Automating launches with launch rules

A launch rule starts workflows for you. Instead of opening the launch page each time, you describe once what should launch, for whom, and when — and Learnient does it from then on.

This is the answer to the problem the launch page cannot solve. A launch reaches the people who were in the group on the day; a rule keeps reaching people as they qualify.

Where it is

Choose Admin, then Process in the left-hand menu and Launch rules. Each performance review, one-to-one and 360 feedback screen also has a Launch rules link straight to it.

What a rule is made of

Three answers: what it launches, who it is for, and when. The list shows them as columns, alongside Next run, Last run and a status.

A rule launches a workflow of its own kind — a record-date rule launches a record-date workflow, a one-to-one rule a one-to-one workflow. If you have no workflow of that kind yet, the rule says so where you would choose one. Select Create a workflow to open the workflow builder for that kind, publish the workflow, then come back to the rule.

When it fires

Trigger	Fires
Once, at a date	A single time, at a moment you pick
Recurring	Repeatedly on a cadence
Anchored to a person’s date	A set interval from a date on each person’s record
Anchored to a record date	A set interval from a date on a record, such as a course

The anchored triggers are the powerful ones. A rule reading “42 days after their start date, at 9:00am” gives every new joiner a probation review on their own timetable, without anybody tracking who is due. Nobody is early, nobody is missed, and there is no monthly catch-up launch to remember.

A record-date rule can be anchored to a course’s Course completion date — each completed attempt, once any post-course sign-off is done. That is how you send a course survey on completion or some days after it: anchor the rule to the completion date and choose the ready-made Send the course survey workflow, which starts your course survey with a Start another workflow step.

See [Run course surveys](/guides/run-course-surveys/).

Rules are picked up by a job that runs every fifteen minutes, so a rule due at nine o’clock fires at nine, give or take that.

An anchored rule reads a date from each person’s record, and two tenant-wide defaults on Admin, then People, decide what those dates mean. Default probation period is an amount and a unit — days or months — added to somebody’s joining date to give them a probation end date when their own record carries none, which is what a probation rule fires against.

Length of service picks which field counts as the start: their joining date, or their continuous service date, which differ for anybody who transferred in or rejoined. Both are anchor fields a rule can be hung on, so changing the basis moves every length-of-service rule with it.

Who it reaches, and the difference that matters

A rule’s audience is either a fixed list of people, or criteria.

Criteria are re-resolved every time the rule fires. That is the whole point, and it is the opposite of the launch page, where the audience is frozen at the moment you launch.

So a criteria rule aimed at a department reaches whoever is in that department when it fires — including people who joined last week. A fixed list reaches the same people every time, whatever has changed.

Criteria can name a department, location, company, job title or manager — a wider set than the launch page offers, which has no job title or company at all.

They are answered from the positions somebody holds rather than from their primary job alone, so a rule aimed at a job title reaches people who hold it as a second position too. A rule aimed at a manager reaches everyone that person manages in any job: with positions switched on, that is everyone in the positions below the ones they hold.

Pausing a rule

A rule can be paused. It keeps its configuration and stops firing, which is what you want while you check something rather than deleting and rebuilding it.

Next run and Last run are the two columns to read. A rule that has never run shows Never, and on a paused rule that is expected rather than a fault.

Before you rely on one

Check it against one person first. Set the rule, find somebody who should qualify, and confirm they get what you expect before leaving it to run for everybody.

A rule launches the workflow you name, at the version published when it fires. Everything in How workflow launch works applies — the forms must be published, the readiness check must pass, and each launch pins to a version.

Rules do not notify anybody by themselves. As with any launch, people hear about it only where the workflow has a Notify item. A rule that fires silently is a rule nobody acts on.