10 - Rules Engine

Rules Engine

Overview and Understanding the Advanced Rules Engine

The Advanced Rules Engine is a powerful part of the Hearo system that allows you to customize what the system does based on specific situations at each location. Think of it as a way to teach Hearo how to respond to certain events—automatically and reliably.

Note: Advanced Rules are created per Location, meaning you’ll set up custom rules based on each Location’s (and individuals) unique needs.

The Three Building Blocks of creating a Rule in the Rule Engine are- Triggers, Conditions, and Actions.

Triggers start the rule. A Trigger sets the rule in motion. For example, a trigger could be:

A device or sensor detects an event – like a door opening.
An individual leaving a specific area – using geofencing via a smartwatch or Pendant.

Think of Triggers as the “something just happened” that kicks everything off.

Conditions are parameters that help narrow down everything happening at a location, and based on what is put as a condition when creating a rule, the system will decide if the condition is met before allowing the next step to occur. Simply put, if a condition is not met, the rule will not happen.

These Conditions typically relate to:

Time windows, like overnight hours and/or specific days of the week.
Sensor states, like only if the bed is occupied and/or the bedroom light is off.

You can think of Conditions as the “only if…” part of the rule. All Conditions entered must be met for the rule to apply.

Actions are what the system does once a Trigger happens, and Conditions are met; the system will carry out one or more Actions automatically.

These could be:

Sending a text notification to a caregiver or on-call supervisor.
Turning on a light and/or playing a sound on the home’s siren.
Displaying a Dashboard Log to the Remote Supports Professional.

Of course, there are many options and ways these tools can support the individual, but this is just an overview of what each section is meant to do. Now that you understand what makes up a rule—Triggers, Conditions, and Actions—let’s look at a real-life example to see how they work together in practice.

Creating A Rule

To get started, choose the location where you want the rule to apply.

From the Location tab, select the desired location. Then, click Advanced Rules to begin creating your rule.

On this screen, you’ll see all the Advanced Rules for the selected location. If no rules have been created yet, this area may be empty.

You can manage rules using the following options:

Click Delete This Rule to remove a rule from the location.
Click Duplicate to make a copy of an existing rule.
Use the Enable button to turn a rule on or off as needed.

To create a new rule, select ‘Add New Rule’ from the top of the page. A new rule will appear at the bottom of the page; here, you will create a ‘Rule Name’.

After you’ve named your rule, begin building it by moving from left to right through the steps: Triggers → Conditions → Actions.

For this example, we’ll keep it simple. Click Add New Trigger and choose ‘Sensor State Change’ from the list.

Note: In this rule, we want Pat’s Back Door to send an event log to the RSP if the door is used between 10 PM and 6 AM. The Sensor State Change trigger is the best fit for this scenario.

From the “Sensor” list, select the sensor you want; in this case, we want ‘Pat’s Backdoor Sensor’.

Next, choose an Event Type for your trigger. There are two options:

Opened/Closed – We’ll use this option since we want to track when the door opens or closes.
Tampering – This can be used if you want to be notified when someone tampers with the sensor (if it’s taken apart).

Refer to the screenshot for guidance on this step.

For the “To Value”, select Opened. This means the system will watch for the moment the door changes from closed to open.

The Duration (HH:mm:ss) field is optional. You can use it if you want the rule to trigger only when the door has been open for a specific amount of time. For this example, we’ll leave it blank.

Tip: You can add more triggers to this rule by clicking Add New Trigger.

Moving on to Conditions, click ‘Add New Condition’; here, we will want to use ‘Time’ to specify the exact window of time we want this rule to do the Action, which will work on next.

Note: To be more specific, we can add another condition by selecting ‘Add New Condition’, then selecting (for example) ‘Day of Week’ and specifying the exact days we want this advance rule to apply.

Finally, let’s set the Action we want the system to take when the backdoor opens between 10 pm – 6 am. Start by clicking ‘Add New Action’.

The drop-down menu has quite a few options. Keep in mind that you can use multiple Actions for each Advance Rule. For this example, we want the system to send the RSP a Dashboard Log so they can check in on the individual.

The first section of the ‘Dashboard Log’ allows you to select an icon to appear with this activity log.

In the Message section, enter a clear and specific message. This is what the RSP will see, so make sure it clearly explains what action they should take.

For example: “Pat’s back door has opened past the time he is typically awake. Call Pat to check in and see if he is okay.”

In the Categories section, select the option (or options) that best match the situation. For this example, we’ll choose Alarm.

The checkboxes that follow are optional and help control how the rule appears in the system:

Show as Emergency – Marks the event as a priority so the RSP sees it highlighted on their dashboard.
Require Note from Provider – Prompts the RSP to enter a note about the actions they took after reviewing the Activity Log.

We’ll leave Do Not Show in Sensor Logs unchecked since we want this type of activity to remain visible in the logs.