Action Management

Introducing Actions

In the Alice T&S platform, an action is anything that can be triggered by a user clicking a button in a Moderation View or by an Automated Workflow. A function changes an item’s status, labels it, changes its properties and/or executes an Action Webhook that sends data outside of the platform, such as to report to a third-party application, remove a user from your platform and so on.

Status Change Actions and Action Webhooks

Here’s a more in-depth description of the types of actions that you can create in the T&S platform –

• Status changes only exist within the T&S platform, meaning that you can create any status in order to represent the state of an item at any given time. For example, Emergency, Under Review, Approved, On Hold and so on. An item can only have a single status at a time. These status changes enable a kind of state machine that transitions an item through different states and enables you to define logical moderator workflows as the item is moved to different Moderator Views according to its state. A status can be assigned to an item by a moderator clicking a button or by an Automated Workflow. You can also define Automated Workflows that are triggered by an item’s status.

• Action Webhooks affect something outside of the T&S platform. Each webhook is an endpoint that triggers something on your platform (such as, an API that removes an item from your platform or blocks a user) or on a third-party platform (such as an API that opens a ticket in Zendesk). If needed, for programmatic instruction describing how to create an Action Webhook, you may refer to the Action Webhooks section of the Alice Integration and API Guide. This guide is intended for programmers and integrators. It can be accessed by clicking the API DOCUMENTATION link that appears in the bottom left corner of the MODERATION page.

When an action is triggered by a moderator clicking a button in a Moderation View or by an Automated Workflow it can change the status of an item.

• Moderation View Buttons can be clicked in the Moderation View. Each button has a different label to represent the function that it performs when the moderator clicks it. Clicking a button can change the status of an item, its property values and may or may not trigger an Action Webhook.

• Automated Workflows are triggered based on conditions that you define and can also change the status of an item, its property values and/or activate an Action Webhook.

The Action Management page lists all the actions that have been defined and enables you to define additional actions.

To display the Action Management page –

1. Click the Account Settings button that appears in the top right corner of the Alice T&S page.

2. Select MODERATION CAPABILITIES and then Action Management. The following is displayed –

A few ready-made default actions are listed in the Action Management page, as shown above. These actions are simply listed here and have not yet been connected to a button, neither have they been included in a Moderation View yet. This page shows the following columns for each action that has been defined –

• Action – Specifies the name of the action. If you add this button to a Moderation View, then this will be its default name. This name will also appear as a potential Action that you can add to the workflow diagram, while defining an Automated Workflow.
• Item Status – Specifies the status to be applied to an item after this action is triggered, such as Emergency, Under Review, Approved, On Hold and so on.
• Webhook/Workflow – Specifies the Action Webhook or the Automated Workflow to which this action has been assigned.

Creating an Action

To create an action –

1. In the Alice T&S platform, you can define Action Webhooks that enable you to trigger actions on your own platform or on any other third-party system. Action Webhooks require programmatic support and therefore are typically performed by integrators.

It’s not mandatory, but if the Action that you’re going to create will trigger an Action Webhook, then you might want to define the Action Webhook before defining the action. Otherwise, you can always come back to this action and edited it in order to specify the webhook.

For example, an action named Suspend can trigger an endpoint named suspend-user-endpoint, which will trigger an API on your platform that executes the suspension of the user specified in the endpoint’s body.

2. Click the Account Settings button, select MODERATION CAPABILITIES and then Action Management.

3. Click the Add Action button. The following is displayed listing various types of actions that you might define –

4. Each action must be assigned a single action type. Click one of the Action Type boxes displayed in the window. The selection of this action type enables the system to perform various types of analytics and statistics. By default, the T&S platform is provided with one pre-defined action for each action type, as shown below –

• The default action Remove is an action of type ENFORCE, representing a moderation decision that the item is in violation of the platform’s policy. The word ENFORCE refers to the action of enforcing your platform's policy. By default, this action assigns the status Removed to the item.

• The default action named Keep is an action of type DISMISS, representing a moderation decision that the item does not violate the platform’s policy. The word DISMISS refers to the action of keeping the item because it does not violate your platform’s policy. By default, this action assigns the status Kept to the item.

• The default action named Review is an action of type FORWARD, representing a moderation decision to escalate or transfer this item to be reviewed by another person or system that will make the decision. By default, this action assigns the status Pending Review to the item.

The status of the default actions described above cannot be changed.

Note – The Approve and Reject action type is intended for feedback information purposes. It is typically used internally by Alice to approve or reject the analysis performed by Alice’s algorithms (regardless of the platform’s policies). For example, this action type might be used to confirm that the Alice algorithm correctly detected nudity. However, many websites allow nudity. In this case, clicking an Approve button in a Moderation View would indicate that the algorithm correctly identified nudity, even though it is not a violation of the platform’s policy. And the opposite is also true, clicking a Reject button in a Moderation View would indicate that Alice incorrectly identified nudity.

Note – The Set Low Priority, Set Medium Priority and Set High Priority are special default actions that enable you to create a button that changes the priority of an item. They do not change the status of an item. Priority is another criteria that can be used to determine whether an item is included in a specific Moderation View, in an Automated Workflow or as a filter.

5. Click the Next button. The following is displayed –

6. Fill out this window as follows –

   • Action Name – Specify the label that will appear on a button that triggers this action. For example, Suspend.

   • Description – Specify a description of the purpose of this action.

   • Choose Webhook – [Optional] From this dropdown menu, select one of the Action Webhooks that were defined in the Action Webhooks option. Action Webhooks enable you to trigger an action on your own platform, a third-party system and/or on the T&S platform. Action Webhooks and APIs will typically be setup for you by an integrator or programmer. For a full description of how to define Action Webhooks, see Action Webhooks.

   • Item Status – Specify the status of an item after this action has been successfully completed. For example, clicking a button labeled Suspend, would change that item’s status to Suspended. An item can have only a single status at a time. Automated Workflows can be triggered according to the new value of an item’s status. See Automated Workflows.

   • Confirmation Message – Specify the text to be displayed to a moderator after they click this action’s button and before this action is executed. This message enables the moderator to confirm the execution of this action or to cancel it. For example, this confirmation message may display “Are you sure?” so that the moderator has the chance to confirm or cancel the removal of an item from your platform.

7. Click the Save Action Settings button. This new action is then listed in the Action Management page, as shown below –

Clicking the button enables you to edit or delete the definition of an action.