Automated actions act on a Model, and can be triggered either by events or by time conditions. The first steps are to set the Model and When to Run values.

Both methods can use a filter to narrow down the records eligible to perform the action on. We can use a domain expression for this. You can find details on writing domain expressions in Chapter 10, Backend Views. Alternatively, you can create and save a filter on project tasks, using the user interface features, and then copy the automatically generated domain expression here, selecting it from the Set selection based on a search filter list.

The domain expression we used selects all the records with a non-empty Deadline date, in a stage where the Fold flag is not checked. Stages without the Fold flag are considered to be working in progress. This way, we avoid triggering notifications on tasks that are in the Done, Canceled, or Closed stages.

Then, we should define the time condition: the date field to use and when in time the action should be triggered. The time period can be in minutes, hours, days, or months, and number of periods can be positive, for time after the date, or negative, for time before the date. When using a time period in days, we can provide a Resource Calendar defining the working days, and the day count will use it.

These actions are checked by the Check Action Rules scheduled job. Note that, by default, it is run every four hours. This is appropriate for actions that work on the days or months scale, but if you need actions that work in the hour or minute timescales, you need to change the running interval to a smaller value.

Actions will be triggered for records that meet all the criteria and whose triggering date condition (field date plus the interval) is after the last action execution. This is so as to avoid repeatedly triggering the same action. Also, this is why manually running the preceding action will work in a database where the scheduled action was not yet triggered, but might not work immediately in a database where it was already run by the scheduler.

Once an automated action is triggered, the Actions tab tells you what should happen. This can be a list of server actions, doing things such as changing values on the record, posting notifications, and sending out emails.