assignment rules vs business rule

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  • Mar 2, 2023

Understanding Assignment Rules: A Comprehensive Guide

assignment rules vs business rule

Assignment rules are an important feature of Salesforce that help businesses automate assigning records to specific users or teams based on predefined criteria. This article will discuss assignment rules, how they work, and the benefits they provide to businesses.

What are Assignment Rules?

Assignment rules are a set of criteria that are defined by businesses to determine how records should be assigned to users or teams within the Salesforce system. These criteria can be based on several factors, such as the record type, location, record status, or the user's role or territory. For example, a company may set up an assignment rule to automatically assign a new lead to the sales rep who covers that particular region or product line.

How do Assignment Rules Work?

When a record is created or updated, the assignment rules evaluate the record based on predefined criteria. The assignment rule automatically assigns the record to the designated user or team if the criteria are met. Once the record is assigned, the user or team can work on the record.

Salesforce provides a simple wizard that enables administrators to set up assignment rules. The wizard allows administrators to define the criteria for the assignment, select the user or team to assign records to, and set up any needed notifications or escalations.

How to Set Up Assignment Rules in Salesforce

assignment rules vs business rule

Setting up assignment rules in Salesforce is a straightforward process that requires the following steps:

Identify the criteria for record assignment - Before creating an assignment rule, businesses should first identify the criteria used to assign records. It might include the record type, location, user role, or other custom fields.

Create the assignment rule - Once the criteria have been identified, businesses can create the assignment rule in Salesforce. It involves setting up a rule that evaluates the criteria and assigns records to the appropriate user or team.

Test the assignment rule - After the assignment rule has been created, businesses should test it to ensure it is working correctly. It might involve creating test records and verifying that they are assigned to the correct user or team.

Activate the assignment rule - Testing it in Salesforce will allow it to be activated. It allows it to automatically assign records to the appropriate user or team.

Types of Assignment Rules in Salesforce

assignment rules vs business rule

Salesforce offers two types of assignment rules: standard assignment rules and lead assignment rules.

Standard assignment rules assign records to users or teams based on predefined criteria. They can be set up for various record types, including leads, cases, and opportunities.

Lead assignment rules are specific assignment rules used to assign leads to sales reps. They evaluate the criteria for a lead, such as location or product interest, and assign the lead to the appropriate sales rep based on a round-robin or customized assignment method.

Benefits of Assignment Rules

There are several benefits to using assignment rules in Salesforce, including:

Increased Efficiency

One of the most significant benefits of assignment rules is their increased efficiency. By automating the process of assigning records, sales, and customer support teams can spend less time manually assigning leads and cases to the appropriate users or teams. They can focus on more important tasks, such as following up with leads, resolving customer issues, and closing deals.

With assignment rules, businesses can streamline their processes and reduce the time it takes to respond to customer inquiries, ultimately improving their overall efficiency and productivity.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Another important benefit of assignment rules is the improved customer satisfaction they can provide. Businesses can automatically assign cases to the appropriate user or team to ensure that customer inquiries are handled promptly and efficiently. Customers receive faster responses to their inquiries, which can help improve their overall satisfaction with the company.

In addition, by assigning cases to users with the appropriate skills and knowledge, businesses can ensure that customer issues are resolved more effectively, further improving customer satisfaction.

Accurate Data

Assignment rules also help businesses maintain accurate data in their CRM system. By automating the process of assigning records, businesses can ensure that data is entered correctly and consistently. It means that reports and analytics generated from the data are more accurate and reliable, which can help businesses make more informed decisions.

In addition, businesses can use assignment rules to enforce data validation rules, which can help prevent incorrect data from being entered into the system.

Consistency

Another benefit of assignment rules is that they help ensure consistency in record assignments. By automating the process of assigning records, businesses can ensure that records are assigned to the appropriate user or team consistently. It reduces the risk of errors or omissions occurring when records are manually assigned.

In addition, by using assignment rules to enforce a standardized process for record assignment, businesses can ensure that records are handled consistently across different teams and regions.

Flexibility

Finally, assignment rules provide businesses with great flexibility in assigning records. Businesses can define complex rules based on various criteria, such as record type, location, or user role. Businesses can customize their assignment rules to fit their specific needs and workflows.

In addition, assignment rules can be updated or modified as needed, allowing businesses to adapt to changes in their business or industry.

Best Practices for Using Assignment Rules in Salesforce

Businesses should follow these best practices to ensure Salesforce assignment rules are working effectively:

Define clear assignment criteria: Before setting up assignment rules, businesses should define clear criteria for record assignments. It will help ensure that records are assigned accurately and consistently.

Test assignment rules before activation: Before activating assignment rules, businesses should test them to ensure that they are working correctly. It will help prevent errors and ensure that records are assigned to the appropriate user or team.

