How AutomatedOn works
AutomatedOn reads records from another system, decides what each record needs, and then acts on it: sending an email or text message, or calling another system's API. Every automation is built from the same small set of building blocks, which you set up once and then reuse.
The building blocks
| Building block | What it does |
|---|---|
| API Auth Profile | Says how AutomatedOn signs in to another system. The secret itself (an API key or client secret) is held securely by Three 17, never typed into AutomatedOn. |
| Data Source | One connection to another system. Use an OData Data Source for OData APIs (for example Aptem or Microsoft Dynamics) and a Rest Data Source for plain JSON APIs. |
| Dataset | One question you ask that system, such as all learners with a particular status. It says which records to fetch and which fields to keep. |
| Rules | Tests that run against every record. Each rule has a Rule Type, which is the outcome it represents, such as Ineligible or Needs review. |
| Process | The automation itself. It ties a dataset, up to five rule folders and a list of Steps together. |
| Steps and actions | What happens to each record: send an email, send an SMS or WhatsApp message, or make an API request. Steps can run for every record, only when a rule of a given type matched, or only when no rule matched. |
| Schedule | How often the process runs again, set in minutes on the process. |
| History | A record of every run and every record it processed, so you can see what happened and spot failures. |
What happens when a process runs
- AutomatedOn signs in to the other system using the data source's API Auth Profile.
- It runs the process's dataset and fetches the matching records.
- It checks every record against the process's rules. If a rule needs extra information from another dataset, it looks that up for each record.
- It works through the process's steps for each record and carries out the actions that apply.
- It logs the run and each record in the process's history, then schedules the next run.
Where you do each job
You build and change automations in your tenant's back office, at /umbraco. You view, test and monitor them on the AutomatedOn site itself, where members (front-end users) and back-office users can both see dashboards, processes, datasets and rules.