Structuring and Organizing Rules

The section is made up of three parts:

• Action: Designates the operation to perform.
• Path: Defines the path to the location where the action is performed.
• AppliesTo: Determines the asset files to apply the rules to. Consists of a name.

Rules can be divided into multiple files, which are executed in the order in which you list them in template-info.json. Be sure that a rule that runs first doesn’t refer to a constant referenced in a rule that runs later.

Here are a few guidelines to consider when working with multiple rules files:

• One rules file can contain all constants, another all actions.
• Use multiple rules when actions grow to 500 lines. You could divide them into a rules file for dashboards, another for datasets or the dataflow.
• If you have content to be used by many rules, include it in the first rules file to be executed.

Here is a simple example, a rule for changing the title text on a dashboard:

{
    "name": "Update dashboard title",
    "appliesTo": [
        {
            "type": "dashboard",
            "name": "DashboardOne"
        }
    ],
    "actions": [
        {
            "action": "set",
            "description": "change the title text of the dashboard",
            "path": "$.state.widgets.title_text.parameters.text",
            "value": "${Variables.DashboardTitle}"
        }
    ]
}

Make rules more powerful using functions. See Use Functions in Rules.