Anatomy of Rules and Actions

Rules and Actions are made up of a series of nodes. Nodes display an expected component type for you to assign to it. Rules and Actions are only valid for use when all required nodes have been assigned a component. See Nodes in Detail for further information on nodes.

Components you select determine which nodes are added to a Rule or Action and whether those nodes are optional or not.

Parent and Child Nodes

The root node ("Rule For"/"Action For") is displayed at the beginning, and can be considered the top-level parent node. All other nodes are either a Parent, a Child, or both.

A Rule with one Parent node and three Child nodes

Components

Components add logic to the nodes in a Rule or Action. The type of component necessary for a node is always displayed on an empty node.

Any component that requires Child nodes will have them added automatically.

Example: A Check That Predicate will create the following 3 nodes in the order Value > Relation > Value.

Example child nodes with a value, relation, value sequence.

This will check the first Value against the second Value with a particular Relation such as equals or contains.

There are a few types of components and some of those have sub-types that are distinguished from the others because of their specialisations.

Component Types

Predicates	Predicates are a high-level logical test that defines the syntax for both Rules and Actions. It defines the sequence in which tests are performed.
Operations	Most Operations are Action Components. The Execute then Check Predicate is the exception, allowing all Operation types except for the Object and Report Operations.
Relations	Relations compare two Values and return a result of true or false.
Values	Values are either a constant, a reference to objects, or a calculation that is used in a Predicate.

Component Sub-Types

Built-in Functions	A built-in function is a Value for a Predicate node that returns a value calculated from one or more Values.
Built-in Operations	A built-in operation is a Value for an Operation node that returns a value calculated from one or more Values.
Aggregate Functions	Aggregate functions can be added to a Values node to calculate a single result from one or more inputs, specified as the result of a Predicate.