Overview

System Actions perform bulk actions when trigger events take place. Currently, system actions can be used to generate email notifications and/or documents. System administrators can specify the trigger event, filters for specific types of records, and which actions should take place when the trigger event occurs.

System Actions are configured under Admin > System Actions in the navigation menu.

Notifications that have been sent by nVIRO can be viewed on the Admin > User Notifications screenNotifications page. Notifications are often but not always triggered by system actions. This screen page can be filtered to only view notifications sent by a specific System Action. This can be useful for auditing whether a system action has been configured to send notifications correctly under the desired scenarios.

System Action Configuration

New system actions may be created by clicking Add New System Action from the System Action List screen.  A configuration screen is displayed that is separated into the base system action Configuration Details and Actions.

The Configuration Details allows specification of the name, description and instructions for 'triggering' the they system action such as identification of data (filters) which triggers the System action.

The Actions Section provides the ability to specify of one or more actions to be performed when the system action is triggered.  

Configuration Details Section

The following table lists the fields available on the Evaluation Details page:

Field

Description

System Action Trigger Types

System Action notifications can be triggered based on a System Event (Real Time) or part of a Batch Nightly process.  These are specified in the Trigger field.

• System Event triggers happen immediately as records are added or updated by a user, or some other user-initiated action. 
• Batch Nightly triggers happen as part of a nightly batch process that checks date values on specific records. 

Depending upon the trigger type selected, the screen will change, displaying different fields (controls) that may be entered.

Controls displayed for a System Event

The following table lists the fields available on the Evaluation Details page:

Field

Description

The program areas to which the system action applies.  For example, if Application Request is specified as the functional area, and Air is specified as the program area, the listed Actions will only be triggered for Air Application Requests.  One or more program areas may be selected or it may be left unassigned.

May be available specified if the selected event is related to a record status.  One or more statuses may be selected or it may be left unassigned.

System Action Filters

(Labeled as System Action Entity Types in 2020.3 and earlier)

Provides further specification to apply the system action to a subset of data (e.g. a specific form type).  This is an additional filter. One or more entity types may be selected or it may be left unassigned.

nVIRO users have the ability to specify their notification delivery preference as Deliver in nVIRO Only, or Deliver in nVIRO and Email. 

If Always Send Email is checked, notification actions triggered will always send an email regardless of the user preference specified, overriding the system preference

Controls displayed for a Batch Nightly Event

The following table lists the fields available on the Evaluation Details page:

Field

Description

Works in conjunction with Time Span and Trigger Date.  Specifies the interval value for the related time span (days, months, weeks, years). 

For example:

• an interval of -20 with time span of Days translates to 20 days before the specified trigger date
• an interval of 1 with a time span of Months translates to 1 month after the specified trigger date
• an interval of 0 with a time span of Days translates to On the specified trigger date

Works in conjunction with Time Span and Interval.  Specifies the relative date that the batch event should be triggered.

For example:

• an interval of -10 with time span of Weeks and a trigger date of Submission Processing Deadline translates to 10 weeks before the Submission Processing Deadline

Trigger Events

System Action notifications can be set up to trigger on any of the following events

Note: All Application/Request triggers also fire for Schedule submissions.

System Action Entity Types (Filters)

System Actions can be filtered to trigger on only a subset of data. The available filters for each functional area are listed in the table below. If a functional area is not listed, there are no filters available.

Actions

One or more actions may be performed when the specified system action is triggered.  These include sending a Notification or (for batch triggers), generating a document.  Actions may be created by clicking Add Action.  

Depending upon the trigger type selected, the different fields (controls) are available for entry:

view notifications sent by a specific system action. This can be useful for auditing whether a system action has been configured to send notifications correctly under the desired scenarios.

Documents generated by a system action can be viewed on the Admin > Document Sets page. The document set description will contain the name of the system action used to generate the documents, if applicable 

System Action Configuration

New system actions may be created by clicking Add New System Action from the System Actions List page. A configuration page is displayed that is separated into the base system action Configuration Details, Filters, and Actions.

