sure that data is present in the S3 bucket.

To see a video about using Events in scheduling rules, see a 6-minute video on Rules and Event Triggers.

Limitations/Recommended Usage

• Use the events-based triggering of a rule only when it is required. For example, when you are sure that the rule has fetched data from the S3 bucket, then you can use the CURL command to trigger the rule.
• If there is a pending execution of a rule, the event-based execution request will be rejected. You can find the rejection reason in the rule’s execution history.
• For a Customer, 100 event-triggered rule executions are allowed in a day (24-hour period). The 24-hour period is between 12 am in a day to the next 12 am UTC.

To schedule an rule based on events:

1. Navigate to Administration > Rules Engine.
2. Create and configure a Bionic Rule.
3. Go to the Schedule step.
4. In the Schedule Type list, select Event.
5. Select the Events Framework option. 
6. Select a Topic from the list.
7. Select an Event from the list.
8. Select the Rule run preference from the following options:
   • Optimize run with other Rules: Select this option to stop other rules from running while this rule is running if they are dependent on the same objects. This option is selected by default.
   • Run independent of other Rules: Select this option to allow all other rules to run in parallel with this rule while it is running.
9. Click SAVE. After the save is successful, the SHOW CURL COMMAND option appears.
10. Click SHOW CURL COMMAND. The CURL command appears on the screen.
11. Click Copy command to clipboard option. 
12. Run the command in a Terminal to run the rule. Once the command is executed, the rule will run instantly with the current date and time.

S3 File

This schedule type is applicable only if your rule has an S3 dataset. You can use this schedule type to automatically trigger a rule which has an S3 dataset, whenever a new file is uploaded to the S3 bucket. When you upload a new CSV file which has the same configuration as defined in S3 dataset, the S3 dataset rule is triggered automatically. 

If you are using the EQUALS option in the File Path field of your S3 dataset, you must ensure that the old and new file names must be the same. However, if you are using the STARTSWITH option in the File Path field of your S3 dataset, the rule is triggered for any CSV file uploaded which matches the start of the string. Gainsight performs a case sensitive match when comparing the old and the new file names in S3 bucket.

Consider an instance in which you create an S3 Dataset by selecting the STARTSWITH option in the File Path field and you have used “Accounts” as the name. If you have a file in S3 bucket as Accounts.csv, this file can trigger the rule since it meets the STARTSWITH criteria. Now, if you add two new files to your S3 bucket called Accounts1.csv and Accounts2.csv, each file can trigger the rule (The rule is executed twice; for each instance of adding the files, Accounts1.csv and Accounts2.csv). In this case, the rule is triggered based on an event. Event here corresponds to uploading a new file, which meets the STARTSWITH option criteria.

To use the S3 file configuration:

1. Navigate to Administration > Operations > Rules Engine.
2. Create and configure a Bionic Rule.
3. Go to the Schedule step.
4. In the Schedule Type list, select Event.
5. Select the S3 File option.
6. Select the S3 dataset from the Task drop-down menu.
7. Select the Rule run preference from the following options:
   • Optimize run with other Rules: Select this option to stop other rules from running while this rule is running if they are dependent on the same objects. This option is selected by default.
   • Run independent of other Rules: Select this option to allow all other rules to run in parallel with this rule while it is running.
8. In the Send Email Notification field, enter the email addresses of the users to be notified in case of Success or Failure of the Rule.
9. Click SAVE.

Run Once Option

To run the rule only once:

1. Click the three dots icon of a specific rule and click Run Now. The rule scheduler dialog box appears.
2. In the Run This Rule For field, select Once.
3. Select the date of when you want to run the rule in the Select Rule Run Date field.
4. (Optional) Select the Test Run check box if you want to test-run a rule and receive an email with a summarized results list.
5. In the Send Rule results to these emails section, enter additional email addresses in the field to send them a copy of the Rule result email. Logged-in user’s email ID is auto-populated for sending rule results. In addition, you can send rule execution details to the email IDs entered in this field.
6. Click Run Now.

Historical Run Option

To run the rule at regular intervals over a period of time:

1. Click the three vertical dots menu of a specific rule and click Run Now. The rule scheduler dialog box appears.
2. In the Run This Rule For field, select the For Historical Periods option.
3. Select the options to set the rule frequency as required:

• Daily: The following options are available when you select the Daily option:

  • Every Weekday (MON-FRI): Select this option to run the rule only on weekdays.

  • Every day: Select this option to run the rule every day.

• Weekly: Select the day of the week when the rule must run.

• Monthly: The following options are available when you select the Monthly option:

  • On Day: Select the day and any weekday in a month of when the rule must run.

4. Select the date range in the Select Rule Run Date Range field of when you want to run the rule.
5. (Optional) Select the Test Run check box if you would like to test-run a rule and receive an email with a summarized list of results.
6. Select the Run at non-peak hours checkbox to run the Rule during non-peak hours. This helps optimize the run queue for other Rules in the queue.
7. In the Send Rule results to these emails section, enter additional email addresses in the field to send them a copy of the Rule result email. Logged-in user’s email ID is auto-populated for sending rule results. In addition, you can send rule execution details to the email IDs entered in this field.
8. Click Run Now.