The Stages of a Run
A billing run moves through pre-processing and, after you review it, execution:
flowchart LR
A[Save the run] --> B[Pre-processing plans its actions]
B --> C[Review report emailed]
C --> D[You review, and refresh if needed]
D --> E[Execution carries out each job]
E --> F[Success or failure report emailed]
Pre-processing works out what the run's turned-on jobs will do, such as which accreditations get a notice, which visits get a team notice, and which schools advance to their next phase. It plans those actions without sending notices or advancing phases yet. When pre-processing finishes, and again whenever you refresh the run, Rhythm automatically emails a review report to the run's notification address so you know it is ready to review. This email still goes out if you did not personally trigger the refresh, and it also goes out when the run has no actions to report.
Execution is the step that carries out the run's planned actions by sending notices and advancing phases. When execution finishes, Rhythm emails a report to the run's notification address. You receive a success report if every part completed without an unhandled failure, or a failure report, with the error recorded on the run, if a step outside execution's own branches failed.
Tip
An emailed review, success, or failure report does not always mean you need to act right away. Pre-processing and refreshing both send a review report automatically, so receiving one is part of the normal billing run flow, not only something that happens when you act on the run yourself.
What Each Job Actually Does at Execution
A billing run can turn on up to three kinds of job, and each one does something different when the run executes:
- Send Accreditation Notices sends the run's chosen notice to every selected school's accreditation.
- Send Team Notices sends the run's chosen team notice about every selected visit.
- Advance Phases moves every selected school to its next phase, and can send a notice about that move.
If a school has no contact with an email address, Rhythm still records the notice on its accreditation, even though the send fails for that school. As a result, the accreditation can look like it received a notice that never actually reached anyone. A failed send of any kind is not retried automatically.
Why an Advancement Notice Can Arrive Without an Advancement
The Advance Phases job's notice and its actual phase movement are not tied together the way you might expect. If the job names a notice to send, Rhythm sends that notice to every selected school, whether or not each school actually moved to a new phase. Rhythm does not check whether the advancement took effect for that school before sending the notice.
In practice, a school can receive an advancement notice from a run even when its phase did not change. If a school reports receiving a notice that does not match what happened to its accreditation, this is a likely explanation rather than a sign that the notice was sent in error.
Related
Building a run's jobs, restrictions, and schedule, and reviewing, refreshing, or managing a run after it exists, are covered in their own dedicated task articles for billing runs.