In this article:
1. How to Create the Rule?
2. How to Set Up and Enable the Rule?
2.1. WHEN
2.2. AND
2.3. THEN
3. Practical Examples for Using the “Recurring Update Cards” Rule
With this business rule, you can set up a schedule and update the details of specified cards automatically. For example, you can configure the system to scan your cards every day and change the color to red for cards that are assigned to a given user. These rules are executed once per hour.
1. How to Create the Rule?
Only users with "Account Owners" or "Manage Business Rules" privileges can create business rules.
To find the rule, go to your Administration panel at the top right of your screen → open the Business Rules tab → select the Recurring update cards rule icon.
Note: If there is a set of defined rules to your account → use the Add New Rule button at the upper right corner of the panel.
2. How to Set Up and Enable the Rule?
The "Recurring update cards" configuration panel has the following fields and properties:
In the Name and Description fields, you can change the name of the rule and describe the scenario you will achieve with it. This way you can create an overview of your active business rules, as upon creation every automation is present in the Business Rules panel.
PRO tip: You can specify the board name in the rule name so you can easily distinguish rules configured for each of your boards.
You can share the rule with other users (e.g. Workspace Managers), if appropriate. In this case, they will be able to edit/disable/enable the rule.
Business Rules are a sort of "point-and-click" programming language with which you can automate any process. Each Business Rule has three main properties: When; And; Then.
1. WHEN
Here you define a schedule for the automatic card update.
You have several options:
- Advanced schedule*
- Every day — this is selected by default for all new rules. The rule will be executed every day in the hour you specify (from the Execute at field)
- Every month — the rule will be executed every month on the day you specify.
- Every week — the rule will be executed on the weekday you select.
- Every workday — the rule will be executed every workday (Mon - Fri).
- Predefined interval — set a time interval for the execution of the rule, e.g. every 21 days.
Click on “Every day” to open the menu options.
*Working with the Advanced Schedule
When you select “Advanced schedule,” click on "Not set" to customize when your rule will trigger. This opens a panel with a standard cron generator (1) and a menu where you can build your custom cron expression (2).
The custom cron expression menu covers all options from the cron generator and a range of other scheduling scenarios. There are essentially three fields you can customize:
- Day of the month/Day of the week — you can either select a day of the month or a day of the week in your schedule. The unused field must contain a “?” symbol.
- Month — For example, “*” means the rule will trigger every month, while “1/3” means it will execute every three months, starting in January.
- Year — For example, “2024/2” means the rule will trigger every 2 years starting in 2024.
Clicking on either field will load a list of available values you can use with examples available on hover. Learn more about the advanced schedule in Businessmap.
2. AND
Here you define the filters that specify the conditions under which the actions should be triggered.
- When users create a new rule, the Board filter will be applied by default. This means that the rule will be executed only for the boards you specify in the filter. If you remove the board property and enable the rule, it will be executed for the entire account. You can use "or" to add extra boards and optimize the scope of the rule. Use the trash can icon to remove the board.
- Click on the Add new property button to add extra filters, if necessary. Select a Regular field or/and a Custom field and click on Add.
For all time-related fields, you can select the following units: Days, Hours, Minutes, and Seconds.
When you have added the filter, set it up by clicking on Not set or entering a value.
Note: You can add as many filters as you wish by clicking on Add new property and repeating the steps.
3. THEN
Select an action to be triggered.
Click on Add new action under the type of action you wish to be triggered → select your preferred action if there are several options → click on Add → choose the value from the dropdown or click on Not set to configure it. You can add more than one action from the same type by repeatedly clicking on Add new action and configuring it.
The following actions can be triggered:
1) Execute At: Click on the time and select an hour between 00:00 and 23:00. By default, you will see the time zone that is set for your account.
Note: It is important for the execution of the rule to set up your correct time zone in My Account.
2) Update the card details: The following card details can be updated at the scheduled time:
Select a regular field or a custom field that you have created and added to the corresponding boards in your Workspaces and click on Add. Choose the value from the dropdown, or click on Not set to configure the action.
Practical tip: When the scheduled time comes, the Board is "X" and the Title is "XY" → set an Owner. Define the Owner during the configuration process.
3) Move the card: Choose where to move the card. Select a board (1) from the dropdown and a position (2) from the board minimap (you can select a cell or an entire column/swimlane by clicking on its name).
