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    Group Actions

    Group Actions will have limited usefulness, but some may find it useful. It simply lets you assign a number of actions to a Group then individually use the group Actions in Events within the Group.

    Here are three Lights all added to group Actions.

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    Then an Event can use a single Action to Run the Group Actions

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    Then this Event will turn all three lights on when there is motion.

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    This really has limited usefulness as it is highly unlikely a large number of Events would share common actions. The same can be accomplished by calling another Event with all of the actions in it.

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    The additional advantage to moving it to a secondary Event is that you can make it conditional. Here is an example of turning only 1 light on at Sunset when the home is vacant and all three when it is occupied. Note that a single Event, Triggered at Sunset runs two Events each evaluating Occupancy. The first Event must have "Run Only If Other Event Conditions are TRUE" selected for each Action running another Event. Read here for more information. This affords much more flexibility than a select number of Group Actions.

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    HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

    #2
    From what I understand is that you can only ever have one Group Condition and only one Group Action. You can't make multiple Group Conditions or Group Actions, right?

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      #3
      Originally posted by pcgirl65 View Post
      From what I understand is that you can only ever have one Group Condition and only one Group Action. You can't make multiple Group Conditions or Group Actions, right?
      No. You can have multiples of both. Group Conditions are explained here. Be sure and read the takeaways that I derived from testing and especially the quirks. ALL Group Conditions are evaluated if The Group Conditions are called out in an Event within that group. Personally, I avoid Group Conditions for the most part, finding it easier to include specific Conditions in each Event. A good use case for Group Conditions is in my announcement Events. I have an Alerts group for critical announcements such as water leak security, etc and an Announcement Group for more benign announcements like doors and windows open, washer and dryer finished, mail box, etc. In the announcements group there are several things I want to be true before any announcement is made.
      • I have a Virtual Device I can use to disable Announcements only or Announcements and Alerts. I want to check the Status of that device
      • I only want announcements to be made when we are home and are awake, so I check that Virtual Device
      • I want to make sure my Sonos system is powered up, so I check that Virtual device
      • Lastly I use an Easy Trigger schedule to determine when announcements are made. I load different schedules based on whether we are on a work schedule or not
      So I have group conditions as shown and apply them to every Event in that group and there are dozens of Events in that group as well as quite a few in the Alerts Group.

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      You can also stack up Group Actions - as many as you like. I would argue that there are actually very few use cases where Group Actions would be of value. I'm sure someone has found one, but I would argue that there are rarely enough Events that would use shared Actions where Group Actions would save any time over just putting the Actions in each Event. Since the OR IF provides additional Triggers that can be stacked up, I feel it is easier to Build a compound Event comprised of multiple Trigger/Condition sets, all sharing a common set of Actions. An example is also from the Event Clinic here. This is an Event that will run at a different time each day of the week, sharing a common Action (or Actions).






      HS4 Pro, 4.2.19.0 Windows 10 pro, Supermicro LP Xeon

      Comment


        #4
        OK, I see what you mean. I do agree that it is probably easier to just put in the conditions into each event. So, Group Conditions and Group Actions are available to EACH Group that is created. So a Lighting Group can have Group Conditions and Group Actions and a Presence Group can have Group Conditions and Actions. This is what I was missing in my thinking. Thanks for explaining this so well.

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