Action
In xFanatical Foresight, an action is a real-world task that involves retrieving or modifying information, such as emailing someone, deleting a calendar event, moving a file to a folder in Google Drive, or renaming a Google Doc. A list of supported actions can be found in xFanatical Foresight Action List.
Archived Rule
An archived rule is a type of rule that is placed in the Archive page, cannot be edited, and cannot automate. Archived rules serve primarily to maintain records, store inactive workflows, and declutter the workspace in the Rules page.
Archived Rule Quota
The maximum number of rules your xFanatical Foresight account is allowed to archive in the Archive page.
Connected Account
A connected account is a third-party service user account connected with xFanatical Foresight. For example, you authorized xFanatical Foresight to access some user data of a Google account with email address [email protected], then this Google account is a connected account. xFanatical Foresight only supports connecting with one Google account. Connected accounts are manageable in the Settings > Security page.
Global Variable
Global variables are a special type of variables that always exist for selection regardless of your automation rule setup. Such global variables may include the current time, the day of week, the hour of day, your email address used for xFanatical Foresight account registration etc. These variables display "Global" in the left of the variable pill.
A global variable pill in xFanatical Foresight
Monthly Action Quota
The maximum number of actions your xFanatical Foresight account is allowed to automate for each month. The quota is determined by your account's subscription.
For a rule of 1 trigger and 1 action, each execution counts 1 action towards the monthly action quota. The trigger is not counted. For a rule of 1 trigger and 5 actions, each execution may consume from 1 to 5 actions depending on your rule configuration and rule execution status. xFanatical Foresight may stop the automation upon a critical issue in an action, so not all 5 actions will be counted towards to the quota.
Open Rule
Open rules are editable rules in the Rules page. These rules are considered actively used, as opposed to archived rules. These open rules can be disabled, disabled, edited or manually triggered.
Open Rule Quota
The maximum number of open rules your xFanatical Foresight account is allowed to store in the Rules page.
Rule
A rule is a configured automated program that will auto pilot upon triggering events. A rule has 2 states, enabled and disabled. When a rule is disabled, the rule will not automate. If a rule is enabled, the rule is on standby, waiting for trigger events..
A rule consists of one trigger and one or more actions. The automation starts when an event triggers the rule. Automation may succeed or fail due to various reasons. The following is a visualization of a simple 1 trigger and 1 action rule to automatically accept incoming calendar event invitations on behalf of you.
Rule Flowchart
A rule flowchart is a diagram to visualize the workflow of an automation rule. When editing a rule, the rule flowchart helps you see where you are in the workflow.
A rule flowchart uses different shapes to help you distinguish triggers and actions. In a rule flowchart, the trigger is ellipse-shaped. Actions are rectangle-shaped with one exception. The special If action type uses a rhombus shape. The End of a rule is not counted as actions and always comes with a circle shape. A rule flowchart always starts with an ellipse-shaped trigger and ends with the End circle.
Rule Log
A rule log is an automation record for a rule. It describes what Foresight has done for your configured rule, including how the rule was triggered, what actions have been automated, the results of actions, the overall automation outcome, the quota used etc.
A rule can be triggered many times with different event data. That is, a rule can have many rule logs. While you can update the rule configuration as many times as you need, a rule log is regarded as a history, remaining unchanged.
Runtime
Runtime is the period of time when an automation rule is running. It begins when a rule is triggered and ends when the rule stops in the End or stops in a failed action.
Template
A template in xFanatical Foresight outlines a typical business workflow, providing predefined rule setups for automation and process management. For example, employee offboarding workflow in Google Workspace is one common use case of automation. xFanatical Foresight provides a rule template with a predefined set of IT tasks, saving time for Google Administrators to build automation from scratch.
Trigger
A trigger is an event or condition that initiates a predefined workflow. For example, the User created trigger in xFanatical Foresight watches for the event of a user to be created in Google Workspace.
Some triggers are instant. Google notifies xFanatical Foresight about the resource change so xFanatical Foresight immediately triggers the rule. Other triggers are not instant. xFanatical Foresight has to periodically check in with Google to know the changed data and trigger accordingly.
Some triggers are triggered manually by users. Rules with these triggers are "semi-automatic". The automation won't start unless you instruct it to. For example, the Data upload trigger allows you to upload a CSV file to trigger the rule and bulk run automations with the data in the CSV file. Without uploading the CSV file, the rule is just standby.
The full list of supported triggers can be found in xFanatical Foresight Trigger List.
Variable
A variable in xFanatical Foresight is a placeholder that would be populated with real time data at rule execution. For example, a first name is a variable. If you use the variable in an email template, xFanatical Foresight will send personalized emails with the first name variable populated by the real data "Norman", "Laura" etc.
Variables stand out with easy recognition in xFanatical Foresight. They look like pills. The left half of a pill is the action or trigger that outputs the variable. The right half of a pill is the variable name. By moving the mouse over the pill, you can further find the details of the variable, including the variable name, description, example data, and the source of the variable.
Workflow
A workflow is a sequence of work activities defined by users to achieve specific goals. In Foresight, a workflow is an alias of a relatively complex rule. Once the workflow is defined, xFanatical Foresight automates the workflow without your intervention, namely workflow automation. The following sample workflow automation is a demonstration of Google Workspace user onboarding process with one rule setup.
The following is a workflow of sending new Google Workspace users 2-factor authentication enrollment reminder emails if they haven't enrolled for 3 days after account creation. This workflow uses 2 automation rules.
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