Actions are an essential type of building block within Onit Apps. They define what should happen when some event takes place during a transaction’s lifecycle. For example, you could build an Action that sends an email, and then configure that Action to run whenever a transaction is approved. In this example, the Action is the sending of the email.
Actions are not self-sufficient; they must be linked to a Business Rule or Button in order to be triggered. Similarly, all Business Rules and Buttons make use of Actions.
There are many different types of Actions, and you can choose which ones to leverage in your app. One of the most commonly used Actions is Send Notification. The notification is constructed in the Advanced Designer’s Action pane, where an app creator specifies who will receive the notification and what the content of the notification is. Another commonly used Action is Add Participant, which can be used to add a participant as a specific Role to a transaction.
Before We Start ...
This tutorial will assume you understand the following concepts:
Let's Get Started!
The steps below walk you through the creation of a simple Action. In this tutorial, we’ll create an Add Participant Action, but don’t focus too much on this specific Action. Instead, while completing the steps below, focus on learning how to create Actions in general within App Builder. This process will be similar regardless of the Action’s type.
1. Browse to Actions
Browse to an app's Advanced Designer page. In the left-hand pane, click Actions.
2. Add a New Action
From the Add dropdown, select the Action that you want to create. We'll select Add Participant.
3. Configure the Action
The new Action’s properties will now appear in the center pane. This is your opportunity to specify how the Action should work.
Provide this new Action with a name. Typically, the name of an Action is a very short description of what that Action does. In this example, we’re creating an Action that adds a legal approver so we’ll name our Action “Add Legal Approver”.
Provide an email for the Add Participant Action. We’re going to keep things simple and hardcode an email address. Since this will add a new user to our App, we can also provide their name by listing it first and immediately following it with the email address in angle brackets (e.g., Lauren Hill<[email protected]>).
Next, provide a Role for this participant.
Roles are configured in the Wizard. See Building Your First App for more information.
Finally, choose an option from the Phase dropdown, either App Configured or Current.
App Configured means the user will be added to the Phase that the selected Role has been attached to in the Wizard. Alternatively, selecting Current will add the participant to whatever Phase the transaction is currently in when the Action is triggered to run, regardless of which Phase the Role has been assigned to in the Wizard.
For help with Phases, see Building Your First App.
Your configured Action might look something like the following:
Save your new Action by selecting OK.
Now What?
Congrats! You’ve created your first Action!
Actions are the building blocks of your apps. There are many more types of Actions that you can create. The type of Actions that are built into an app depends on what business problems you’re trying to solve. We recommend checking out the many types of Actions that App Builder offers. Below is a quick list of some commonly used Actions:
- Add Participant: Adds a participant to a transaction.
- Add Participants from Table: Adds participants with specific Roles based on a decision table.
- Change Phase: Changes the Phase of a transaction.
- Conditional Compound Actions: Allows you to run multiple Actions in the order they are listed in.
- Create Related Transactions: Adds a list of related transactions based on a list dictionary definition.
- Recalc Transactions: Updates Calculated Fields on a set of transactions in an app.
- Send Notification: Sends a custom notification to a set of recipients.
- Update Transaction: Updates the current transaction.
Remember, an action won’t execute unless it is attached to and triggered by a business rule or a button. For more information, see Using a Business Rule to Trigger an Action or Creating a Button to Execute an Action.