Automation

The Automation feature aims to integrate Ontime into users’ workflows.
Ontime has a large amount of production information, which users need considerable effort to maintain. We want to allow tools so that:

• allow distribution of Ontime’s and other production data
• allow surfacing Ontime events
• allow synchronizing with other tools

The feature can be configured in the Editor -> Settings -> Automation

Setting up automations in Ontime

The automations feature is split in two parts: automation and trigger.

Manage automations

An automation entry contains filter logic and outputs. Ie: if these conditions are true, send these messages.

In the image example, we check if a custom field contains data (ie: is not empty), and if so, send an OSC message with its value.

HTTP, OSC and Ontime actions

Aside from OSC, you can also automate the sending of HTTP messages and internal Ontime actions like manipulating the Auxiliary timer.

Manage triggers

Triggers associate the automation with the Ontime event lifecycle.
We can describe, what action in Ontime should trigger which automation.

In the image example, we build on the previous automation to say: “when Ontime starts an event, trigger the automation that starts the sound”.

The Ontime lifecycle

While running your event, Ontime will go through a few lifecycle events.
The automation feature allows you to request a message once that happens.

Event	Description
On Load	Triggered when an event is loaded
On Start	Triggered when an event starts
On Pause	Triggered when an event is paused
On Stop	Triggered when playback is stopped
On Every Second	Triggered once a second
On Update	Triggered once a second, as long as a timer is running
On Finish	Triggered when a timer passes the 0 mark

Using variables in automation

You can embed data from the application runtime in the message using templates /your-message/{{ontime-data}} {{ontime-more-data}}

This means that any of the data described in the Runtime Data can be sent as part of the message payload.

When the lifecycle event is triggered, Ontime places the updated piece of data in place of the template.

Example

You could compose a message that sends the index of the loaded event

/send-this/loaded-event-{{runtime.selectedEventIndex}}

Note

The template inside the brackets need to reference the same shape as the nesting of the runtime data as described in Runtime Data.
Use the . when referencing a subkey

{{eventNext.note}}
{{playback}}
{{timer.current}}

Finding variables

The entire Runtime Data object is available in integrations using the above templates.
However, it can be challenging to find the correct structure of the key.

You can see below a table with all the current keys available, this is likely to change as we develop Ontime and could get out-of-date.
Continue reading here for how to find the variables yourself.

Keep in mind that your custom fields will be added to the list. 
You can find the appropriate key in the Custom Fields panel.

Variables and Runtime data

The Runtime data describes the state of your Runtime. As such, it will depend on your settings (eg. custom fields) and your playback (eg: are there events loaded)

Poll Ontime for the runtime data Load any event in Ontime, so that you can see a more complete object.

In your browser, poll Ontime by navigating to http://<ip-address>:<port>/api/poll This will return a json object with the current state of the application.

From here, can infer the variable name by following the object.
For example, given this portion of the payload:

payload {
    eventNow: {
        id: "1234"
    }
    eventNext: {
        custom: {
            vfx: "VFX3"
        }
    }
}

would become {{eventNow.id}} and {{eventNext.custom.vfx}}

Runtime data

Note that this is just an example and it might run out of sync Follow the steps above to find this for yourself

Variable	Description
clock	Current clock value in milliseconds
timer.addedTime	Additional time added to the timer in milliseconds
timer.current	Current timer value in milliseconds
timer.duration	Total duration of the timer in milliseconds
timer.elapsed	Elapsed time in milliseconds
timer.expectedFinish	Expected finish time in milliseconds
timer.finishedAt	Time when the timer finished (null if not finished)
timer.phase	Current phase of the timer
timer.playback	Playback state of the timer
timer.secondaryTimer	Secondary timer value (null if not used)
timer.startedAt	Time when the timer started in milliseconds
onAir	Boolean indicating whether the playback is active
runtime.selectedEventIndex	Index of the selected event
runtime.numEvents	Number of events
runtime.offset	Offset time in milliseconds
runtime.plannedStart	Planned start time in milliseconds
runtime.plannedEnd	Planned end time in milliseconds
runtime.actualStart	Actual start time in milliseconds
runtime.expectedEnd	Expected end time in milliseconds
eventNow.id	ID of the current event
eventNow.type	Type of the current event
eventNow.title	Title of the current event
eventNow.timeStart	Start time of the current event in milliseconds
eventNow.timeEnd	End time of the current event in milliseconds
eventNow.duration	Duration of the current event in milliseconds
eventNow.timeStrategy	Time strategy of the current event
eventNow.linkStart	Link start time of the current event (null if not used)
eventNow.endAction	End action of the current event
eventNow.timerType	Timer type of the current event
eventNow.skip	Boolean indicating if the current event is skipped
eventNow.note	Note for the current event
eventNow.colour	Colour code for the current event
eventNow.cue	Cue for the current event
eventNow.revision	Revision number of the current event
eventNow.timeWarning	Warning time for the current event in milliseconds
eventNow.timeDanger	Danger time for the current event in milliseconds
eventNow.custom.song	Custom field: song for the current event
eventNow.custom.artist	Custom field: artist for the current event
currentBlock.block	Current block (null if not used)
currentBlock.startedAt	Start time of the current block (null if not used)
eventNext.id	ID of the next event
eventNext.type	Type of the next event
eventNext.title	Title of the next event
eventNext.timeStart	Start time of the next event in milliseconds
eventNext.timeEnd	End time of the next event in milliseconds
eventNext.duration	Duration of the next event in milliseconds
eventNext.timeStrategy	Time strategy of the next event
eventNext.linkStart	Link start time of the next event (null if not used)
eventNext.endAction	End action of the next event
eventNext.timerType	Timer type of the next event
eventNext.skip	Boolean indicating if the next event is skipped
eventNext.note	Note for the next event
eventNext.colour	Colour code for the next event
eventNext.cue	Cue for the next event
eventNext.revision	Revision number of the next event
eventNext.timeWarning	Warning time for the next event in milliseconds
eventNext.timeDanger	Danger time for the next event in milliseconds
eventNext.custom.song	Custom field: song for the next event
eventNext.custom.artist	Custom field: artist for the next event
eventNext.delay	Delay for the next event in milliseconds
auxtimer1.duration	Duration of the auxiliary timer in milliseconds
auxtimer1.current	Current value of the auxiliary timer in milliseconds
auxtimer1.playback	Playback state of the auxiliary timer
auxtimer1.direction	Direction of the auxiliary timer

Human readable data

The above data defined in runtime data will give you the data from Ontime as consumed in-app.
For example, all times are in milliseconds.

This is great for software-to-software communications, but it might not be ideal if you want to consume the data yourself.

For these use cases, we have defined a small list of human-readable timer values you can use in your integration messages.
The usage would look like

Variable	Usage	Result
human.clock	{{human.clock}}	Current clock in hh:mm:ss
human.duration	{{human.duration}}	Duration of current timer in hh:mm:ss*
human.expectedEnd	{{human.expectedEnd}}	Time at which the current event is expected to finish in hh:mm:ss*
human.runningTimer	{{human.runningTimer}}	Current running timer in hh:mm:ss*
human.elapsedTime	{{human.elapsedTime}}	Elapsed time of current timer in hh:mm:ss*
human.startedAt	{{human.startedAt}}	Time when the current time started hh:mm:ss*

Note

* Timer values will return “null” if no event is loaded