How can I tell the rule to run only once a month?

[Antonia]

The rule is now always executed when an asset is updated and in our case this happens every hour due to an importer. Can I tell the rule to start only once a month?

With the trigger, I can only select “Deleted”, ‘Created’ and “Updated”, but no real time.

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Antonia,

You'll have to rethink the automation rule as a whole, in that case. I am not sure if the entire rule is in your screenshot, but if I understand you correctly, you're trying to create tasks  (to review?) active assets that meet certain criteria.

To do this once per month, you should:

• start with a scheduled trigger that runs once per month
• Use a Lookup Objects action to retrieve the list of objects that match your criteria
• Either create one tasks with a list of returned objects in the description field or loop through that list of objects and create a task for each individual object.

There is a caveat here though - the lookup objects action can only return up to 50 objects. If you don't expect the list of assets to become longer, this approach may be sufficient. But if you know there will be more assets matching your search, you'll need to use web requests to the assets API to make this work.

Hope this helps!

[Antonia]

HI @Walter Buggenhout

thank you for your help.

So, this is the whole rule:

Do you now think I should use lookups instead of “Compare two values”? Or what exactly should I change in this rule?

[Walter Buggenhout]

Since you have now introduced a scheduled trigger, the first thing you should do is search for a list of objects that match the candidates you might want to create new tasks for. So after the scheduled trigger:

• perform a lookup objects action based on a AQL filter that returns the list. It will probably need to contain references to status, tag and Gerätealter
• create a branch to loop through the objects returned by the lookup objects action (see this support article for more info on how to reference the returned results)
• Perform the condition check if there is already an existing work item, similar as you do now, but do this inside the branch
• Create a new task if this is not the case, also similar as what you do now.

But again, check if running this rule monthly would not return more than 50 objects.

[Antonia]

Hi @Walter Buggenhout

thank you for your help! So here is my solution, it works: