Using the Rulebook

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Overview

The Rulebook is a tool for flexibly defining rule criteria that can trigger multiple actions within your Practifi organization when those criteria are met. The Rulebook provides a way for firms to implement their existing internal "rulebook" of engaging with their clients and prospects as automated system logic. Your firm's members won't need to remember what to do; the system can be built to tell them.

This article outlines how to create a new rule within the Rulebook in your organization. For more information about the Rulebook, please consult our Understanding the Rulebook article.

Required Permissions

To create a rule in the Rulebook, you will need the Practifi - Manage Rules permission set assigned to your user profile. The Administrator permission set group has this permission included by default. Without this permission set, you will not be able to view the Rulebook page in the Settings app or create and modify rules. Ensure that this permission set is applied to your user profile before proceeding with using the Rulebook. 

Accessing the Rulebook

The Rulebook can be accessed through the Settings app:

  1. Select the App Launcher in the upper left-hand corner of Practifi. 
  2. Select the Settings app from the drop-down menu.
  3. Once in the Settings app, use the Navigation menu and select the Rulebook page.
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On the Rulebook page, you'll find a list of all active and inactive rules created in your Practifi instance. There are also a number of pre-built rules for different scenarios. To learn more about enabling these in your organization, reach out to your Practifi contact.

Creating a New Rule

To begin the creation process, select the New button on the Rulebook page to create a Rule Criteria record. This record contains the criteria that cause the rule to execute. The actions that the rule executes are controlled by Rule Actions records, which are created from the Rule Criteria record page.

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Creating Time-Based Execution Criteria

Time-based rules are triggered a certain number of days before or after a given date. The field referenced should have a field type of Date. To set time-based execution:

  1. Check the Use time-based execution checkbox to reveal the relevant settings.
  2. Define the Object which contains the records the rule will be run for. When defining the object, use its API Name, not its label.
  3. Define the Target Field where the reference date is held within that object, again using its API Name.
  4. Set the Execute based on field to either Days before the target field’s date or Days after the target field’s date.
  5. Set the Number of Days before/after the Target Field’s date that you want the rule to be run.
  6. Optionally, if you want to specify additional conditions so that the rule only runs for a subset of records, go to the Record Criteria tab and add conditions using the Rule Builder that appears there.
    • User Resources for time-based rules reference the Owner of the Rule Criteria record.

Creating Record-Based Execution Criteria

If you don't want to use time-based execution, you can set a rule to trigger based on a field within a record.

  1. Define the Object which contains the records the rule will be run for.  When defining the object, use its API Name, not its label.
  2. Define how to Evaluate this rule when using one of these settings:
    • A record is created
    • A record is created or updated
    • A record is created, or updated to meet the criteria - A record is “updated to meet the criteria” if it didn’t meet the criteria before the update but does meet it afterward. Use this option if you only want to activate the alert once.
  3. Go to the Record Criteria tab and add conditions using the Rule Builder that appears there.
    • Unlike with time-based rules, you will likely want to set Record Criteria, as otherwise, the rule will run on every create or edit that occurs for the chosen object.
    • User Resources for record-based rules reference the user who triggers the rule by creating or updating the record.

Adding Actions

Use the Rule Actions list on the right-hand side of the Rule Criteria page to add actions to your rule, as well as any required settings. If you’re adding an email or notification action, the settings for controlling recipients will appear once the Rule Action record has been saved.

Rule-Based Actions for Processes, Task Templates and Deliverables

The Rulebook makes it possible to automate alerts for any record in Practifi easily. Still, in other product features that create record templates, like Processes, Task Templates and Deliverables, the automation works best when deeply integrated into the feature. To do so, Process, Task Template and Deliverable Type record pages contain a Rule-Based Actions section to provide an intuitive way to include automated alerts as part of each record. 

To create a rule-based action, you'll need to first locate the Rule-Based Actions section on the Process Type, Task Template or Deliverable Type record page, click the caret and select the New button. Rule creation and execution work the same way as they do in the Rulebook. 

