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How to Use Automation to Approve or Reject Submitted Entries

In Nucleus, it is possible to set up Automation rules to streamline Admin workflow in a variety of ways, one of which is the ability to automatically approve or reject submitted Entries based on a specific rule trigger.

Setting Up the Automation Rule

There is a list of Rule Triggers to chose from when setting up a new Automation Rule. these triggers act as the necessary condition that needs to be met in the system, in order to trigger the desired Action. Please refer to the full Automation functionality help guide to see a comprehensive list and description of every Rule Triggers and Actions available.

Admins can create a new automation rule to automatically approve or reject submitted Entries by following the below steps:

  1. Log into the Admin Interface.
  2. On the left-hand side menu, click on Automation.
  3. Click on the blue button Add located both at the top-right of the page and below the list of existing Automation rules.
  4. Once the Automation rule page opens, insert a name of choice in the Rule Name field, and choose the desired Rule Trigger from the dropdown list.

As an example, you might select Answer Update as a Rule Trigger. Here, Answer refers to the entrant’s response to a specific key question within the form. Admins can then use this information to define rules that automatically approve or reject an entry.

After selecting the Rule Trigger, a series of Rule Criteria options will appear (some Rule Criteria change depending on the chosen Rule Trigger). In this example, the ones that need to be filled are:

  1. Award: Select the Award you want the rule to be applied to.
  2. Categories: If available within the Award, you can select one or more categories to which the rule will apply. Any entries outside the selected categories will not be affected by the rule. If you wish the rule to apply to any Entry regardless of the category they are in, leave blank.
  3. Entry Status: Select Submitted, so that the rule is applied to Submitted entries only.
  4. Check Media Item ID: If you wish the rule to be applied to questions that involve the upload of a media item, select the specific one from the dropdown list, otherwise leave blank.
  5. Question: This is where you select the question that will trigger the rule. For example, a dependency question, once triggered and filled, can be used to determine whether an entry should be approved or automatically rejected.

At this point, expand the Actions dropdown and select Transition Entry. This will reveal a further set of transition options below. To have the rule automatically approve an entry, choose one of the following options:

  • Submitted > Approved / Requires Payment if payment is required but not yet processed. This specific choice also allows you to add a Transition Entry Status Message, which will be incorporated to the relevant automatic email template.
  • Submitted > Approved if there’s no payment needed, or if payment was already processed upon submission.

To have the rule automatically rejects an entry, choose Submitted > Unsuccessful instead.

It’s worth noting that each Automation Rule can trigger only a single action. This means you’ll need to create one rule to approve entries and a separate rule to reject them. Once a rule has been created, it can be duplicated via the Actions menu, allowing you to simply adjust the outcome of the second rule as needed.

When the Automation Rule form is complete, click on Save before exiting.