Rules screen
- Ben Clark
Rules are the key element of Alterian's Real-Time CX functionality. Almost limitless in variety, Rules through Alterian can respond in milliseconds.
The Rules screen provides a clear view on the Rules available, how they are performing and how you could adjust them to elicit beneficial change. The Rules screen also provides functions allowing you to change the status of the Rule, edit the Rule or adjust the results of the Rule.
Add Rule
Allows you to create a new Rule using Rule Designer. More details in the Rule Designer section here. This is provided by an oblue Plus Icon found at the top right of the screen
Finding recently used rules
We have a recently used Rules section at the top of the Rules screen. It shows the last seven rules used in order or recency left to right. This recently used section sits above the normal filters, this is per design as the filters do ot control the rules that show in this section only recency is considered.
This recently used Rules section can be toggled open and closed to ensure the Rules grid below maintains its size if the recently used rules are not the focus of the work at hand.
Finding the right Rule
The Rules screen columns can be sorted. The default sort is Last modified descending.
To narrow the selection further you can filter by one of four options:
Filter by the Status, allowing you to see only Rules that are currently Running, have Stopped or is Finished.
Filter by Health, (Warning, Concern or Good) this tells you whether the Rule is running well or may be having issues. See Rule Health below.
Filter by the Target, (Dev, Test or Prod) the Rule was saved in. This allows you to filter to only the Rules saved under a specific Target.
Filter by the Type, (Conversion, Influencer, Tracking or Satisfaction) This allows you to filter to only the Rules that have been designed for a specific purpuse.
Finally, if you know the name of the Rule you need, simply type into the Search box and we'll filter the Rules to only show those that contain your search term.
Status
DDE Rules exist in one of five statuses. Symbols highlighting these are shown on the far left hand side of the Rules Screen:
Running: Your Rule is running and is available to be called if the correct data is used
Waiting: Your Rule is not running and is not available to be called
Finished (with Errors) : Your Rule is broken and will not run correctly (or that the Real-Time input step has Test Data enabled and the rule has ran all the test data though and finished.)
Preparing executing: Rarely seen, this shows the rule is initialising. As this process is normally very quick Rules found in this state in production may well have issues and should be checked over.
You can change the status of a Rule either here in the Rules Screen, in Rule Designer or by using the API. In the Rules screen Right Click on the row to popup the menu and select the Start or Pause options.
Selecting information
The most pertinent information within the Rules screen depends on your current task. You can select the columns you see in the screen by clicking on columns at the top right and selecting those you would like and deselecting those that are not currently useful.
Rule Name and Operational Information
As you use your Rules you will need to understand which Rules are which and how they are performing.
Rule Name: Allows you to identify the Rule. This is also the string used to call the Rule via the invoke URL through the API.
Last Modified: When the Rule was last modified. Running the Rule or changes to Parameters or Data Grids do not modify a Rule. Changes to the makeup of the Rule itself will change this value.
Version: What version of the Rule is currently live.
Rule Groups: The number in the blue circle indicates the number of Rule Groups that contain this Rule. Left clicking on the number displays the Rule Groups and allows you to link through to the highlighted Rule Groups.
Client: What client the Rule is saved in.
Target: What Target the Rule is saved in.