Automatic actions

What FSMCore does by itself, on a timetable or in the background: backups, clean-ups, trial and plan checks, statuses that change on their own and screens that refresh without a reload.

What it is for

Most things in FSMCore happen because a person presses a button. A few happen by themselves. This page lists the ones you can notice, with the time or interval of each, so that nothing looks like it "changed on its own" without a reason.

Nobody in your company can start, stop or reschedule these. They run for every company the same way.

The timetable

Times marked UTC are in Coordinated Universal Time. Irish time is one hour ahead of UTC in summer and the same as UTC in winter.

AI replies

The AI assistant writes its replies in the background. You can leave the page and the reply still arrives.

Once a minute FSMCore looks for replies that did not finish in one go: a long read of a big file that had to be handed over, a reply that was cut off, or a reply that nothing picked up within 8 minutes. It carries them on. You see the chat keep working, and the answer arrives without you sending the message again.

A reply that cannot be carried on is stopped. The chat then says "The assistant stopped before it finished. Check the records it was changing, then send your message again."

A change you approved on a card is never carried out a second time by this.

A reply that took 60 seconds or longer rings your bell when it ends. See AI assistant bells. More about chats: AI assistant.

AI import clean-up

Import with AI on the price list reads your file and shows the rows before anything is saved. If you leave that preview without pressing the Import n rows button or Cancel import, the rows wait.

• An import left for 24 hours after the file was read is ended by itself and its rows are deleted. Nothing was written to your price list, so nothing is lost there.
• FSMCore checks for such imports every 5 minutes.
• The file you uploaded is deleted as soon as FSMCore has finished reading it, whether the reading worked or not.

AI chats are never cleared this way. A chat is kept until the person deletes it.

See Abandoned imports.

Sending domain

If your company set up its own email sending domain, FSMCore reads its status again by itself:

• A domain that is not verified yet is read every 10 minutes, for 7 days after it was set up. You do not need to press anything while it waits. After 7 days FSMCore stops looking: use Check now.
• A domain that was verified and stopped verifying is read every 10 minutes again, for 7 days from the moment it stopped. Put the DNS records back and it turns verified by itself. After those 7 days, use Check now.
• A verified domain is read once a day, to catch a change that broke it. Until that read, up to a day, emails still go out from your own address and may be rejected by the receiving side.

When the status changes, the owners and admins get a bell:

• Email sending domain verified: your emails now go out from your own address.
• Email sending domain stopped verifying: your emails go out with "(via FSMCore)" after your company's name until it is fixed.

See Email sending.

Billing check

Once an hour FSMCore checks every company's trial and plan.

What the check does:

• It sends the trial reminders 7, 3 and 1 day before the trial ends, as an email and a bell to the owners and admins, each once. A short trial does not get three emails in a row: the nearest reminder counts for the earlier ones.
• When a trial, a cancelled paid period or a complimentary plan has ended with no plan chosen, it writes the lock down and emails the owners and admins. The email states the date the company's data will be deleted.
• For a locked company it sends the reminders 7 days and 1 day before the data is deleted, each once. No reminder is sent once an owner or admin asked to delete the data now.

What the check does not do: it does not decide the lock. A company is locked from the moment its date passes, not from the next hourly check. The check only records it and sends the emails. So the lock page can show before the email arrives, by up to an hour.

See Trial reminders, When the trial ends without a plan and Locked company.

Backups

FSMCore backs up everything every night. You do not set this up and you cannot switch it off.

A check runs after the database backup each night and alerts FSMCore if the newest backup is missing or too old.

Backups are kept on a thinning schedule: every backup for 7 days, then one a day up to 16 days, then one a week for 8 weeks, then one a month for 4 months. That is about 7 months at most. After that a backup is gone.

These figures are the ones on FSMCore's public Security page.

What a backup means for you:

• One company can be restored on its own, without touching any other company.
• You cannot start a restore yourself. There is no button for it. Ask FSMCore.
• A restore never rolls back or removes an issued invoice, estimate or crew invoice. See When your company is restored.

A backup is not the same as an export. To take your own copy of your data at any time, use Export.

When your company is restored

If something went badly wrong in your company's data, FSMCore can put your company back to how it was at one of the nightly backups. Only FSMCore's operator can do this, at your request. It is never automatic and nobody in your company can start it.

What a restore keeps and what it changes:

• Every invoice, estimate and crew invoice that is issued now is kept exactly as it is now, with its lines, payments, files and history. That is also true for one issued, paid, voided or changed after the backup was made.
• The records an issued document points at (its client, site, job, tax rate) are kept too.
• Everything else goes back to the backup. Work entered after that moment is no longer in FSMCore.
• A document that is a draft now is restored like any other record.
• Document numbers already given out are never given out again.
• Just before the restore, FSMCore makes an export of your data as it was. It is listed under Settings > Export and kept for 30 days.

