Intelligent Agents in BeachBoard
Intelligent agents monitor a course to find an activity that matches criteria that you set. The criteria that the agents search for are:
- login activity
- release conditions in BeachBoard.
You can use existing release conditions, or create new ones for your agents. The agent then sends a separate email to the user that created the agent when it finds users matching its criteria.
You can run agents manually or set them to run on a schedule; daily, weekly, monthly, or annually.
Example uses for intelligent agents include:
- email for users with grades below a certain level
- check for users that have not logged in within a specific number of days
- check for users that view a specific content topic
Every time an agent runs, it logs information on its activities and emails it to you.
This email lists the following information:
- org unit code and name
- which agent ran
- time and date the request was submitted
- time and date the request was finished
- whether the agent took action
- any error text
Click the Edit Course link and choose Intelligent Agents under Communication page.
You can create, edit and delete intelligent agents from the Agent List page.
When you create a new agent you need to determine:
- What criteria it looks for.
- What the content is for the email that the agent sends when its conditions are met.
- How often it looks for users meeting its criteria.
- Click New at the top of the Agent List page.
- Type a name for the agent.
- Type a description (optional).
- Check the Status check box if you want the agent to be enabled once you save.Image
Determine the criteria the agent looks for:
- If you want the agent to search for search for login criteria, select the Take action when the following login criteria are satisfied checkbox and choose which of the two login activities you want to monitor.
- If you want the agent to search for course activity, select Take action when the following course activity criteria are satisfied checkbox and choose which of the two course activities you want to monitor.Image
- Click the Attach Existing, or Create and Attach button to select or create release conditions for the agent to monitor.
Determine the action the agent takes when its conditions are met:
- Select one of the Action Repetition radio buttons to set whether the agent takes action once or anytime the conditions are met.
- If you want the agent to run on a schedule, select the Schedule check box, then click the Update Schedule button.Image
- Set the schedule in the Update Agent Schedule pop-up.
- Click the Update button in the Update Agent Schedule pop-up to save the schedule and return to the New Agent page.Image
Completing Setup of the Agent
- Select HTML or Plain Text radio buttons for the email format.
- Click the Address Book icon next to the the To, Cc, and Bcc fields and select recipients to add. You can also use special replace strings in these fields. Please see Replace Strings for Intelligent Agents below.
- Recommendation: use the Address Book icon to add your own email address to the Bcc field, and add the {InitiatingUser} replace string to the Bcc field.
- Caution: due to the university's privacy policy in regard to email addresses, manually typing email addresses into any of the fields may result in an error. For best results, always add recipients using either the Address Book icon or replace strings.
- Type the subject in the Email Subject field. You can use special replace strings in this field (as described below).
- Type the body of your email in the Message field. You can use the bar at the top of this field to bold, italicize, underline, change font face and size, and configure other formatting options.
- Click Save and Close or Save.Image
- Typically, intelligent agents are set up to run automatically. If you do not have a regular schedule set up for an agent, you must run it manually. You can also use this method to test an agent.
- To Run an agent manually: Click the drop-down arrow next to the name of the agent and click Run Now.Image
Editing an Agent
To Edit an agent:
- Click the drop-down arrow next to the name of the agent and click Edit Agent.
- Make your revisions.
- Click Save.
Deleting an Agent
To Delete an agent:
- Click the drop-down arrow next to the name of the agent
- Click Delete. .
Note: You cannot recover deleted agents.
Email Address Replace Strings
You can use the following replace strings in the address fields for the agent emails.
| Replace String | Description |
|---|---|
| {InitiatingUser} | The user who performed the action that met the agent's criteria. |
| {InitiatingUserAuditors} | The auditors for the user who performed the action that met the agent's criteria. |
Email Body Text Replace Strings
You can use the following replace strings in the HTML editor for the agent email body.
| Replace String | Description |
|---|---|
| {OrgName} | The name of the organization |
| {OrgUnitCode} | The code for the Org Unit |
| {OrgUnitName} | The name of the Org Unit. |
| {OrgUnitStartDate} | The start date specified for the Org Unit. |
| {OrgUnitEndDate} | The end date specified for the Org Unit. |
| {InitiatingUserFirstName} | The first name of the initiating user. |
| {InitiatingUserLastName} | The last name of the initiating user. |
| {InitiatingUserUserName} | The username of the initiating user. |
| {InitiatingUserOrgDefinedId} | The Org Defined ID of the initiating user. |
| {LoginPath} | The address of the login path for the site. |
