Portfolio Planning Automation Rules

This how-to article will help system administrators and portfolio managers to automatically assign approval workflows and provide notifications on new requests. The user must have administrator-level access to the specific Project application.

Overview

Automation rules allow you to assign a project request to a workflow and/or notify people when a new request is created based on certain conditions. Once set up, the rules are evaluated when a project request is submitted. Note that automation rules only trigger when a new request is submitted. If an existing project request is changed to match the criteria, the rule will not be triggered.

Configuring Portfolio Planning Automation Rules

To configure an automation rule:

  1. Open the Project app admin interface:
    • Project Application Admins: In Work Management, click View Applications, select the Project application, click the gear icon in the top-right corner, then select Admin from the menu
    • Global Admins: In TDAdmin, go to Applications, then select the Project application
  2. Click Project Request Automation Rules in the left navigation.
  3. Click the +New button, then fill in the required and optional fields as follows:
    • Enter a Name for your rule.
    • Enter an Evaluation Order if desired.
    • Select the Stop on Match checkbox if you’d like the processor to stop if the conditions of this rule are met.
    • Enter a description in the Description field.
  4. Click the Save button.
  5. Click the Edit button to begin configuring your new rule. Specify if the automation should run when a request is created, modified, or when either occurs (both).
  6. Under Automation Conditions, select the criteria to use as triggers for assigning a workflow to a request:
    • In the Column field, start typing the name of an attribute or use the Lookup to search for and select an attribute.
    • Select the Operator and Values that specify what criteria the attribute value must meet.
  7. Under Automation Actions, specify what actions should be applied to the request:
    • Select the workflow to be assigned by this rule from the Assign to Workflow dropdown.
    • To notify individuals about the new request, type the name of the person(s) or use the Lookup icon for Notify People.
  8. Click the Active checkbox to enable the rule.
  9. Click the Save button.

Gotchas & Pitfalls

Rules are not set to Active by default.  Be sure to set them to Active.

Automation rules only fire on newly submitted project requests and not on existing requests.

Examples

Each department has its own workflow for project approvals, and each department has its own respective project type.  Automation rules are created for each department that looks for the project type, assigns their workflow, and notifies the department’s director.

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