Manage rules

Rules contain the experiment and targeting logic within a flag. Rules describe what variation the flag should deliver to a given user. A ruleset is the collection of rules associated with a flag.

Rules can be in one of the following states:

• Draft – Rule recently created and never enabled.
• Ready to Run – Rule is enabled and ready to be delivered, but the associated ruleset is in Draft or Paused state.
• Running – Rule is enabled and running.
• Paused – Rule was running and is now paused.
• Concluded – Rule has concluded, and no further action is necessary beyond reporting progress and delivering a winning variation. See Conclude rule.

See New flag and rule lifecycle management FAQs for information.

Start a rule

Go to Flags and select your flag. Select the environment.

From the ruleset

1. Click More options (...) on the rule.
2. Select Run.

From the rule details

1. Click on the rule.
2. Click Run.

Rule in a draft or paused ruleset

If your ruleset is not set to running, you see a confirmation page explaining that your ruleset is still paused: 

Click Ok.

Your rule's status is updated to Ready to Run, like in the following screenshot: 

To update your rule's status to running, set your ruleset's status to Running.

Rule in a running ruleset

If the ruleset is already running, clicking Run immediately updates the rule to Running. The rule does not enter Ready to Run status, and no confirmation page is shown. 

Stop a rule

Go to Flags > select your flag. Select the environment.

From the ruleset

1. Click More options (...) on the rule.

2. Select Pause. 

   

From the rule details

1. Click on the rule.
2. Click More options (...).

3. Click Pause. 

   

Conclude rule

Setting a rule to Concluded ends the experiment and removes it from the datafile. Feature Experimentation stops serving variations unless you choose Conclude and deploy.

When you conclude a rule, you can select the outcome of your rule and add a summary of what you learned from your hypothesis. This helps track whether the experiment had a positive, negative, or inconclusive result.

Go to Flags > select your flag. Select the environment.

From the ruleset

1. Click More options (...) on the rule.

2. Select Conclude. 

   

3. Select an option for the Results Outcome.
4. (Optional) Add a brief conclusion about what you learned about the experiment
5. (Optional) Toggle Conclude and deploy on. See the Conclude and deploy section for information.

6. Click Conclude.

   

From the rule details

1. Click on the rule.
2. Click Conclude.
3. Follow steps three through six from the previous From the ruleset section.

Conclude and deploy

If you toggled Conclude and deploy, complete the following:

1. Select which variation to direct traffic to from the Variation drop-down list.
2. (Optional) Adjust the Traffic allocation percentage.

3. Click Deploy. 

   

Duplicate rule across environments

To duplicate a rule to another environment, select Add Rule, click Copy rules from, and select which environment you want to copy the rules from. 

Manage flag rules

You can add, remove, or update your flag's rules anytime. However, you should pause your flag before making changes.

You can configure the following for each rule:

• Rule name.
• Rule description.
• Targeted audiences.
• Traffic ramp percentage.
• Associated metrics.
• Traffic distribution mode.
• Variations.
• Exclusion groups.

After you create a rule, you cannot change its key.

To edit a flag rule, complete the following:

1. Click the rule name to open it.
2. Change your rule parameters as needed.
3. Click Save.

Your project’s datafile updates within a few seconds. Depending on how often your application fetches the datafile, the update may take time to reflect in production.

If you want your rules to update in real-time, use webhooks to receive datafile updates.