Action types are designed to support the full range of decision-making processes within an organization. When the Ontology serves as the system of record for a decision-making process, using rules to define object modifications allows you to express business processes with great flexibility. In order to support the full range of organizational processes, Action types support a few additional features:
For real-time processes, you may need to notify users about changes that are happening in the system so they can take action in response.
In cases when a system besides Foundry is the source of truth for your organization, you may need to integrate with the other system to support the existing business process. This pattern is sometimes referred to as "decision orchestration."
Side effects in Action types enable you to send data out of Foundry to integrate with existing organizational processes. There are two main types of side effects:
Notifications allow you to flexibly configure how a user should be notified when an Action is applied. This includes the ability to send an email to users on the platform.
Webhooks allow you to connect to systems outside Foundry in a highly flexible way, including sending requests to a REST API or an ERP system. This enables you to write to other sources systems in your organization, or more flexibly send notifications to users by integrating with messaging systems.
You can learn more about notifications and Webhooks using the links above, or review these guides to get started: