Scheduled Automations (Smartsaves) – AMS

Available to administrators with the Administrate Smartsaves system permission, site owners and SuperAdmins.

Scheduled automations (or Smartsaves) let you choose event forms (target forms) to be automatically saved at a specified date and time. This is useful for event forms that do not rely on manual data entry and display data linked from other forms. For example, you may have a Summary form that links data from the Daily Diary, Training Log and Injury Record forms. You can set up a scheduled automation to create a new record of a Summary form every day, which combines information from multiple other event forms.

To configure a scheduled automation for an event form, the form must have the Save audits advanced property disabled.

A scheduled automation will not create a new record unless data is populated in the target record. There are two ways to ensure the target record contains data:

Use a template with pre-filled data that is entered and stored in the target record.
Include linked fields and/or calculations in the target form to generate values.

Managing scheduled automations

Within the Automations tool, you can see a list of all scheduled automations on your site in the Scheduled (Smartsaves) tab. You can sort or filter the automations by Name or Description, and additionally filter by whether the automation is triggered at the end of the day.

To create a scheduled automation, select New. To edit an existing automation, search for and select it from the list. Alternatively, hover over the automation to reveal more options and select Edit, Delete or Duplicate. Duplicating an automation will create a new automation with the same configuration as the original, but users will not be included in the duplicate.

Scheduling an automation

Scheduled automations can be run on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis.

When setting up a scheduled automation, you can set a Timestamp for the record. This determines the event start and finish times and which linked values are pulled into the record; however, it does not indicate the time that the record is created. All scheduled automations occur during an off-peak window on the server (i.e. early hours of the morning). This is done to limit any performance impacts that may be caused by many records being simultaneously created on the server. If you want to know more about your server’s off-peak window, please contact support@teamworks.com.

In the example below, a scheduled automation is set with a timestamp of 10:00 - 10:30 pm. The automation will run early in the morning during the off-peak window, so new records will be created in the morning (e.g. at 2:00 am) but will be timestamped with the configured time (10:00 pm - 10:30 pm). If any linked values are updated throughout the day, the record will automatically update to reflect these changes.

If you do not want the record to be visible throughout the day, you can choose to save the record in the next off-peak window by enabling Trigger at end of day. The event date and timestamp will be backdated to the previous day and linked data will reflect this. The only difference is that the record is created after the fact, rather than at the start of the day.

In the example below, a scheduled automation is configured to trigger at the end of the day on a daily basis. On Monday morning, the automation will run during the off-peak window and will create a record with an event date and timestamp for Sunday (i.e. the previous day). The linked values in the form will be based on data entered on or prior to Sunday (depending on how the values are configured) and, for all intents and purposes, it will act as though the record was created at the end of the day on Sunday.

It’s important to select an appropriate timezone for the automation. We recommend using each user’s timezone (Use recipient timezone) so that it automatically adjusts as required. This is particularly important in regions that observe daylight savings or when traveling.

We also do not recommend setting the Timestamp times too close to midnight to avoid any issues that arise with daylight savings. A finish time of 11:00 PM or earlier is recommended.

Restricting linked calculation values

Use the linked calculation field properties to control the values that are shown in the target record. The two important properties to set are:

Linked update range to specify the cut-off point for data referenced by the calculation.
Date restriction to specify the time range from which to pull data.

For example, you could set up a linked calculation in a summary form to pull the latest training load value for today by setting the Linked update range to End of current day and the Date restriction to Today. These settings allow the linked calculation to reference all Training Log records entered on the date of the summary form record, prior to the end of the day. Regardless of what time the scheduled record is saved, it will return the latest training load value for all records entered until 11:59pm that day.

If linked data is updated in the original records throughout the day, the linked data fields in the target record will also be updated as the values change.

For more information about how to configure linked calculation settings, check out our help article on Linked Calculations.

Target form templates

Templates are only available in the legacy UI. To access them, follow the prompts within the Automations tool.

To create a template, your account must have a minimum of Read access to the target event form in your role. If you don't have access to the form, you will still be able to create a template, but any data entry selections you add to the template will not be saved.

Some field properties, including Default to last value and Default value, can pre-populate values in a manual entry field, but these settings do not apply to records created by a scheduled automation. If a scheduled automation’s target form contains manual data entry fields, you can instead use a Template to pre-fill these fields when the record is created.

Templates are specific to an event form. All saved templates are available to anyone with access to the Automations tool.

To create a new template, use the + button, follow the prompts to enter the legacy UI, then tick Use Template. A copy of the event form will be shown; fill out the manual entry fields as required, then click Save new template. When the template is applied to a scheduled automation, the values entered will be populated in every record that is created by that automation.

It is not possible to edit a saved template; instead, you will need to create and save a new template under a different name or delete the existing template. To delete a template, select it from the dropdown menu, then click Delete. If you have not saved the template and want to clear your data selections, select Clear template.

Enterprise configurations

If your AMS site exists on an enterprise server and the appropriate sharing configurations exist, it may be possible to link or copy forms between sites. However, automations cannot be linked or copied between sites. Be aware that creating automations for a linked form and applying them to users who are linked to multiple sites will cause them to trigger on each site that they’re created on. Therefore, if the same automation is configured on multiple sites, it will trigger multiple times.

Steps to configure a scheduled automation (Smartsave)

Go to the Automations administration tool.
Select New.
Choose Schedule.
Provide a Name for the scheduled automation. Optionally include a description.
Set up the triggering conditions:
1. Choose when you want the automation to run.
  - If you choose every week, select which day(s) of the week it should run on.
  - If you choose every month, select which day of the month it should run on.
  - If you choose every year, select which month and day of the month it should run on.
2. We recommend using the recipient’s timezone to trigger the automation but if required, choose a specific Timezone.
3. Tick whether you want the automation to Trigger at end of day.
Set up the target action:
1. Select which event form you want the automation to create a record for. Only event forms with the Save audits property disabled can be selected.
2. (Optional) Use a Template to store pre-filled data in the target record.
3. If multiple target forms are required, configure additional actions for each form.
4. Set the Timestamp to indicate the start and end times of the record created by the automation.
Add the users or groups of users for whom the automation should be triggered. The automation will apply to all users within a selected group and its subgroups at the time it is triggered. Individual accounts only need to be selected if they are not part of a selected group or its subgroups. Where possible, we recommend assigning groups rather than individual accounts, since groups can be easier to manage.
Select Create.