Monitor and adjust assignment rules: It is important to monitor them regularly to ensure they are working properly. Businesses should also be prepared to adjust assignment rules as needed to accommodate changes in their business or industry.

Communicate changes to users: When changes are made to assignment rules, businesses should communicate with them to ensure they are aware of any changes in their workload or responsibilities.

In conclusion, assignment rules are a powerful feature of Salesforce that helps businesses automate assigning records to specific users or teams. The benefits of assignment rules include increased efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, accurate data, and consistency.

By using assignment rules, businesses can streamline their processes, improve their overall effectiveness, and achieve their goals more efficiently.

At Cloud Sylla, our sole focus is on assisting businesses in achieving success through digital transformation. Our goal is to aid customers in making the crucial shift to digital technologies, enabling them to bolster their strategies, multi-channel distribution, and internal operations.

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Assignment rules in Salesforce

  • By Ankush Dureja in salesforce

December 6, 2018

Page Contents

What are assignment rules in salesforce ?

Assignment rules in salesforce are used to automatically assign lead or Case to owner( User Or Queue ). Assignment rule is used to automate owner assignment on Case and Lead based on conditions on Case or Lead. For example, there could on lead assignment rule for web-generated leads and one case assignment rule for the holiday use.

Types of assignment rules

There are two type of assignment rules

Lead Assignment Rules

Case assignment rules.

Specify how leads are assigned to users or queues as they are created manually, captured from the web, or imported via the Data Import Wizard.

Determine how cases are assigned to users or put into queues as they are created manually, using Web-to-Case, Email-to-Case, On-Demand Email-to-Case, the Self-Service portal, the Customer Portal, Outlook, or Lotus Notes.

Create or Setup assignment rules

  • From Setup, enter Assignment Rules in the  Quick Find  box, then select either  Lead Assignment Rules  or  Case Assignment Rules .
  • Choose  New , and then give the rule a name. Specify whether you want this to be the active rule for leads or cases created manually and via the web and email. Then click  Save .
  • To create the rule entries, click  New . For each entry, you can specify:
  • Order : Sets the order in which the entry will be processed in the rule, for example, 1, 2, 3. Salesforce evaluates each entry in order and tries to match the criteria of the entry. As soon as a match is found, Salesforce processes the item and stops evaluating the rule entries for that item. If no match is found, the item is reassigned to either the default Web-to-Lead owner, the administrator doing a lead import, or the default case owner.
  • Choose criteria are met and select the filter criteria that a record must meet to trigger the rule.For example, set a case filter to Priority equals High if you want case records with the Priority field marked High to trigger the rule. If your organization uses multiple languages, enter filter values in your organization’s default language. You can add up to 25 filter criteria, of up to 255 characters each. When you use picklists to specify filter criteria, the selected values are stored in the organization’s default language. If you edit or clone existing filter criteria, first set the Default Language on the Company Information page to the same language that was used to set the original filter criteria. Otherwise, the filter criteria may not be evaluated as expected.
  • Choose formula evaluates to true and enter a formula that returns a value of “True” or “False.” Salesforce triggers the rule if the formula returns “True.” For example, the formula AND(ISCHANGED( Priority ), ISPICKVAL (Priority, “High”) ) triggers a rule that changes the owner of a case when the Priority field is changed to High. If your condition uses a custom field, the rule entry will be deleted automatically if the custom field is deleted.
  • User : Specifies the user or queue to which the lead or case will be assigned if it matches the condition. Users specified here cannot be marked “inactive” and they must have “Read” permission on leads or cases.
  • Do Not Reassign Owner : Specifies that the current owner on a lead or case will not be reassigned to the lead or case when it is updated.
  • Email Template : We can specifies the template to use for the email that is automatically sent to the new owner. If no template is specified, no email will be sent. When assigning a lead or case to a queue, the notification goes to the Queue Email address specified for the queue and all queue members.
  • Predefined Case Teams : Specifies the predefined case team(s) to add to a case when it matches the condition. A case team is a group of people that work together to solve cases.
  • Replace any existing predefined case teams on the case : Specifies that any existing predefined case teams on the case are replaced with the predefined case teams on the condition, when a case matches the condition.

After creating the entry, click  Save , or  Save & New  to save the entry and create more entries.

Assignment Rule Example

Following is sample Case assignment rule which assigns case to different queues based on Billing Country, Account SLA and customer type:

For more details about assignment rules please refer to assignment rules  official link.

