Automating TerraTrue with custom actions

What are custom actions?

Custom actions are a feature of custom workflows, and allow you to create automations based on either a launch’s details or on users’ responses to certain custom workflows. TerraTrue customers use custom actions for a huge range of automations — like automatically marking a Data Spec as not needed, marking a review team as required or not required, determining if additional reviews are needed, or even screening new launches directly from Jira.

Since custom actions must be attached to a custom workflow, the automations available to you will depend on whether the custom workflow surfaces to users during launch creation, on the launch summary, or as part of the Data Spec. (Custom actions cannot be added to internal surveys or third party assessments.)

Custom actions are configured in the workflow builder, and have two parts: action conditions and launch actions. Action conditions define the circumstances that will trigger the custom action, while launch actions define what happens to a launch when your action conditions are met.

How are custom actions triggered?

Custom actions will only trigger when your action conditions are met. You can configure custom actions to trigger based on a launch’s details — such as when the launch is associated (or not associated) with particular components, labels, or products. You can also trigger custom actions to trigger based on users’ responses to workflow questions.

Using launch details to trigger a custom action

Custom actions can be triggered when a launch is associated (or not associated) with particular components, labels, or products. Since launches can be associated with many different labels and components, TerraTrue offers a range of logical operators to help you configure how a launch’s labels and components will (or won’t) trigger a custom action. Product-based configurations are more limited, since launches can be associated with only one product at a time.

Here’s the full range of logical operators available for products, labels, and components:

Using workflow responses to trigger a custom action

For highly customized automation, you can create a question in a custom workflow and trigger an action based on how users respond. Custom actions can be added to launch-creation workflows, launch-summary workflows, or Data Spec workflows. 

Note that different question types will affect the logical operators you’ll use to configure a custom action:

How do I configure a new custom action?

1. Select a launch workflow from your workflow library, or create a new custom workflow by visiting Workflows > Launch Workflows and clicking Create new
   • For new workflows:
     1. Choose a title and description for your workflow
     2. Choose if you’d like the workflow to appear during launch creation, on the launch summary page, or as part of the Data Spec. (Custom actions cannot be added to third-party assessments or internal surveys.)
     3. Complete the configuration of the workflow. (For detailed information on configuring your workflow, refer to the individual articles in the previous step.)
     4. Click Confirm to enter the workflow builder
   • For existing workflows:
     1. Select Edit workflow to enter the workflow builder
2. In the workflow builder, click New Custom Action
3. Select a title for your custom action. (We recommend describing the automation you’re creating — such as “Mark Privacy Team as not needed when launch uses familiar data types.”)
4. Use the Action Conditions section to configure the circumstances that will cause the action to trigger:
   • In the Type drop-down menu: 
     1. Select Component, Label, or Product to trigger the action based on a launch’s details, or…
     2. Select a question title to trigger the custom action based on how a user responds to that question
   • In the Condition menu, select an operator. (The tables above describe how each operator affects the action conditions.)
   • Depending on your selections in the preceding menus, a third menu will surface with one or more values that you can select from to complete the action condition.
   • Select Add Condition or Add Conditional Group to add additional conditions, or continue to the Launch Actions section
5. Use the Launch Actions section to configure what will happen when your action conditions are met:
   • In the Type section, select an automation
   • Depending on your selection, a second menu will surface; select one or more values to complete the launch action
   • Optionally, select Add Action to add a launch action
6. Click Publish to finalize your custom action

Order of execution with custom actions

• When there are multiple workflows that are submitted at the same time (such as launch-creation workflows), the custom actions execute in order of the title of the workflow, aligning with how they are displayed in the Intake area of the launch summary page.
• Within a workflow, the custom actions are executed by the defined order of the custom actions in the workflow, when the workflow is within workflow builder.