Counter
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Counter helps to automatically increment or decrement a value when certain events happens, let's take a practical scenario to understand the counter in a better way;
A medical practitioner uses google form to schedule his appointments and he can only consult 10 patients in a day, so he want to inform the 11th patient who fills the form that "Appointments for the day is full" so this can be done using the Counter
The medical practitioner setup a counter and then create a filter in the connector to check the counter value, if the counter value is greater than 10 then a message will be send to the patient informing that no appointment is available for the day. At this same time he want to reset the counter value at the end of every day to 0 so that patients can book him for the next day, this can achieved by enabling the counter reset automatically in every x hours, weeks, days.
To setup a counter go to the Formatter -> Add New Formatter then give a name to the formatter to identify it later.
Select the Formatter Type -> Counter as shown in the below image
Now you can see the options to configure the counter as shown below;
Starts : This means in which value the counter should start, you can enter only numbers here like 0,1 etc
Maximum Size : This is the size which the counter value can be maximum, if you define it to 10 then the counter will not increment further as soon tt reaches the 10
Reset When Reached Maximum Size : When this options is enabled the counter value will reset to the default start value you configured whenever the counter value is reached the Maximum Size or value you configured as the default start value.
Automatically Reset Counter : If you configure this option then the counter value will automatically reset to its start value as per the interval you choose, you have the option to set the intervals in hour, days, week and month.
Timezone : This is applicable only when you enable the "Automatic Reset Counter" feature that in which timezone the system should automatically reset the counter value to its default starts value.
Store Converted Result to : You can give any name which helps to track this in another steps from the attributes popup by selecting the "Formatter" then you will able to see the name configured here.
We have setup the counter, now let's learn how to increment and decrement the counter value through Actions, whenever you want to increment or decrement the value of the counter you created you need to Trigger the Counter using the Action i.e in simple you can add "Trigger Counter" action into your Steps as shown below
Select Trigger Counter and you will able to see the settings as shown below;
Select Counter : Click the button to see all the counter you have configured in the Formatter and select which counter you want to Trigger.
Increment Value : What is value the counter should be incremented i.e 1,2,3 etc you can decrement the counter value by mentioning - like -1,-2 etc please note only numbers are allowed here. Using the attribute it's also possible to dynamically map the counter increment value from the 3rd party event value like the total product count, number of rooms etc
Reset Counter Value is an action which helps you to reset the counter value to it's default value, you can select the "Reset Counter" from the Action then select the Counter name in which you need to reset the value to it's default
You can also know the current value of the counter and reset the same from the Formatter, go the respective formatter then you will able to see a menu as show below;
Please note this will be shown only if the Counter have any value.
You can click on the "Reset" text to reset the counter value manually to it's default start value as configured in the Settings.
You can make use of the current counter value in various filters or steps by selecting the attribute buttons then selecting the appropriate counter name as shown below;
There are many usecases of the counter when you are using it with Filters, few are listed as below;
Sales can be tracked by created many counters like for each sales rep you can create a counter and which resets in every month or day. When an event or sales received from the your CRM, Payment Gateway forms etc you will able to increment the value of the counter by the sales value then inform the Sales Team & Manager about the Total Sales Till now for each sales rep.
You can easily limit the number of appointments which can be allocated in every day, week by creating the counter, whenever a new appointment is booked you can create the action to increment the counter value by one and can use the filter to monitor the counter value whether it crosses the total available slots or not, If the counter value is higher than the available slots then you can send a message to the customer saying the appointment is full and tag the customer so that you can follow up them in next day. Or setup a delay until next day morning to make more seamless.
The inbound leads or Click 2 Call requests from various sources can be routed in Round Robin method so that all of your sales rep will get equal number of call back or lead assignments for example if you have 5 sales rep to handle a specific product query then counter and filter together helps to route leads one after one to each sales rep.
You can run a marketing campagin in which system automatically choose random winners like you want to give a special coupon or declare a winners when 5th, 25th, 100th, 200th order is received. You can create a counter then add filter condition like if the counter value is 5,25,100,200 then Send a Message with a special offer or declare as winner, you can also tag them for your future campaigns or followup.
Event if you don't have any inventory tracking system in place still it's possible to track them and stop taking new orders when the inventory is exhausted or inform you in advance that inventory is going to exhaust using the counter. Let's consider that you are a small home kitchen and makes 100 meals every day and use the google forms to accept the orders. So whenever you receive an order the counter value will increment to the meal count placed in the order and then using the filter you can setup to get a "Low Inventory Alert" message to yourself that whenever the counter value is 90, similarly when the counter value is reached 100 you can stop taking new orders and inform the customer that you don't have stock to serve them.