Assignment rules in Salesforce trailhead

Good luck for creating Assignment rules in Salesforce 🙂

  • Assignment rules , Assignment rules Salesforce , Case Assignment rules , Lead Assignment Rules , salesforce , sfdc

Ankush Dureja

Permanent link to this article: https://www.sfdcpoint.com/salesforce/assignment-rules-in-salesforce/

Skip to comment form

assignment rules vs business rule

  • Stremove.com on August 2, 2020 at 9:10 am

Case Assignment Rules Determine how cases are assigned to users or put into queues as they are created manually, using Web-to-Case, Email-to-Case, On-Demand Email-to-Case, the Self-Service portal, the Customer Portal, Outlook, or Lotus Notes.

assignment rules vs business rule

  • Dayene on August 25, 2020 at 7:01 pm

Hi! What about when I want my assignment to change when the Lead status is changed? I’ve created two criterias. First when the status is new and second when the status has other values. But when the Lead is updated and the status changes the assignment doesn´t follow this change and it does not assignment the Lead Owner correctly. Thanks.

assignment rules vs business rule

  • Vrushabh LEngade on October 27, 2020 at 3:51 pm

Use Escalation Rules and escalate the case to another user or queue

assignment rules vs business rule

  • subhasini on December 23, 2021 at 6:19 pm

Hi Ankush Dureja, there is a interview question on assignment and the question is : What will happen if the user becomes inactive(or user is deactivated) on whom the rule is assigned. Please reply me ASAP

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Best Practices for Optimizing Case Assignment Rules in Salesforce

Salesforce is a powerful customer relationship management (CRM) platform that helps businesses manage various aspects of customer interactions. One critical aspect of customer support is case management in Salesforce , where efficient case assignment rules play a vital role. Optimizing these rules can significantly enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of handling customer inquiries and issues.

Understanding Salesforce assignment rules

Salesforce assignment rules govern the distribution of incoming cases to the appropriate agents or teams. These rules ensure that each case is routed to the most suitable person for prompt resolution. Salesforce queues further facilitate this distribution by acting as virtual storage areas for cases before they are assigned.

There are two types of assignment rules in Salesforce:

  • Salesforce Lead Assignment Rules primarily focus on distributing new leads among sales representatives based on predefined criteria such as geography, lead source, or lead score. 
  • Case Assignment Rules are responsible for Salesforce case distribution. These rules play a pivotal role in the realm of customer support by directing incoming Salesforce support cases to agents or teams equipped with the expertise to resolve specific issues. 

As organizations strive to provide seamless experiences for both potential customers and existing clients, mastering these assignment rule types becomes crucial for optimizing customer interactions and nurturing lasting relationships.

The need for optimization

Default assignment rules might not account for specific business needs, leading to uneven case distribution, longer resolution times, and potential customer dissatisfaction. Optimizing Salesforce rules address these issues by ensuring equitable distribution, maximizing agent expertise, and expediting case resolution.

Best practices for Salesforce assignment

  • Prioritizing cases . Categorize cases based on urgency or complexity to assign high-priority cases to experienced agents, ensuring quick resolutions.
  • Efficient assignment techniques . Implement round-robin assignment or load-based distribution to evenly distribute cases among available agents, preventing bottlenecks.
  • Role-based vs. direct assignment. Choose between role-based case assignment, where cases are directed to specific teams or direct assignment, where cases go to individual agents based on expertise.

Advanced Salesforce assignment techniques

  • Multi-criteria case assignment. Combine multiple factors such as case type, priority, and customer tier for more accurate case routing.
  • Automated case assignment. Leverage Salesforce automation tools like Process Builder and Flow to automate case assignments based on predefined criteria.
  • Customized queues. Tailor Salesforce queues to match specific business units or case types, improving case categorization and routing.

Streamlining Salesforce case routing

Salesforce case routing logic.

Understanding Salesforce case routing logic is fundamental for ensuring that customer inquiries and issues are directed to the right personnel with the expertise to address them effectively. The case routing process involves a sophisticated interplay of various factors, such as queue membership, agent skills, workload, and availability. Salesforce’s intelligent algorithms consider these variables to determine the most suitable destination for each case, maximizing the chances of swift resolution. 

Caseload balancing

Balancing caseloads in Salesforce goes beyond equal case distribution among agents. This strategic approach boosts customer service quality and agent efficiency. Preventing overload for some and underutilization for others, it curbs burnout and enhances job satisfaction. 

Even workloads lead to swift responses, faster resolutions, and increased customer contentment. Moreover, balanced caseloads aid managers in spotting trends, optimizing resource allocation, and refining processes. This practice optimizes operations and fosters a cooperative, productive support environment.

Case escalation and reassignment strategies

Case escalation and reassignment strategies are vital for effective customer support. Escalation involves transferring cases to experienced agents or supervisors to address complex issues promptly. Case reassignment in Salesforce redirects cases to different teams or agents for specialized handling. 

These strategies prevent delays, ensure timely resolutions, and uphold customer satisfaction. With clear escalation and reassignment criteria, organizations enhance their support processes, allocate resources efficiently, and build a reputation for adeptly managing diverse customer concerns.

