In April of 2021, UCM updated the way newly created Automatic Milestone Rules, or AMR’s, were configured. Any existing Milestones were left untouched, and can still be edited in their old format, however, we suggest that Admins and Users transition their old AMR’s to the new style. Doing so is a fairly easy and straightforward process as well, that manly involves copying and pasting.
This topic was also covered in the last 15 minutes of First Friday Episode 30, which you can view here.
Identifying the AMR “type”
To figure out if the AMR you are looking at is a New or Classic style, there are 3 main indicators:
(A) – Is Advance is the easiest way to tell, as True = New and False = Classic. If you do not want to keep this column out and visible however, there are other way to tell.
(B) – Initial Notice will inform you as well, since any AMR’s with multiple numbers here is a Classic rule.
(C) – Repeat/Final/Escalation Notification can also help you identify, since any time these columns are BLNAK, then it is a Classic AMR. Even on a New AMR with no values entered, you will see a 0.
Transitioning to the New AMR
Once you have identified the rule, or rules, that you want to transition to the new style, you’ll want to follow the steps below. Most of the actions will simply be copy and paste, however there will be a few areas where you may have to make a decision, but you will have the previous rule to help you decide.
1) From the Automatic Milestone Rule Administration area of Contract Administration, Export your Milestones grid to a CSV file.
2) While not required, it may be easier to trim down the exported sheet to include just the following headers: Title, Contract Field, Initial Notice, Contract Type, Individual Users, Description, Configured Fields, Notify on Completion, Role Models, Attachment Categories (only if transitioning Document AMR’s)
3) Once you have your sheet exported and optionally formatted, you are ready to transition to the new AMR. The entry process should be fairly straightforward since every item other than Initial Notice can simply be copy and pasted into the new AMR configuration page. If you have any questions on how a new AMR is entered, please see the article here.
4) The one area you’ll have to consider is how you will now configure your AMR’s to send out alerts through Initial Notification. In the past, you had to decide between 1-5 days prior that you wanted the system to remind your users. This both limited you to only having 5 system reminders, and also caused multiple AMR’s to be created for each User, cluttering up the grids. The new method of configuration allows you to instead select an Initial Notification reminder, a Repeat setting, and an optional Final Notification (which prevents snoozing right up to the Milestone date itself).
When transitioning to the new style, you are free to make changes to your rule as you deem fit, but if you are looking to keep it as similar to the original, you’ll want to follow these basic principles:
i. Place the largest number from your exported sheet into the Initial Notification box
ii. For Repeat If there is a clear pattern in your original AMR, then use that number. If there is no clear recurrence pattern, and you have no preference, UCM support’s suggestion is 30 days. If you are using an Initial Notification of over 180 days, you may want to consider using 45 or 60 days as a Repeat to avoid sending too many notifications.
iii. Use Final Notification only if you want to prevent your Users from snoozing right up to the Milestone Date itself, or if you want to be able to quickly report on any AMR’s that have had a Final Notification sent.
5) After you have finished copying over all your items, Description, Configured Fields, etc. included, and you have configured your Notification settings, the only new item you’ll have to consider is adding an Escalation User, which is a new feature added to these AMR’s. An Escalation User is simply someone who will only be sent a notification if the AMR has not yet been completed prior to the number of days’ notice you set for them.
6) Use Create Rule at the bottom to create your new AMR
Deactivating/Deleting your old AMR
Now that your new AMR is created and active, you can deactivate or delete your old AMR. Both deactivating and deleting will prevent new AMR’s from being created when dates are entered into Contracts, and will keep all previously created Milestones for historical purposes, but there are some differences between what happens to existing rules.
When you Deactivate an AMR, any existing Milestones which have been sent but NOT complete, will be KEPT ACTIVE. Any future notifications will be removed, and no new notifications will be created. To Deactivate, you’ll need to go into the AMR rule itself, uncheck the Active box, and Update Rule. You’ll then receive a confirmation message explaining what will happened to the existing notifications.
When you Delete an AMR, any existing Milestones which have been sent but NOT complete, will be DELETED as well. Any future notifications will be removed, and no new notifications will be created. To delete, you just need to click the red X from the grid, and then confirm with the pop-up. The message will detail out exactly what will happen to your existing notifications.
If you have any questions or concerns prior to deactivating or deleting your milestones, please contact UCM support.