Intelligent Agents | How to create an Intelligent Agent

An Intelligent Agent is an automated notification system that activates whenever a certain criteria is met. 

Intelligent Agents work well with release conditions, but there are many other useful uses. You can set up an Intelligent Agent that activates, for instance, when:

  • A student has not visited your course in Brightspace for some time
  • A student has not shown activity in your course in Brightspace for some time
  • Reminder students about a deadline

An Intelligent Agent sends emails using email addresses or replace strings.

This article shows how to:

Creating Intelligent Agents

Navigate to your course, in the green navigation bar

  1. Navigate to Course Tools, a drop-down menu will appear
  2. Click on Intelligent Agents
navigate to course tools > intelligent agents

This will open the page with the list of Intelligent agents.

  1. Click New
Agents list homepage. Click New

The New Agent edit page will open where you can adjust the parameters of the intelligent agent.

New agent screen. Add agent name and (optional) description. Set the status of the agent.

1. Adding the details of the Agent

Name the Intelligent agent

Give the Intelligent Agent a clear name which will help you manage the different agents.

(Optional) Add Description

Add a description for your Intelligent Agent.

Students will not be able to see this information.

Select a Category

Click on the downward arrow to expand the options. Select the category. If you do not have any categories at that point click on the 'Add Category' button to create one. In this way you can keep everything organised.

Set the Status

Check or uncheck the Selectbox of Agent is enabled to change the status of the Intelligent Agent.

2. (Optional) Scheduling actions for Intelligent Agents

Under the Scheduling section, you will be able to determine whether the Intelligent Agent will run automatically or manually. If no schedule is defined, the Intelligent Agent needs to be run manually. To set up a schedule:

  1. Click the box under Frequency, to reveal the options.
scheduling

A window will pop-up to set the schedule for the Intelligent Agent. Here you can select how often the Agent will repeat its actions: One-time Run, Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Annually.

One-Time Run

When choosing one-time run for your Intelligent agent:

  1. Select One-Time Run in the field Frequency
  2. Set a schedule date for the one of day it should run

click the blue button Save and close to save changes and go back to the Agents List page

One-time Run
Hourly Repeats

When choosing hourly repetitions of your Intelligent agent:

  1. Select Hourly in the field Frequency
  2. Set repeats for the number of hours
  3. (Optional) Set a starting date from when the Intelligent agent should run

click the blue button Save and close to save changes and go back to the Agents List page

Hourly Repeats
Daily Repeats

 When choosing daily repetitions of your Intelligent agent:

  1. Select Daily in the field Frequency
  2. Set repeats for every number of days
  3. Set a scheduled time
  4. (Optional) Set the start and end date of the repeats

click the blue button Save and close to save changes and go back to the Agents List page

Daily repeats options
Weekly Repeats

 When choosing weekly repetitions of your Intelligent agent:

  1. Select Weekly in the field Repeats
  2. Set repeats for every number of weeks
  3. Check the Selectbox(es) of the day(s) of the week of the repeats
  4. Set a scheduled time
  5. (Optional) Set the start and end date of the repeats  

click blue button Save and close to save changes and go back to the Agents List page

Weekly repeats options
Monthly Repeats

When choosing monthly repetitions of your Intelligent agent, you can define the following:

  1. Select Monthly in the field Repeats
  2. Set repeats for every number of months
  3. Set the day of the month of the repeats
  4. Set a scheduled time
  5. (Optional) Set the start and end date of the repeats  

click the blue button Save and close to save changes and go back to the Agents List page

Monthly repeats options
Annual Repeats

When choosing annual repetitions of your Intelligent agent, you can define the following:

  1. Select Annually in the field Repeats
  2. Set the day and month of the year of the repeats
  3. Set a scheduled time
  4. (Optional) Set the start and end date of the repeats

click the blue button Save and close to save changes and go back to the Agents List page

Annual repeats options

Scheduled agents will run at approximately 20:00 (Unknown Region - GMT) / 22:00 (Netherlands - Amsterdam)

3. Defining the criteria to activate Intelligent Agent actions

Here you will be able to define the conditions to activate a response from the Intelligent Agent.

criteria window for agents. Choose roles of users who will be receive notification by the intelligent agent.
1. Select the Role in Classlist

Under Role in Classlist select the group of users that over whom the Intelligent Agent will act.

