Trigger Actions and Expected Delays | HelioCampus Assessment Management Knowledge Base

Several actions performed in the platform update information, create records, send notifications, or generate files in the background. Most updates are available immediately or within a few minutes, while larger processes may take longer depending on multiple factors. Delay lengths in this article generally fall into these categories:

Immediate: The change should be visible right away or within a few seconds.
Seconds to Minutes: The action runs quickly, but related updates, notifications, or assignments may need a short amount of processing time.
Minutes to Potentially Hours: Larger jobs, exports, or updates that affect many records may continue processing in the background.

Quick Reference By Delay Length

Immediate

LMS Assignment Refresh
LMS Grade Push
Data Collection inactivation

Seconds to Minutes

Course section publishing
Course publishing
Program status change data collection updates
Assignment start/stop/complete
Assessment start/complete
Survey instance start/complete
Data collection form submission
Email notifications
Self study workflow transitions

Minutes-Potentially Hours

Term activation
Large data collection starts (many forms to create)
Large survey instance starts (many forms to assign)
Multi-document ZIP exports
Assessment result recalculation across many sections
Master course section publishes cascading to children

Course Section Status Changes

User Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
Publish a Course Section	Syllabus data becomes available Section is assigned to active survey instances Section is assigned to active assessments Section is added to active data collections Parent section: linked child sections are force-published	Seconds to minutes per section. If a parent section cascades to many children, multiply accordingly.
Unpublish/Revert/Inactivate a Course Section	Section is removed from survey instances and assessments Section is removed from data collections	Seconds to minutes
Draft → Faculty Pending	Section is assigned to active Assessments	Seconds to minutes

Course Status Changes

Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
Publish a Course	Academic policies are initialized Syllabus data becomes available Course is added to/removed from active data collections Sections are associated with the latest course version Survey templates are associated with the latest course version	Seconds to minutes
Unpublish/Archive a Course	Course is removed from data collections	Seconds to minutes

Data Collection Workflow Steps

Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
Start a Data Collection (Active → In Progress)	Workflow is deployed and published Tasks are created from the workflow Records are assigned, and forms are created Participant notification emails are queued	Form creation is immediate but can be slow for large datasets. Notifications are seconds to minutes
Submit a form/Move to next workflow step	Record data is populated from form responses Data becomes available in reporting Next-step users are notified (task/action notification events)	Seconds to minutes
Complete/Stop a Data Collection	Admin notification email sent	Admin notification: immediate.
Reopen a Data Collection (Completed → In Progress)	Business objects are re-assigned, and new forms are created if needed If "create new version and keep data" is configured, old form data is copied to new versions (async) Participants re-notified	Seconds to minutes for form creation; minutes for data copy on large collections
Inactivate/Delete a Data Collection	All data collection form records are soft-deleted (data retained for historical purposes)	Immediate

Program Status Changes

Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
Publish a Program	Creates assessments Program is added to active data collections	Seconds to minutes
Archive/Draft/Unpublish	Program is removed from/added to active data collections	Seconds to minutes

Survey Schedule & Instance Lifecycle

Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
Start a Survey Schedule	Creates survey Instances based on schedule type (term-based, academic-year-based, or continuous)	Seconds to minutes
Start a Survey Instance (Active → In Progress)	Course sections are assigned Partial terms are created if applicable Survey forms are created and assigned to participants Participant notification emails are queued Faculty notification checks run	Minutes for large surveys with many participants
Complete a Survey Instance (Results Available)	Admin notification sent Faculty notification events are queued per college	Seconds to minutes
Inactivate a Survey Instance	All assigned survey schedule forms deleted	Seconds to minutes

Assessment Lifecycle

Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
Start an Assessment (In Progress)	Course sections are assigned to the assessment	Seconds to minutes
Move to Pending Scores (Juried Assessment)	Assessor invitation notifications and action items created	Seconds to minutes
Move to Adjudicator Review (Juried Assessment)	Assessor action items completed Adjudicator notifications sent	Seconds to minutes
Complete an Assessment	Non-Juried: events posted for each assigned course section Juried: juried assignment action items removed	Minutes for assessments with many sections
Inactivate an Assessment	All assessment form associations deleted	Seconds to minutes

Assignment Lifecycle

Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
Start/Publish an Assignment (In Progress)	Assignment forms are assigned Student notification emails are queued Student and faculty action items created On reopen: submissions are reverted	Seconds to minutes (depends on class size)
Stop an Assignment (Pending Scores)	Student action items completed Faculty notification emails are queued	Seconds to minutes
Complete an Assignment	Faculty and student action items completed If LMS grade passback is enabled: grades are pushed to LMS Student submissions are completed	Seconds to minutes; LMS grade sync depends on LMS API response time
Inactivate an Assignment	All submissions deleted All assignment links deleted	Immediate to seconds

Self Study Workflow

Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
Advance a Self Study through workflow steps (Draft → Pending → in progress → In Review, etc.)	Invitation notifications sent to assigned users Action items created/updated with deadlines	Seconds to minutes
Publish/Inactivate a Self Study	All self study action items are completed	Seconds

Document Exports & Report Generation

To check export status, the Document Requests dashboard widget shows status:

Running
Completed
Terminated: Tasks running > 90 minutes
Timeout: Tasks running > 3 hours

Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
Any CSV/Excel export	Synchronous if export time < 45s If > 45s-Asynchronous to Document Requests dashboard widget	Up to 90 minutes
Any PDF/Word export	Synchronous if export time < 60s If > 60s-Asynchronous to Document Requests dashboard widget	Up to 90 minutes
Course Section Syllabus ZIP (PDF.ZIP/WORD.ZIP)	Asynchronous to Document Requests dashboard widget	Depends on section count
Faculty Activity Manager PDF.ZIP	Multi-document ZIP	Depends on activity count
Data Collection Form Preview PDF.ZIP	Multi-document ZIP	Depends on form count
Survey Results PDF.ZIP (aggregate or individual)	Multi-document ZIP	Depends on survey size
Self-Study Export as ZIP	Multi-document ZIP	Depends on content volume
Evidence Artifacts ZIP (all available)	Asynchronous to Document Requests dashboard widget	Up to 90 minutes
Self-Study Evidence Artifacts ZIP	Asynchronous to Document Requests dashboard widget	Up to 90 minutes
Save As PDF"for reports	Asynchronous to Document Requests dashboard widget	Up to 90 minutes
Dataset/Data Warehouse exports (CSV)	Asynchronous to Document Requests dashboard widget	Up to 90 minutes

LMS Integration Actions

These actions are NOT triggered by regular users but run on schedule or admin action:

Update LMS Cross-Listed Section IDs: Scheduled batch job.
Update Assessment Results (global): Scheduled nightly; includes LMS sync.

Action	What Happens (as applicable)	Expected Delay
"Refresh LMS Assignments” (Course Section)	Pulls assignments from LMS and syncs locally	Synchronous: 10 minutes before auto-timeout
"Push Scores to LMS” (Gradebook)	Pushes student grades to LMS gradebook	Synchronous
Assignment completion with auto grade passback	Grades are pushed to LMS as part of the assignment completion event	Seconds to minutes