Business Rules

This article will explain the usage of Business Rules within the system.

Teddy Hook avatar
Written by Teddy Hook
Updated over a week ago

(Chrome users can see larger, higher-resolution versions of most of the images below by right-clicking the image and selecting "Open image in new tab".  Firefox users can right-click and select "View image".)

What Are Business Rules?
Business rules automate routine processes based upon conditions that you specify. When you begin using the system, you will already have pre-existing business rules set up. However, you will be able to adjust those business rules and create new ones to meet your business needs.

Click Settings > System Settings > Business Rules.  To add a new business rule, click "+ Add Business Rule".

Every business rule has a trigger and a resulting action.  For example, let us consider a business rule for "whenever a lead's status changes from New Lead to Engaged, create a phone call task to follow up with the lead".  In this example, "whenever a lead's status changes from New Lead to Responsive" is the trigger, and "create a phone call task to follow up with the lead" is the resulting action.

When creating a new business rule, the first window to appear is shown above.  The fields on the left help you describe the business rule.  The fields on the right define the business rule's trigger.

Name: Give you business rule a name.

Description: Briefly describe everything that your new business rule does. 

Lead Added Type: If desired, a business rule can be limited to only apply to leads from a certain source, for example leads from your self-scheduled tour page.

When & Field: Together, these start to define the trigger that causes a business rule to activate.  These two fields define the what part of the trigger.  In the example above, "lead's status" is the what part of the trigger, with "When" being "Lead" and "Field" being "Status".

Operator: There are two options--"Equals" and "To/From".  If your business rule should only activate when your what changes from one specific value to another specific value, select "To/From".  If it should activate when your what changes to a specific value regardless of what it was before, select "Equals". 

In the example above, because our business rule only applies when a status changes from "New Lead" to "Responsive", we would select "To/From".

Equals/To: This says your business rule will trigger when your what becomes this value.  In the above example, we want our business rule to activate when our what (lead's status) is changed to "Responsive", so "Responsive" is our Equals/To.

From: This field isn't used if the operator is "Equals".  If the operator is "To/From", this defines what our what had to be before it changed to our Equals/To.  In our example, because we only want our business rule to activate if the lead's status changes from "New Lead" to "Responsive", our "From" would be "New Lead".  

Add Second Condition Option:

When creating a Business Rule, you will also have the option to add a second condition (as seen in the picture above).

The purpose of a second condition is to make the business rule you are creating more specific. However, adding a secondary condition is optional; only use it if your specific need requires multiple conditions to be met.  If you create more than one condition, they will all need to be met before a business rule will activate. 

When you are done customizing your business rule, you will click on the "Add Actions" button:

This causes the window to expand, adding sections for "Business Rule Actions" and "Business Rule Stop Triggers".

Business Rule Actions:

After defining the business rule's trigger, next you will define the resulting action.

Click on "+ Add Action" to define the business rule's resulting action:

The following pop-up will appear.  Select the type of action you want the business rule to take:

Then click "Save + Next".  A window similar to the one below will appear.  Fill it out.

The click "Save".  The action will now appear under "Business Rule Actions":

Note that a business rule can have more than one resulting action.  If you want to add another resulting action, simply click "+ Add Action" again and add another action.

Very often, there are circumstances where you will NOT want a business rule to activate.  In our example, we have a follow-up call being scheduled for one day after the lead moves into "Responsive" status.  But what if the lead moves from "New Lead" to "Responsive" to "Tour Scheduled" all at once?  Then we don't need a follow-up call, we will already be following up with the lead when we see them at the tour.  

To handle such situations, you can give your business rules stop triggers--situations where the business rule gets canceled before it activates.

Business Rule Stop Triggers

To create a stop trigger, click "+ Add Stop Trigger":

Next, you will choose how this Stop Trigger will function:

After you click "Save", the new stop trigger will appear:

You can add multiple stop triggers.

Whether you add one, none, or several stop triggers, the final step is to click "Save".  Then you're done.

Did this answer your question?