Afterwards every owner and admin is told twice:

The date and time are shown on your company's clock.

Storage bin

A file deleted under Settings > Storage goes to the bin first. It stays there for 30 days and still counts towards your storage.

Every night at 03:00 UTC, files that have been in the bin for more than 30 days are removed for good. After that they cannot be restored from the bin.

See Storage.

Exports

An export of all company data is built in the background after you ask for it. You can keep working. The person who asked gets a bell and an email when it is ready.

Every night at 03:45 Irish time:

• An export file that has been ready for 7 days is deleted. Its row stays in the list, marked Expired.
• An export that stopped half-way, or that never started, is marked Failed. Ask for a new one.

See Export.

Imports

A file of more than 500 rows imported under Settings > Import runs in the background. The person who started it gets a bell and an email when it is finished.

Every night at 03:50 Irish time:

• A file that was read but never imported for 48 hours is let go: the import is marked Not imported.
• An import that stopped half-way is marked Failed. What it saved before it stopped can be undone.

The uploaded file itself sits in the Storage bin and is removed with it after 30 days. See Import clients, sites and jobs.

API call log

The list of API calls under Settings > API keeps 30 days. Every night at 04:00 Irish time older calls are removed from it.

See API.

Signups

A signup that is not confirmed with its emailed code holds its web address for 24 hours. The web address is free again as soon as the 24 hours are over. Every night at 04:15 UTC, signups never confirmed within 24 hours are deleted.

This only concerns a signup that was started and not finished. A confirmed company is never touched by it. See How long the code page works.

Company deletion

A locked company has a deletion date: 30 days after it locked. Until that date its owners and admins can choose a plan and carry on, or export everything, from the lock page.

Every night at 04:30 Irish time, FSMCore deletes the locked companies whose deletion date has passed. The time is after that night's backups.

• A company that chose a plan before its date is not deleted.
• When an owner or admin presses Delete my company data now on the lock page, the deletion date becomes that moment. The data is deleted at the next 04:30 Irish time. From the moment the button is pressed no new export can be made; an export that is ready can still be downloaded until the data is deleted.
• The owners and admins get an email with the subject "Your FSMCore company data has been deleted".

See Locked company and The lock page.

Jobs

Nothing runs on a timetable for jobs. A job's status changes by itself at the moment its invoices change:

• An Invoiced job becomes Paid when every issued invoice of the job is paid.
• It goes back to Invoiced if a payment is corrected and not all invoices are paid any more.
• A job that becomes Paid is archived by itself.

The full rules, with the exceptions for deposit invoices, are under Automatic status changes.

There is no nightly job that tidies up old jobs. FSMCore's operator has a one-off tool that moves old Invoiced jobs whose invoices are all paid to Paid. It is not scheduled and you never need to ask for it in normal use.

Things that happen at once

These are not on a timetable. They happen in the same moment as the action that causes them.

Emails are sent in the background

When you issue or send an invoice, or crew submit hours or a crew invoice, the email is not sent while you wait. The action finishes at once. The email shows in the record's Email history as Queued, then turns Sent or Failed. FSMCore tries once. If it fails, the person who triggered it gets the bell Email notification failed.

See Emails and notifications.

Screens that update themselves

Some screens wait on something outside FSMCore. They refresh by themselves. You do not need to reload the page.

Other screens show what was true when you opened them. If a colleague changes a record while you have a list open, reload the page to see it.

Print beside Download

This is not automatic, but it works the same everywhere, so it is described once here.

Every document you can download also has Print. Download saves the PDF to your device. Print opens the very same PDF in a new browser tab, so you can print it from the browser. Nothing is downloaded.

The rights are the same as for Download:

• A draft invoice, estimate or crew invoice has no Print.
• A document of another company cannot be opened. The browser shows "not found".
• A person without the right role gets "forbidden".
• You must be signed in. In a locked company no document opens.

See Download and print for invoices, Download and print for estimates, View, download and print for crew invoices and Print the report for the completion report.

Common mistakes

A job moved to Paid and disappeared from the list. All its invoices are paid, so it became Paid and was archived by itself. Use the list's archive filter to see it. See Automatic status changes.

The rows of my AI import are gone. The preview was left for 24 hours without Import or Cancel import, so it was cleared. Nothing was written to the price list. Run the import again.

An export I made last week cannot be downloaded. Export files are deleted after 7 days. Ask for a new one.

A file is no longer in the bin. It was in the bin for more than 30 days and was removed for good.

The lock page showed before the lock email arrived. The company locks the moment its date passes. The email goes out with the next hourly check.

I want yesterday's data back. You cannot restore a backup yourself. Ask FSMCore. Issued invoices, estimates and crew invoices are never rolled back.

The page did not show a colleague's change. Only the screens listed under Screens that update themselves refresh on their own. Reload the page.