Platform · Rocket Engine: one engine behind every Rose Rocket rule
Action: what a Rocket Engine rule does once it fires
The action is the part of a Rocket Engine rule that does the work: set a value, create a record, queue a workflow, log a line or refuse the save.
On this page3 sections
What it does
Once you know how a workflow runs, the action is the part that does the work. The trigger says when a rule wakes, the condition says whether it goes on, and the action is what changes: a field gets a value, a record appears, a longer job starts, or the save is refused. The Action column of the Rocket Engine Workflows table names each rule’s action, so you can read what a rule does without opening it.
| Action | What it does | Trucking example |
|---|---|---|
| Set value | Writes a value into a field, on the record that woke the rule or on one connected to it. | When the last shipment on an order reads Delivered, set the order’s Status to Delivered. |
| Copy value | Copies one field’s value into another field, usually on a connected record. | Stop moving -> ping order copies a stop’s new status onto its order. |
| Create record | Makes a new record of the type you pick, with its first values filled in. | When an order is created, create its Bill of Lading with the order’s reference number on it. |
| Queue workflow | Hands the job to a longer workflow that runs in the background after the save. | When an invoice is paid, queue the workflow that finds its order and marks it paid. |
| Run AI prompt | Sends a prompt, filled in with values from the record, to an AI model and passes the answer to the next step. | Read a quote’s special instructions and pull out the equipment it needs. |
| Add activity log message | Writes a line on the record’s activity log for anyone who opens the record. | “Carrier assigned by the overnight consolidation” on each order the workflow touched. |
| Send email | Emails the people you name, written once on the rule and filled in from each record, with your organization’s logo and footer and an optional button back to the record. | When an order goes to Delivered, email its customer at their Billing Email with the order’s Order ID in the subject. Send email has its own page. |
| Send notification | Alerts users in your own organization by email, in their Rose Rocket inbox or on screen, filled in from the record that woke the rule. | When an order’s Status changes, tell the user who created it, by email and in their inbox. Send notification has its own page. |
| Look up record | Finds a record by the value in one of its fields and passes it to the next step. | Find the customer whose email matches the one on an incoming quote. |
| Block save | Refuses the save, puts the record back as it was, and shows your message. | Once an invoice is sent, nobody changes its date. Block save has its own page. |
A one-step rule, an automation, takes one action or a few side by side. A workflow runs its actions as steps in order, and a later step can use what an earlier one returned, for example the customer a Look up record step found.
How you set it up
- Click Settings in the left nav, then Rocket Engine under Builders. Click a rule’s name in the Workflows table to change it, or Create workflow to start one.
- Set the trigger and the condition first, so the action knows which object’s fields it works with.
- Add the action and pick it from the list.
- Say which record it acts on: the one that woke the rule, or a connected one, for example the order a stop belongs to.
- Fill in what it needs: for Set value the field and the value, for Create record the type and its first values, for Queue workflow the workflow, for Block save the message and the roles that may save anyway.
- Click Save changes. The row’s Action column now names what you picked, and the rule runs on the next save that meets it.
For worked rules, protecting invoiced orders ends in Block save and late ETA alerts ends in emails to dispatch and the customer.
What to watch for
- Some actions live in only one shape. Block save exists only in a one-step automation, and its rule wakes on Record committed; most pair it with the has not changed condition. Run AI prompt, Look up record and Add activity log message are workflow steps. If the action you want is missing from the list, you are building the other shape.
- Set value skips what nobody can type. A formula field, or any field the platform works out, is passed over without an error, and if one field fails the others still write. A rule can half-work without saying so: open a record it touched after the first run and check every field.
- Queue workflow waits for the save. The workflow starts only once the save that queued it goes through; if a Block save rule or an error stops that save, nothing is queued. Workflows that keep waking each other are a loop, and Rocket Engine stops it once the same workflow has come round twice.
- Look up record takes the first match. Two customers with the same email and it takes one without telling you; no match and the next step gets nothing. Plan for the empty case.
- An activity log line is not a message to anyone. It waits on the record for whoever opens it next. To tell a dispatcher something, use a notification or an email.
- A dash in the Action column is not an empty rule. Create stop from order form reads a dash in Object, Event, Condition and Action because the table has nothing short to show. Open it to see what it does.