Check the Selectbox of one of the options:  

  • All users visible in the Classlist - Intelligent agent will apply to all user roles in the Classlist
  • Users with specific roles - Intelligent agent will apply only to certain roles in the Classlist
2. (Optional) Criteria selection by Login Activity

If you want the Intelligent Agent to take action according to login activity:

  • check the Selectbox Take action when the following login criteria are satisfied
  • select option based on whether user logged in or not for a certain amount of time
  • insert number of day(s)
3. (Optional) Criteria selection by Course Activity

If you want the Intelligent Agent to take action according to overall interaction with the Brightspace course page:

  • check the Selectbox Take action when the following course activity criteria are satisfied
  • select option based on whether user accessed course or not for a certain amount of time
  • insert number of day(s)

For example, an Intelligent Agent can be activated when a student does not log in Brightspace for 5 days and/or when the student does not show activity in the course for 10 days. Any of those events will make the Intelligent Agent send an email to the corresponding student.

4. (Optional) Add a Release condition(s)

Add Release Conditions by clicking on Attach Existing to add an existing release condition, or Create and Attach to create and add a new release condition.

After adding various release conditions, select whether All conditions must be met or Any condition must be met to activate the Intelligent Agent.

4. Defining actions to be performed by the Intelligent Agent

On this step you can define how frequently you wish the actions of the intelligent agent to occur and optional communicate with your students via email.

Set actions for the intellingent agent
1. Set the Repetition of agent

Here you will be able to determine what actions will the Intelligent Agent perform once the set criteria are met. Under Repetition, select one of the following:

  • Take action only the first time the agent's criteria are satisfied for a user - to make the Intelligent Agent send an email to the user only the first time the criteria are met.
  • Take action every time the agent is evaluated and the agent's criteria are satisfied for a user - to make the Intelligent Agent send an email to the user every time the user meets the criteria.
2. (Optional) Send an Email

Select the option Send an email when the criteria are satisfied for the system to send an email based on the criteria previously set.

  1. Add recipient(s) - write the email address(es) of users who will receive the email when the agent is activated, or click the Address book icon
    • It is possible to use Replace strings for Intelligent Agents, such as {InitiatingUser} to let the intelligent agent send the email to all course users.
    • It is also possible to add recipients (or yourself) in the copy (Cc: field) or hidden copy (Bcc: field) of the message to get updates whenever Intelligent Agents perform an action.
  2. Add subject - this will be the title of the email the users will receive
  3. (Optional) Add a message - in the text editor compose the text of your email. You can use formatting options from the text editor bar (for more: How to use the Editor).

When adding a message in the email you can use the Quicklink option to include a link to the course module, assignment, quiz, FeedbackFruit activity, etc.

  1. (Optional) Add attachment(s) - it is also possible to send an attachment with the email:
    • via Upload button - a file that is not in your Brightspace course page
    • via Record button - a video or audio note recording
    • via Choose Existing button - a file that is a course file in your Brightspace course page
Send an Email option

5. Saving and reviewing the Intelligent Agent

When setting up the Intelligent Agent changes are not saved automatically:

  • Click the grey button Save to continually save your advances while you are setting up the Intelligent Agent.

OR

  • Click the blue button Save and Close to save the newly created Intelligent Agent and return to the Agent List overview page

 

Your Intelligent Agent will now appear in the Agent List page.

Agent list with the newly created Intelligent agent

 

Now you know how to create an Intelligent Agent in Brightspace!

Want to know more about Intelligent Agents?

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