Rules and their order
4 min read · By Stefan Köhn
This is where you decide which partner receives which records. Every row is a rule: a partner, conditions, a price and limits. When a record comes in, the distribution walks the rules top to bottom and takes the first one that fits.
The order is the decision
When a record comes in, distribution walks the rules from top to bottom and takes the first that fits. Dragging a row upwards changes who gets asked first. That is not a sorting preference, it is the process itself.
What sits in a row
A partner, conditions, a price and caps. The conditions say who the rule catches; the price, what that partner pays; the caps, how much they get at most. More under Rule.
Participation and rule are two things
The participation is this partner in this distribution: their delivery channel, their time windows, their rights. A rule is a row beneath it. A partner can have several rules, two areas at two prices for instance, and still one participation.
What has to exist first
Without Partners there is nothing to distribute. If none is on file yet, the note on this page leads straight there. Then comes the participation, then the first rule.
Step by step
- Open Routing. The first tab shows the rules in their order.
- Under "Add rule", pick every partner who is meant to take records.
- Write the rules from top to bottom: the narrowest condition first, the one without a condition last.
- Drag the rows into the order you want them served in.
- Use the dry run on a real record to see who it hits.
How do I start?
You need a partner. The "Add rule" button opens the list of every partner in the account, and if none exists yet it leads to the partner list instead. Whoever you pick immediately gets a first rule without conditions, at the distribution's price, and the rule window opens on it. From then on they receive everything that comes in: conditions narrow that down later.
How do I keep test records out of the distribution?
With the prefilter under Settings. It is a condition that applies before every rule: “Email does not contain test” rules out any record whose address carries the word. The record stays in your data, it only goes to nobody. When a prefilter is set, the head of this page says so, and the dry run shows you which condition stopped a single record.
Why does the order matter so much?
With the "waterfall" strategy, the default, the first matching rule wins, so whoever is at the top gets asked first. With "to everyone" the order decides who still gets a share once the maximum number of buyers is reached. Only for balancing does it not matter.
One partner, two prices for two regions: do I create two partners?
No. A partner can have several rules: "Bavaria €48" and "rest €35" are two rules under the same partner. The second one comes from the same button as the first, "Add rule". The menu marks that partner with "another rule".
Why did a record not find a buyer?
The dry run answers that rule by rule: for each one it says whether it matched and, if not, what stopped it: a condition, a limit, a time window or a duplicate. For records that were already distributed, the same list sits in the delivery's audit trail.
Does a new rule change anything that already happened?
No. Rules decide at the moment of distribution. What was assigned yesterday stays assigned, and yesterday's price stays yesterday's price.
What is a "participation" as opposed to a rule?
The participation is the partner within this distribution: it carries the delivery address, the time window and the return deadline. The rules beneath it say which records they get and at what price. A partner has one participation per distribution and as many rules under it as needed. That is why the switch “Delivery to this partner” sits under the Delivery tab and not next to the rule: it stops every rule of that partner, not only the one you opened it from.