Configuring and customizing assignment rules

Salesforce rule configuration instructions.

  • Access setup. Log in to your Salesforce account and navigate to the Setup menu located in the top-right corner of the screen.
  • Search for assignment rules: In the Quick Find box, type “Assignment rules” and select what Assignment Rules you need to configure: Lead Assignment Rules or Case Assignment Rules. 
  • Create a new rule. Click on the “New Assignment Rule” button to start configuring a new rule.
  • Define Salesforce rule criteria. Give your rule a descriptive name and set the rule entry criteria. This includes conditions like case origin, type, priority, or other custom criteria that determine how cases are assigned.

assignment rules vs business rule

  • Specify rule actions. Determine what happens when cases meet the specified criteria. You can assign cases to specific users, queues, or use other automation processes.
  • Configure rule entry order. If you have multiple assignment rules, specify the order in which they’re evaluated. This is important when cases could meet criteria for more than one rule.

assignment rules vs business rule

  • Activate the rule. Once configured, activate the assignment rule to make it live and start directing cases accordingly.

You can also integrate Salesforce workflow rules to automate follow-up actions after case assignments, enhancing customer communication.

Enhancing case management efficiency: Salesforce support cases best practices

  • Utilize case templates. Expedite responses by employing predefined case templates for common issues, ensuring consistent and swift resolutions.
  • Leverage macros. Enhance agent productivity with macros that automate multiple actions, reducing manual tasks and accelerating case handling.
  • Opt for case cloning. Save time on data entry by cloning similar cases, streamlining the process of creating and managing new cases.
  • Update Knowledge bases . Maintain accurate and current knowledge bases to empower agents with reliable information, enabling efficient issue resolution.
  • Engage collaboration tools. Employ platforms like Chatter to encourage agent collaboration, fostering knowledge sharing and teamwork for complex cases.
  • Notify agents of new assignments promptly and emphasize the importance of case ownership for accountability.

Optimizing case assignment rules in Salesforce is indispensable for efficient case handling. By understanding the fundamentals, implementing best practices, and embracing advanced techniques, businesses can ensure equitable case distribution, expedite resolutions, and enhance customer satisfaction. A well-optimized case assignment system ultimately streamlines support processes and contributes to the overall success of the customer support function.

Advanced Communities is your best partner when it comes to configuring your Salesforce instance or developing a Salesforce Experience Cloud site. In case of any questions feel free to reach out to get professional support when you really need it. 

You may be interested in: Maximizing ROI with Salesforce: A Case Study

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What You Need to Know About Business Rules

Business rules should be externalized from processes and established as a separate resource. Rule Independence permits direct management of the business rules, so they can evolve at their own natural pace rather than that of the software release cycle. Other benefits include better process models, and much closer tie-in to the business side (a.k.a. business alignment). Business rules put your company on the road to true agility.

Excerpted from Chapter 2, Business Rule Concepts: Getting to the Point of Knowledge  (3rd Ed.), by Ronald G. Ross, August 2009. ISBN 0-941049-07-8 - Reprinted with permission.

What You need to Know about Business Rules

In the human body, power is provided by the muscles; in business operations, it is supported by processes. Nerves and muscles are separate; business rules and processes should be separate too.

This principle of separation is called Rule Independence . Not embedding business rules in processes has huge benefits.

Working Smart

Rules are familiar to us all in real life. We play games by rules, we live under a legal system based on rules, we set rules for our children, and so on.

Yet the idea of rules in business systems is ironically foreign to many people. Say "rules" and many IT professionals, for example, think vaguely of expert systems or artificial intelligence - approaches deemed appropriate for only very specialized or very advanced kinds of problems. Recognition has come only slowly about how central business rules actually are to basic, day-to-day business operations.

Not coincidentally, many business-side workers and managers have become so well indoctrinated in procedural views for developing requirements that thinking in terms of business rules might initially seem foreign and perhaps abstract. Virtually every methodology has been deficient in this regard, whether for business process reengineering, system development, or software design.

That omission is highly detrimental and very costly. Thinking about the control aspect of any organized activity in terms of rules is actually very natural. For example, imagine trying to explain almost any game you can think of - chess, checkers, baseball, football, tennis, and so on - without explaining the rules on which the moves in the game are based. Even if it were possible (that's doubtful!), explaining things that way would certainly not be very effective .

In short, you need business rules. Without any exaggeration, good business rules are no less important to business operations than a robust, finely-tuned nervous system is to the human body.

You naturally want each business rule to be specified once and only once . One-place specification ( single-sourcing ) means the business rule will be easier to find - and to change quickly. If you want true agility, business rules are the ticket.

Collectively, the set of business rules represents a separate rulebook for the business game. This rulebook should, of course, be automated, to provide scalable support for the origination and management of the business rules. You need special tooling for the rulebook, which I call a general rulebook system (GRBS).

