What are Rules?
Rules let you define your own criteria for monitoring, alerts, and analysis. Instead of relying only on standard system checks, you can codify business logic, trends, or anomalies that matter most to your operations.
They let you define rules like:
"Show me items where max inventory > 3 months of demand"
"Flag SKUs that have only one customer in the last year"
"Highlight anything that doubled usage in the past 12 months"
Rules give you a way to codify edge cases, strategic signals, and internal policies directly in Recurrency. Once deployed, they can power planning workflows and trigger action across your team.
How Rules Work
Execution: Rules run nightly, so your insights are refreshed each day.
Permissions: Different roles in Recurrency have different levels of access to validation rules.
Admins can:
Navigate to the Validation Rules module in Recurrency.
Create, deploy, and manage rules.
Access rule templates, where they can select from a library of rules.
Once live, any team member can filter by them in Planning or Daily Workflow buckets.
Workflow Integration: Deployed rules can be used in the Planning dropdown, making it easy to surface flagged items within the team’s day-to-day reveiw.
Template Support: You can start from a growing library of 20+ rule templates and customize as needed.
To set up Rules, navigate to the Rule Builder icon on the left hand side of your Recurrency screen.
⚠️ Note: Only Admin users have access to the Rule Builder module.
We’ve released over 20 templates to help users get started quickly. Once you've clicked the New Rule from Template button, you’ll see the Template Gallery, a categorized view of all available templates organized by key planning themes:
Most Popular: The most adopted and high-impact rules across top-performing teams.
Demand Signal Shift: Items showing recent changes in usage, sales, or forecast patterns that may require updates to planning logic.
Mismatched Stocking Strategy: Items where reorder settings (like Min/Max or UOM) don't align with how the item is actually sold, ordered, or consumed.
Hit and Customer Exceptions: Items with low usage. Few hits, few customers, or inconsistent activity that may not justify current stocking levels.
Data Quality: Items where supplier, lead time, or replenishment configurations don't reflect real world purchasing behavior.
Data Quality: Items with missing, invalid, inconsistent setup data or ERP values.
You can deploy any template with one click. Templates address common planning challenges—from forecast misses to vendor mismatches—and can be used as-is or customized with your CSM.
💡 Pro tip: Even if a template isn’t perfect, deploying it can surface useful signals or help us build something more precise for you.
How to Get Started
Browse Templates: Start with our prebuilt templates.
Deploy a rule: If it fits your need, go live with one click.
Click the New Rule From Template Button
Choose a Rule Template to Deploy, click Create Rule
The rule will build and test itself, after which we'll bring you to the Rule Details page with the rule in a draft state with any items the rule has flagged on the test run.
If you're happy with the results, click the Deploy button to set the rule live.
If you want a rule to be a Review Bucket in Daily Workflow, click on the edit button in the Rule Details page and check the Is Daily Workflow box and click Save Changes.
Want something custom or did not see what you are looking for? Reach out to your Customer Success Manager (CSM) or Recurrency Support.
Share the criteria you’d like to codify (example: “Flag items where lead time > 90 days and forecasted demand is increasing”).
Our team will evaluate the rule and help set it up in your Recurrency environment.
Custom Exceptions: Most SQL-expressible condition can be monitored as a rule.
Why Use Rules?
Codify Business Logic: Define rules unique to your business, beyond default thresholds.
Spot Trends Early: Track patterns such as rapid growth, usage spikes, or seasonal anomalies.
Reduce Risk: Catch mismatches between forecasted and actual demand before they become costly.
Customize Daily Workflow: Flag items in Daily Workflow for review, helping admins direct broader team action.
What Makes a Good Rule?
A great rule is:
Specific – Targets a clear condition or exception
Actionable – Helps guide decisions, not just report status
Repeatable – Tracks a pattern you care about over time
Example: "Flag items where MTD usage > 1.5x forecast before day 15" (great for catching hot movers early)
Rule Filter in Planning
Aside from using Rules to guide your Daily Workflow, you can use any deployed Rule as a filter in Planning!
This makes it easy for the broader team to instantly see the items flagged by specific rules, no need to visit the Rule Builder tab. The dropdown:
Shows all active rules, including those created from templates
Works just like any other filter: check the box and apply to narrow your item list
Highlights the number of items currently flagged next to each rule name
This makes it much easier to turn analysis into action. Now everyone on the team can filter Planning views to focus on high-risk items or strategic outliers.
FAQs
Q: Can I build my own SQL rules directly in the app?
A: Today, rules are set up with help from your CSM or Recurrency Support. You define the criteria, and we’ll help implement it.
Q: How often do rules update?
A: Rules run nightly to ensure up-to-date monitoring.
Q: Who can access the Validation Rules tab?
A: Only users with Admin permissions will see the tab.
Q: How can non Admin users see items flagged by rules?
A: All users are able to apply a filter within planning to show items flagged by rules.
Q: Can rules trigger alerts or just reports?
A: Rules can be surfaced in reporting, monitoring dashboards, or flagged for review depending on your setup.
Q: Can rules drive action in Planning or Daily Workflow?
A: Yes! Once deployed, rules are available in the Planning dropdown. You can filter your views or power workflows (e.g. stocking, escalation, overrides).