The Configuration Details allows specification of the name, description, and instructions for "triggering" the system action, such as identification of data (filters) that triggers the system action.

The Filters section allows for filtering the types of records that are triggered by the system action. The available options depend on the selected functional area.

The Actions section provides the ability to specify one or more actions to be performed when the system action is triggered, such as create notifications or generate documents.

Configuration Details Section

The following table lists the fields available in the Configuration Details section:

System Action Triggers

Depending upon the trigger type selected, the page will change, displaying different fields (controls) that may be entered.

Controls displayed for a System Event trigger

When a system action trigger is set to System Event, the following events are available:

Batch Nightly Event Trigger Settings

The following table lists the fields available when configuring a Batch Nightly event trigger:

When a system action trigger is set to Batch Nightly, the following trigger dates are available:

System Action Filters

Depending on the selected Functional Area and Trigger Event, up to three different filters may be available. Filters allow for restricting system actions to only execute for a certain subset of data.

Scheduled Event Trigger Settings

When a system action trigger is set to Scheduled, the user may specify a date and time when the scheduled system action will execute.

Depending on the status and scheduled date of the scheduled system action, the scheduled date will appear differently on the system actions list.

• When a system action is scheduled in the future and is active, it will appear in green on the system action list

• When a system action is scheduled to execute now or in the past and is active, it will appear in yellow on the system action list

• When a system action is inactive, it will appear in grey on the system action list

When a scheduled system action runs, it inactivates itself upon completion and the system action description is updated to record the date and time of execution. Note that scheduled system actions run as part of a background process. It may take several minutes or more for a scheduled action to begin execution, and it may take several minutes or even hours more before all the actions are fully generated, depending on the quantity of notifications and/or documents to be generated.

Actions

One or more actions may be performed when the specified system action is triggered. These include sending a notification, or for batch triggers and certain event triggers, generating a document. Actions may be created by clicking Add Action.

Depending upon the trigger type selected, different fields (controls) are available for entry:

• System Event (Real Time) trigger types supports both Notification actions and Automatic Generate Document actions (specific to Application/Request functional area)

• Batch Nightly and Scheduled trigger types support Notification or Generate Document actions.

When generating documents, System Events and Batch Nightly will allow the user to set the security classification (Public, Internal, etc.), and automatically set the Draft/Final status to Final.

Scheduled actions allow the user to download a preview CSV file of the notification recipient list. Note that the actual recipients are determined in real time when scheduled system action runs.

Controls displayed for a Notification Action

A notification action generates a notification based upon a Notification Template.   Notification A notification templates are is defined a a as an MS Word document with embedded merge fields that are populated at run-time.   The notification may be sent to one or more of the following:

• standard notification recipients defined in the action

• contacts based upon their contact affiliations

• specified email addresses

The following table lists the fields available on a Notification Actionnotification action.

Controls displayed for a Generate Document Action

The following table lists the fields available on a Generate Document Action

Notification Recipients

Each notification can be set configured to be sent to a different recipient based on the recipient's role.

The table below lists the available recipient types for each different functional area

System Action Priority Ranking

On the System Actions List screen page, each system action will display a Priority ranking. Priority is a system-calculated value.   The notification generation logic will always select the highest ranked notification that matches the criteria of the entity to which the notification relates (e.g., program area, entity type, etc.).

Imagine three scenarios:

1. Submission Status Change Notification - Program Area =  Unassigned, Action Type filters = Unassigned (most generic) - Priority = 3

2. Submission Status Change Notification - Program Area = "Air Quality",  Action Type filter =  Unassigned (more specific) - Priority = 2

3. Submission Status Change Notification - Program Area = "Air Quality",  Action Type filter = "Renewal" (most specific) - Priority = 1 

Recalling that Unassigned is equivalent to any or all...

• If a submission's status is updated for an Air Quality permit whose Action Type = "New" then #2 will be sent since it does not meet the criteria of #3.

• If a submission's status is updated for a NPDES permit then #1 will be sent since it does not meet the criteria of #2 or #3.