Do business rules complicate matters for the business? No! Doing business is no more complicated by having independent business rules than are the games of chess, baseball, and football by having their own independent rulebooks.

Are business rules all that matter? Of course not! You still need artifacts for other needs, including process models, use cases, etc. These latter deliverables are needed to produce the raw power to do work - muscles for the business to flex. Business rules represent a well-developed nervous system, a way to ensure your business works smart .

The Basics of Business Rules

A first step in understanding business rules is simply to relate them to the issue of guidance. The sidebar below presents a light sampling of typical business rules, each categorized informally according to the kind of guidance it provides. Note how far-ranging these categories really are. Every aspect of guidance for business operations can be addressed by business rules.

Restriction A customer must not place more than three rush orders charged to its credit account. Guideline A customer with preferred status should have its orders filled immediately. Computation A customer's annual order volume is always computed as total sales closed during the company's fiscal year. Inference A customer is always considered preferred if the customer has placed more than five orders over $1,000. Timing An order must be assigned to an expeditor if shipped but not invoiced within 72 hours. Trigger 'Send-advance-notice' must be performed for an order when the order is shipped.

A second step in understanding business rules is to understand how they relate to a structured business vocabulary (often portrayed as a graphical fact model). Rules build directly on fact types. Basically, expression of a business rule simply adds a sense of obligation or necessity to terms and wordings already set up in the fact model.

Terms, Facts and Rules The focus of business rules has often been described as terms, facts, and rules. Under the rigorous formal prescriptions of the new standard Semantic of Business Vocabularies and Business Rules (SBVR) this mantra, which dates to the early 1990s work of the Business Rules Group (www.BusinessRulesGroup.org), is not 100% technically accurate. Nonetheless it's memorable and certainly adequate for an initial understanding.

Here is a sample business rule: A customer must be assigned to an agent if the customer has placed an order. Figure 1 shows the relevant terms and wordings for this statement. Note how the fact types worded customer places order and customer is assigned to agent are used directly in the statement, with only minor adjustments in tense as appropriate for English grammar.

Figure 1. Terms and Wordings for the Agent-Assignment Business Rule.

In business problems involving hundreds or thousands of business rules - not at all uncommon - there is no way to achieve consistency across such large numbers of statements without a common base of terms and wordings. This vocabulary scaffolding is indispensable for scaling up .

Basing verbalizations directly on wordings for fact types is a key feature of business-oriented notations for business rules such as RuleSpeak ( www.RuleSpeak.com , in English, Spanish, German and Dutch).

A third step in understanding business rules is appreciating the importance and power of expressing business rules declaratively . When statements are based directly on wordings for fact types, the result is always declarative. The Agent-Assignment Business Rule presented above illustrates. Expressing business rules declaratively is a key means of liberating the business from the perils of IT-speak. The sidebar below explains how you can determine whether specifications are declarative.

When Are Specifications Declarative? In graduate school in the early 1970s, I learned this highly pragmatic test for determining whether specifications are declarative: Take each statement of the specification and type it on an individual punch card. (It's really hard to find punch cards these days, but for the sake of discussion, let's ignore that.) Assemble the deck. Test it to make sure it works. Throw the whole deck up in the air. Pick up all the cards in random order. Re-test it. If the logic still works, the statements are declarative. If not, they are procedural. The point is that in declarative specifications no logic is lost 'between the lines' - i.e., none is intrinsic to the sequence of presentation. In other words, there is no hidden semantics (meaning).

Violation of Business Rules

Let's examine more closely business rules that can be violated. Consider the Agent-Assignment Business Rule. What happens when an event occurs that might violate this business rule?

The business rule needs to be evaluated with respect to the event. We call that a flash point .

If a violation is detected, appropriate intervention should ensue.

Assuming the user is authorized and knowledgeable, some explanation should be provided about what triggered the intervention. You might call that explanation an error message , but we prefer guidance message. The intent should be to inform and to shape appropriate business behavior, rather than simply reprimand or inhibit it.

What should that guidance message say? The guidance message should contain exactly the same text as given for the business rule. For the Agent-Assignment Business Rule it should literally read: A customer must be assigned to an agent if the customer has placed an order . To put this more strongly, the business rule statement is the guidance message.

Now I overstated the case a bit to make the point. Obviously, additional or customized text can be provided to explain the relevance of the business rule to the specific event, to suggest corrective measures, to give examples, and so on. Also, in a truly-friendly business rule system, you often wouldn't want simply to present the message, then shut down the work. For example, you might offer a procedure or script to the user to assist in taking immediate corrective action. But for now, let's stick to the main point.