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Considerations

While there is no maximum number of rules you can build for a given object, we recommend no more than 10 rules per object. This is not a hard limit, so you can add more when required, but having too many rules on an object can cause performance issues.

There is also no maximum number of criteria or conditions a rule can have, but we recommend no more than 10 criteria per rule. While not a hard limit, defining too many criteria for a rule can cause performance issues.

Time-based rules are executed overnight outside business hours, with the default schedule set to run at 10:00 p.m. If you wish to modify this, you can update the run time from the Scheduled Jobs section in Salesforce Setup. Salesforce only allows for a maximum of 10,000 notifications to be sent within a one-hour period, and it has no ability to remember which ones were missed, so it can try them again later. This could mean that in certain high-volume scenarios, some notifications for time-based rules will not be sent. We recommend using email actions alongside them to ensure the notification is delivered to the user regardless of whether this limit is reached.

Rules run on records regardless of how they were created, whether directly in Practifi or through importing a file or using an integration. If you don’t want your rules to run on those records, you can do one of the following:

  • Add criteria that exclude those records from the rule. For example, a rule for Asset records that only runs if the Asset’s Source does not equal “Addepar” would exclude records created by that integration.
  • Inactivate the relevant rules before a data import.
  • Go to Custom Settings in Salesforce Setup, click Manage next to Rulebook Settings and deactivate the Enable record-based execution setting.

If a rule uses record-based execution, it needs at least one criterion in order to run. Record-based rules without criteria will not be run.

If your rule contains either the Create a Task or Start a Process action, then it must be run on an object that’s enabled for workflows. Compatible objects are:

  • Asset/Liability
  • Contact
  • Deal
  • Division
  • Entity
  • Financial Product
  • Goal
  • Income/Expense
  • Objective
  • Policy
  • Policy Coverage
  • Retirement Income
  • Service
  • User

If your rule contains the Post to Noticeboard action, then it must be run on either the Entity object itself, or one related to it via a lookup field. Compatible objects are:

  • Access Request
  • Account Team Member
  • Asset Allocation
  • Asset/Liability
  • Asset/Liability Role
  • Attributed Revenue
  • Contact
  • Contact Point Address
  • Contact Point Email
  • Contact Point Phone
  • Content Document Link
  • Deal
  • Deliverable
  • Email Message
  • Envestnet Proposal
  • Envestnet Proposal Registration
  • Event
  • Feed Item
  • Goal
  • Income/Expense
  • Income/Expense Role
  • Installment
  • Noticeboard Post
  • Objective
  • Objective Relation
  • Policy
  • Policy Coverage
  • Policy Coverage Role
  • Policy Role
  • Process
  • Questionnaire
  • Reference Document
  • Relationship
  • Retirement Income
  • Service
  • Stage History
  • Task
  • Topic Assignment

Validation Scenario

If a rule uses record-based execution, it needs at least one criterion in order to run. Record-based rules without criteria will not be run. Additional validation is performed when attempting to save a Rule Criteria record. These scenarios are described below:

Validation

Checked on

Method

Error message

Object doesn’t exist

Object field

Check the API Name specified in this field against the API Names of objects within the org. If it cannot be located, this error message appears.

The object you've specified can't be located. Confirm that its API Name is being used (not the Label) and that it's spelled correctly.

Object exists but is ineligible for Rules

Object field

Check the API Name specified in this field against the API Names of objects compatible with Rule Criteria (see the full list above). If it isn’t one of them, this error message appears.

The object you've specified can't be used with Rule Criteria. To see a list of compatible objects, check the Practifi Success portal.

Object exists and is eligible, but automation is not enabled

Object field

Check whether the object specified in this field has its automation setting turned on. If it doesn’t, this error message appears. 

The object you've specified needs automation to be enabled first. To do that, go to Salesforce Setup > Custom Settings > Practifi Trigger Settings > Manage, and check the object's checkbox (requires administrator access).

Target Field doesn't exist

Target Field field

Check the API Name specified in this field against the existing fields for the specified Object.

The field you’ve specified can’t be found within the nominated object. Confirm that its API Name is being used (not the Label), that it’s contained within the object, and that it's spelled correctly.

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