There are several places in Motivosity where you can really ramp up the customization about how certain features operate through using a Custom Rule. This article is to help you learn how to write a Custom Rule properly. As you will see below, you will be able to create Custom Rules around your employees hire dates, departments, titles, country code, number of direct reports, or even using your Custom Fields.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Which Features Use a Custom Rule?
Which Features Use a Custom Rule?
The following Motivosity Features support Custom Rules to customize the way different user groups interact with Motivosity.
- Peer to Peer Giving: A custom rule can be created so that a specific groups of users have a certain amount of dollars to give each month.
- User Groups: Custom Rules can be used to create dynamic Custom Groups. Custom Groups can be used to...
- Group data in your various Insights
- Create Milestone Groups so different users get different milestone awards
- Create Awards that are only available to these specific groups of people
- Send Pulse Surveys to specific groups of people
- Make Local Rewards visible to specific groups of people
- Licensing Allocations: For companies with limited licenses (in other words, some employees have some features of Motivosity while others don't) you can use a Custom Rule to help assign licenses to specific groups of users.
- Timed Trials: Companies who don't have full suite licenses can sign up for a timed trial to test out our various products. You can use Custom Rules to decide which users should be part of that trial.
Types of Custom Rules
There are several types of custom rules that you can create. We find that custom rules are very situational, so if the information below doesn't look like it will help you, feel free to submit a ticket with our technical support team.
Pro Tip:
- If you want multiple things to be true for a single user to be part of a group, use the word "and" in between multiple formulas for the same rule. For example, for a group of managers of the Sales department you might create the single rule of: department = 'Sales' and title = 'Manager'.
- If you'd like two different sets of people included in the same group, create two separate rules and the software will acknowledge both of them. For example, if you want a single group that includes employees from the Sales Department and the CS department you would create one rule that says department = 'Sales' and a separate rule that says department = 'CS'
Hire Dates
Most companies use hire dates to track how long an employee has been with the company. Here are some examples:
- hireDate > Today - 60d
- Using this rule will create a group of people who have been with the company less than (I know, math people like the author of this article will hate this) 60 days.
- hireDate <= Today - 365d
- Using this rule will create a group of people who have been with the company for one year or longer.
- hireDate <= Today - 365d and hireDate >= 730d
- Using this rule will create a group of people who have been with the company between 365 days and 730 days.
Departments
If you'd like to group people according to a department you can do that with a custom rule. One very important thing to consider is that the way the department is typed for each user will matter! We don't recommend using this if you allow users to set their own department name. (You can adjust this on the Setup > Account Preferences page.) This formula will need to match the name of the department EXACTLY.
- department = 'Sales'
- Using this rule will create a group of employees who have Sales listed as their department.
- department ! = 'Sales'
- Using this rule will create a group of employees who DO NOT have Sales listed as their department.
Titles
If you'd like to group people who share the same job title you can do that with a custom rule. One very important thing to consider is that the way the job title is typed for each user will matter! We don't recommend using this if you allow users to set their own job title. (You can adjust this on the Setup > Account Preferences page.) This formula will need to match the name of the department EXACTLY.
- title = 'Nurse'
- Using this rule will create a group of employees who have Nurse listed as their job title.
- title != 'Nurse'
- Using this rule will create a group of employees who do NOT have Nurse listed as their job title.
- title.contains('Nurse')
- Using this rule will create a group for any employee who has the word "Nurse" anywhere in the title.
- title.startsWith('Director')
- Using this rule will create a group for any employee who has the word "Director" at the beginning of their title.
Country Codes
If you'd like to group people who are based in the same country, you will want to use the country code. As a reminder, Motivosity stores a 3-Letter Country Code in the employee information.
- countryCode = 'CAN'
- Using this code will group together all employees who are based in Canada.
- countryCode != 'USA'
- Using this code will create a group of users who are NOT in the United States.
Number of Direct Reports
If you'd like to group people together based on how many direct reports they have, you may use a custom rule like you see below:
- directReports = 0
- Using this code will create a group of people who are NOT managers.
- directReports != 0
- Using this code will create a group of people who ARE managers (they do not have 0 direct reports)
- directReports >= 5
- Using this code will create a group for all managers who have at least 5 direct reports.
Custom Fields
It's even possible to create rules based off of Custom Fields you have created. To begin you will need to create the custom fields. Let me use the following custom fields to set up the examples:
Here I have set up two custom fields: Employment Type (Full Time, Part Time, Seasonal, etc.) and Branch Location (Pawnee, Scranton, Waterloo, etc.).
You'll notice that to keep the data consistent, I have disabled the ability for employees to edit these fields. Because the text needs to match the rule EXACTLY, you won't want employees typing in their own answers. The variations of ways the same thing could be typed will cause issues with your custom rule.
I have gone ahead and uploaded the spreadsheet with the correct information in place for these Custom Fields:
To create a rule using these fields, you will need to know which field number it is (see red arrows above). Then, use these examples to help create your own rule:
- customField1 = 'Full Time'
- Using this rule you will create a group of people who have Full Time listed as their Employment Type (in Custom Field 1)
- customField2 = 'Pawnee'
- Using this rule you will create a group of people who have Pawnee listed as their Branch Location (in Custom Field 2)
- customField1 = 'Full Time' and customField2 = 'Pawnee'
- Using this rule you will create a group of people who have Full Time listed as their Employment Type (in Custom Field 1) AND have Pawnee listed as their Branch Location (in Custom Field 2)
- customField2.contains('Pawnee')
- Using this rule will create a group of people who have the word 'Pawnee' anywhere in their Branch Location (in Custom Field 2)