And that main point is this: The guidance messages that business workers see once an operational business system is deployed should be the very same business rules that knowledgeable workers on the business side expressed as requirements during development. Guidance messages, business rule statements, rule-related requirements - these are all literally one and the same. Well-expressed business rules during the requirements process mean well-expressed guidance messages; poorly-expressed business rules during the requirements process mean poorly-expressed guidance messages.

This approach has proven potential for closing the requirements gap between business people and IT that still plagues many companies today. In traditional approaches, much is usually lost in the translation of up-front requirements into the actual running systems. Using business rules, the business side gets back whatever guidance it puts in - a truly business-oriented approach.

Direct assistance in expressing the business rules up-front will prove very valuable to the managers and workers involved in business rule capture. It will enable them to be far more articulate about their requirements. We see the ability to assist in expressing business rules as a key skill for business analysts.

Decisioning

Business rules are not an end in themselves; ultimately, they are about enabling the business to make good, consistent operational decisions . Think of business rules simply as criteria for making operational decisions.

An operational decision is where some minute-to-minute, day-to-day determination must be made in performing business activity. Such a decision typically might have to do with configuration, allocation, assignment, classification, assessment, compliance, diagnosis, and so on.

Generally, operational decisions are concerned with either of the following:

Coordinating some business process.

Applying specialized know-how in the context of some product/service.

Examples of operational decisions that fall into the latter category might include whether or not to:

Approve an application for automobile insurance.

Pay a claim.

Buy a stock.

Declare an emergency.

Accept a reservation.

Indicate possible fraud.

Give an on-the-spot discount to a customer.

Assign a particular resource to a given request.

Select a health care service for a patient.

Certify a ship for safety.

You can expect business rules to generally align according to the kind of operational decision they support - coordinating some business process or applying some specialized know-how.

Business rules concerning the company's product/service invariably involve the company's special area(s) of expertise. They often use more arcane (knowledge-rich) vocabulary. For that reason, such business rules are typically more difficult to capture and express. And there tends to be significantly more of them. Decision tables are particularly helpful for them. Your approach needs to be prepared for all that.

How far can you take operational decisioning in a company? I don't know the ultimate answer. At the present time, no one does.

But let me try to answer the question a different way. Suppose you take any given operational decision in the business. Is it always possible to capture and encode all relevant business rules such that the decision could be made precisely or optimally with no human intervention? No . Some problems are just too difficult - e.g., accurate weather forecasting.

In the typical business, however, a large number of crucial everyday decisions come nowhere near that degree of complexity. For all those decisions, you can capture and encode all the business rules and make precise or optimal decisions. That's a proven fact. 

Ronald G. Ross

At his company Business Rule Solutions, Mr. Ross engages in seminars, consulting services, publications, the Proteus® methodology, and RuleSpeak ®. He gives popular public seminars through Attaining Edge and IRM UK .

Copyright 2009. Business Rule Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved. 4 Excerpted from Business Rule Concepts: Getting to the Point of Knowledge (3rd Ed.), by Ronald G. Ross, 2009. ISBN 0-941049-07-8 - http://www.brsolutions.com/publications.php

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Handling Assignment Rules in ServiceNow

In ServiceNow, if one is looking for automatic assignments then he can rely on the instance’s ability to assign the tasks automatically to different users and groups depending on the specified conditions. In order to achieve this, ServiceNow has the following modules:

  • Assignment Lookup Rules
  • Assignment Rules

Assignment Lookup Rules:

This module appears under the ‘System Policy application’ menu. This table is basically generated out of the box as its definition is provided in the ‘Data Lookup Definition’ table in the instance, specifically for field assignments in the incident table. Assignment lookup rules mainly provide the functionality of changing any field value and not just the assignment fields.

Assignment Rules:

This module appears under the ‘System Policy application’ menu. It helps to automatically assign the tasks to a particular user or a particular group using the assigned_to and assignment_group fields respectively, depending on the specified set of conditions. One can define these assignment rules readily for their desired table.

Following are the steps for defining the assignment rule:

  • Navigate to System Policy -> Assignment -> New

Handling Assignment Rules in ServiceNow

  • From the above figure, one can see that the dot-walking can also be done in the condition builder field. Just select the ‘Show Related Fields’ option in the condition and then select the appropriate attribute.
  • Further, in the ‘Assign To’ tab, select the appropriate user and group to whom the task is to be assigned.

If two assignment rules conflict, then the assignment rule with the lowest execution order runs first. The lower the execution order, the higher is the precedence.

Distinguishing Factors between the Data Lookup Rules and Assignment Rules:

Precedence among the assignment rule and business rule:.

In certain circumstances, the business rules gain precedence over the assignment rules.

The business rules and assignments rules run in the following order:

  • All the ‘before record insert’ business rules having order less than 1000.
  • First and foremost, assignment rule with lowest execution order and matching condition.
  • All the ‘before record insert’ business rules having order more than 1000.
  • All the ‘after record insert’ business rules.

