Manage Automated Reminder Rules

Overview

Reminder Rules let district administrators define who receives automated reminder messages, when rules are eligible to run, which email template is used, when delivery should stop, and which escalation template applies after an elapsed-day threshold.

The admin UI is available at Admin/Reminders and Admin/Reminders/Rules. The current delivery channel is email, and rule activity is reviewed separately in Admin/Reminders/History.

Prerequisites

• The user must be a district admin with access to district email settings.
• Read-only access requires notifications.reminders.read.
• Creating, updating, deleting, or retrying reminder work requires notifications.reminders.manage.
• Run History / Delivery Logs access requires notifications.reminders.logs.read.
• At least one active email template must exist before saving a rule because every rule requires a valid template mapping.

Step-by-step procedure

1. Open Admin and select Reminder Rules.
2. Select an existing rule from the Rules list, or use the blank form to Create Rule.
3. In Rule Details, enter a rule name, cadence, event type, trigger type, and active status.
4. In Segment Builder, choose the audience filters:
   • Include withdrawn students.
   • Only include students with balance.
   • Only withdrawn students.
   • Campus Sections.
   • Fee Templates.
   • Plan Status.
   • Min Balance and Max Balance.
5. Select Preview Audience to check the matching count before saving. The preview returns audience count, withdrawn count, with-balance count, and the top matching recipients.
6. In Condition Builder (If/Then), add optional rule conditions. Supported fields include Balance, CurrentBalance, IsPlanOverdue, PlanOverdue, HasDeviceNotReturned, DeviceNotReturned, IsWithdrawn, Withdrawn, StudentNumber, FirstName, LastName, Recipient, UserEmail, OverdueDays, DeviceNotReturnedDays, and DeviceDays.
7. In Stop Conditions, add conditions that suppress delivery when all stop-condition rows match.
8. In Escalation Path, add Escalation Steps by threshold days and template. Higher matching thresholds override the base template for the candidate.
9. In Channel + Template, select the email template used for the base rule. Email is currently the only configured channel.
10. Save the rule. A successful save redirects back to Reminder Rules with the saved rule selected.

Variations / branching flows

• Edit an existing rule: select Edit beside a rule, update the fields, and save. The route posts to Admin/Reminders/Rules/Update.
• Delete a rule: open a selected rule and choose Delete. The route posts to Admin/Reminders/Rules/Delete; deleted rules are removed from the active list.
• Preview without saving: Preview Audience posts to Admin/Reminders/Segment/Preview and does not create or update a rule.
• Review delivery activity: open Reminder History to inspect Run History / Delivery Logs by rule, channel, and UTC date window.
• Retry failed delivery: failed dispatch rows expose Retry from Reminder History. Retry creates a new dispatch attempt for failed recipients only.

Expected outcomes

• Segment preview uses the same segment request shape as the saved rule and returns the audience summary without dispatching messages.

Troubleshooting / edge cases

• RuleName is required: the API rejects blank rule names.
• Template mapping is required: every save must include at least one template mapping with a non-empty TemplateId.
• Condition field names are required: blank field names are rejected for both regular conditions and stop conditions.
• Escalation threshold days must be zero or greater: negative threshold values are rejected.
• Unsupported condition field: unsupported fields evaluate as false and can prevent the intended audience from matching.
• Cadence format: accepted values include daily, weekly, monthly, or every N day(s)/week(s)/month(s)/hour(s). Invalid cadence text falls back to the default dispatch interval in the engine.
• No audience preview results: check the event type, campus, fee template, plan status, withdrawn flags, and balance range.
• Access denied: verify district admin access and the required reminder permissions.

Related processes

• Reminder Templates: Placeholders and Version History
• Reminder Operations: Audit Trail, Identity, and Retry
• Configure Tenant Settings and Options

Assumptions and gaps

• The visible UI currently supports email as the only reminder channel.
• Reminder History shows delivery logs in the admin UI. The API also exposes an audit export endpoint for deeper audit review, but that export is not surfaced as a dedicated admin-screen button in the current Razor view.