Practical tip: When the scheduled time comes, the Board is "X" and the Priority is "High" → move the card to the column “Expedite.”
4) Send notifications: The system will notify a user of your choice when a card is updated. Create a template for the notification, which is to be sent, and click on Save Message.
- In the To:/Cc: field → use the "add internal users" dropdown which opens a list of all users in your account including: Self, Owner, Watchers, Contributors, and Reporter. Select and add the user/s you wish to be notified. The "add custom field" option is used in the following case: if you have a custom field with an email address and the created card contains this custom field, the notification will be sent to this email address.
- The subject of the notification email contains by default the title of the executed rule for the card, the column name, board name, and card ID. You can modify the title by clicking on "add card fields" and choosing your preferred field/s or you can remove all fields and select a custom title.
- Email body: you can either keep the predefined text or modify it by deleting and creating a new text.
Note:
Recurring business rules operate by checking all cards that match the set filter. When a card meets the criteria, it triggers the rule and sends an initial notification. If the rule triggers again after the specified time period, but the card's status hasn't changed (e.g. hasn't been moved or modified) since the first notification, no new notification will be sent. This behavior is similar to Time-Based Rules, where a notification is sent once (e.g., when a deadline is approaching) and not repeated unless there is a status change.
However, you can configure the rule to send a notification for each card on every rule execution. To do that, checkmark the “Send notification on every rule execution” option.
When enabled, notifications will be sent for all cards that match the rule filter, regardless of whether they have been moved since the last rule execution. This means you will receive a notification for each relevant card every time the rule runs. For example, you can track all cards in a certain location for escalation tickets before they are moved to the next stage of the workflow (when they will naturally trigger the rule to execute).
If disabled, notifications will only be sent for cards that have been moved since the last execution, thus reducing redundant alerts.
5) Invoke web service:
Click on Add new action to add a call to external web service → click on Not Set to configure the parameters.
You can configure the following options:
- Name – a human-readable identifier for the web service call
- URL – the address of the endpoint service
- Method – which HTTP method should be used for the call (available options are POST, GET, HEAD, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS, PATCH)
- Authentication – NONE or BASIC authentication supported for the moment
- HTTP Body – Whether you want to send the payload as raw JSON-encoded values, directly in the HTTP body
- Parameters – parameters to be sent to the endpoint service
- Headers – custom headers to be sent to the endpoint service
To send the parameters in the body of the web service call → activate the checkbox.
Additionally, the POST, PUT, DELETE, and PATCH requests send an additional parameter – "kanbanize_payload" that contains information about the card that has been created or moved. The payload is in the following format:
{
“trigger” : “taskCreated”,
“timestamp” : “2015-03-04T14:19:38+00:00”,
“card” : {
“taskid” : “35156”,
“title” : “”,
“description” : “”,
“tcolor” : “#34a97b”,
“priority” : “Average”,
“size” : null,
“owner” : “testAdmin”,
“deadline” : null,
“typeName” : “”,
“tags” : “”,
“extLink” : “”,
“reporter” : “testAdmin”,
“createdAt” : “2015-03-04 14:19:33”,
“columnname” : “Requested”,
“lanename” : “Default Swimlane”,
“boardName” : “my board”,
“customFields” : [
],
“boardid” : “131”
}
}
When the payload is received by the endpoint, the content of “kanbanize_payload” can be parsed and the required actions can then be performed by the external system.
Click on the green plus sign to add a parameter. Select a field you wish to set as a parameter → click on Apply.
When you have configured your parameters, use the Test Settings button to send a pre-scanned request for testing and debugging purposes only. Click on Save Service to save the configuration. You can learn more in the Businessmap API documentation.
To enable the rule, click on the Save button at the lower right corner of the configuration panel. Click on the red x-sign to cancel the creation of the rule.
3. Practical Examples for Using the “Recurring Update Cards” Rule
This rule comes in handy when there are a lot of specific cards that need to be updated with the same information. It eliminates the need to manually update them and ensures they are not forgotten. The most common example is to move all the cards that are in the Done column to the Ready to Archive column at the end of the month. You can achieve this by using this configuration:
Another example is updating cards when their cycle time reaches a certain value and you would like to flag them using a sticker. This is useful for scenarios such as bug reports.