We are pretty sure that this blog must have given an overview of dealing with Assignment Rules in ServiceNow.

Any comments\suggestions are most welcome. We have posted further blogs as well on other topics and will frequently come back with something innovative.

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Business rules management systems (BRMSs) are comprehensive decision-management platforms that allow organizations to create, manage and implement scalable business rules across the enterprise.

Imagine being able to automate a decision as high stakes as allocating organ donations — and being confident the outcome would be reliable and error-free.

Most business decisioning isn’t life or death, but it can be just as complex. A business process as seemingly simple as responding to a help-desk ticket entails correctly making numerous decisions along the way: Can a chatbot handle this ticket, or does it require human intervention? If an employee needs to intervene, what process should they follow? How can they appropriately resolve the request in a way that benefits both the business and the customer?

For any business process to be intelligently automated , each of these little decisions must first be automated dependably. The various factors influencing these decisions — from industry regulations to market conditions and individual customer preferences — must all be accounted for.

Business rules management systems (BRMSs) allow for this level of decision automation. These software systems give enterprises the ability to define, deploy and manage business rules and decision logic so that applications can make smart decisions consistently, quickly and with minimal human intervention. BRMSs turn the rules that govern business decisions into enterprise-wide assets that can be leveraged in workflows across the organization.

What are business rules?

Every business process, from fulfilling customer orders to developing new software, comprises a series of decisions. Business rules are the logical guidelines that ensure those business decisions lead to the right outcomes. Business rules dictate what business activity should occur under which circumstances.

A formal business rule is composed of two fundamental elements:

  • A condition , which outlines the situation in which action should occur.
  • An action , which defines the thing that should happen in response to a given condition.

Consider the example of a customer asking to return a product. The business rules determining how the return will be processed might look like this:

Scenario 1:

  • Condition: It has been 30 days or less since the customer ordered the product.
  • Action: Offer the customer a full refund.

Scenario 2:

  • Condition: It has been more than 30 days since the customer ordered the product.
  • Action: Offer the customer store credit.

Defining formal business rules allows companies to automate business decisions by creating a coherent system of decision logic that can be applied across business processes. Formally defined business rules tell automated workflows what to do in any given situation (e.g., when to start a process, when to stop a process and when to take certain actions within the process).

Formalizing business rules isn’t always easy. Even simple situations, like a customer return, require multiple business rules to account for the various factors that can influence the final outcome. The complexity of decision logic only increases in highly regulated industries like healthcare and finance. The decisions that go into processing a customer’s loan application, for example, are subject not only to the business’s criteria but also to a host of regulatory requirements to prevent discrimination, fraud and other illegal outcomes.

A business rules management system (BRMS) provides business users with the technology tools necessary to codify business rules in a repeatable, reliable, and automatable manner.

What is a business rules management system (BRMS)?

Business rules management — not to be confused with business process management (BPM) — refers to the process and practice of formally defining business rules, implementing them, managing them and automating their deployment. A business rules management system (BRMS) is the technology platform through which this process is carried out. A BRMS offers tools to facilitate the entire business rules lifecycle, from defining and storing rules as formal business logic to auditing existing rules and managing the overarching decision logic that guides automation across the entire enterprise technology ecosystem.

The primary advantage of a BRMS for automation efforts is that rules don’t have to be separately coded into each business application. Instead, a BRMS allows the enterprise to maintain a single source of business rules — either on-premises or in the cloud . Other applications in the technology ecosystem can simply draw their rules from the BRMS. This makes business rules truly scalable — they only have to be created once, and any department or workflow can use them.

Components of a BRMS

A BRMS typically consists of three distinct but interconnected components:

1. A development environment for defining and creating business rules

For business rules to be readable by automated applications, they must be expressed in terms of conditional programming language. Think of the formal logic qualifiers used in coding projects: “IF-THEN”, “IF-ELSE”, “ONLY IF”, “WHEN”, etc.

A BRMS contains a low-code or no-code development environment so that non-technical business people can author business rules in this conditional language. Consider again the customer refund request outlined above. The conditional expression of the rule governing that process might look something like this:

IF it has been less than 30 days since the customer ordered a product, THEN refund the product. ELSE, offer store credit.

Business rules can also be expressed as decision tables, which are useful when crafting rules in which more than one condition influences the proper action. For example, if item pricing also influences the return procedure, a business user might prepare a decision table that looks like this:

Many BRMSs also include the ability to simulate rules so that team members can test rules to see how they might affect decision outcomes. For example, if adding a new rule to a loan approval process requiring a credit score of 700 or above, a team member could see how that rule would change the approval rate before actually implementing it.

2. A repository where rules are stored

After rules are defined, they are placed in the BRMS’s central repository. Here, rules can be reviewed, edited, shared across the entire enterprise and accessed by different applications.

3. A business rules engine

The rules engine is the software component that allows other applications across the enterprise ecosystem to access the rules repository and execute those rules in a runtime environment. The application sends a request — including all the relevant data the rules engine needs to make a decision — to the BRMS. The rules engine then checks the request against the relevant rules and returns a decision. Finally, this decision triggers the application to take some specific action.

How a business rules management system (BRMS) works in practice

Consider the example of a SaaS company that provides three different tiers of subscriptions to its platform: one for small businesses, one for medium-sized businesses and one for large enterprises. When new leads come in through the company’s website, the company wants to automatically funnel those leads to the appropriate sales team, based on the size of the lead’s organization. The company could create a decision service to govern this process in a BRMS like so:

  • IF a lead has under 100 employees, THEN direct the lead to the small business sales team.
  • IF a lead has between 100 and 1000 employees, THEN direct the lead to the medium-sized business sales team.
  • IF a lead has more than 1000 employees, THEN direct the lead to the enterprise sales team.
  • Once the rules are drafted, they’ll be contained within the repository. All the applications involved in the lead allocation process — such as document processing systems, customer relationship management (CRM) systems and robotic process automation (RPA) bots — can access the rules in this repository.
  • When a lead comes in, the RPA bots responsible for copying lead information into the CRM can check with the rules engine to determine how to assign the lead. The RPA bots would send the rules engine information about company size from the lead capture form, and the rules engine would use this information to return a decision in real time. Based on the decision provided by the rules engine, the RPA bots would assign the leads to either the small, medium or enterprise sales teams within the CRM.

The benefits of a business rules management system (BRMS)

With a BRMS, rules are stored in a central repository separate from application codes. The repository creates a single source of truth for business rules that can be accessed by all applications across the enterprise. As a result, business rules are scalable, and business decisions are kept up to date, consistent and reliable at all times.

  • Efficient automation: BRMSs are essential to the efficient automation of enterprise workflows. Multiple workflows can be automated using a single repository of company-wide decision logic. That way, IT does not have to write different decision logic programming for each application.
  • More consistent outcomes: When business decisions are automated according to a set system of enterprise-wide business rules, all decisions are made according to the same logic. This leads to more consistent outcomes, as business decisions will no longer be influenced by human discretion except when necessary.
  • Reduced complexity: When faced with business decisions, human workers don’t have to weigh multiple factors or ensure they’re following every rule. Instead, applications can check with the BRMS, which uses the business rules database to determine the proper outcome. Decisions happen faster, and employees are freed up to do more high-value work.
  • Reduced dependency on IT: No-code tools in the BRMS allow business analysts and other non-technical workers to create business rules using their own business vocabulary. That means teams can create and adjust rules as needed and don’t need to get IT involved in every update.
  • More responsive decisions: Rules can be updated easily within the BRMS repository because managing rules does not require changing the code of existing applications. Therefore, rules can be readily changed in response to new regulations, market developments, customer demand and other factors.
  • Automated compliance: Relevant policies and regulations can be embedded within business rules, ensuring that automated decision-makers follow all relevant laws and guidelines. This also creates an audit trail, as the rules leading to any given business decision can always be reviewed.
  • Better business rules overall: Thanks to the ability to run predictive simulations of rules before implementing them, teams can ensure the business rules they create have the outcomes they want before implementation occurs.

Use cases for business rules management systems

BRMSs can be used to automate most, if not all, business decisions across a variety of industries and departments. A few common examples of BRMS use cases include the following:

  • Allocating critical resources: The UK National Health Service Blood and Transplant used a BRMS to automate decisions about allocating organ transplants. When an organ becomes available, the BRMS triggers certain workflows to find the next recipient on the transplant list and make a match between organ and patient.
  • Reviewing applications: The PNC Financial Services Group used a BRMS to automate the loan application process, creating a set of rules to govern whether applications are accepted or rejected. Employees used to review all loans, but they now only have to review 10-20%, resulting in faster, more reliable and more compliant loan decisions.
  • Maintaining compliance: As an e-commerce organization in a highly regulated industry, Brownells Inc. , uses a BRMS to automate compliance. The company ensures customers can only purchase products available in their geography by using a system of rules based on where a customer is located.
  • Communicating with customers: Panalpina World Transport used a BRMS to help automate shipping updates to customers. Customer information is automatically uploaded to Panalpina’s database, and business rules help determine when to trigger messages to customers.

Business rules management systems and IBM

Intelligently automating business processes of any kind requires first defining a set of clear business rules to govern automated decision-making. A powerful BRMS like the IBM Operational Decision Manager (ODM) gives enterprises the tools they need to develop, store, manage and implement business rules across the entire technology ecosystem.

IBM ODM is a comprehensive decision management solution that enables enterprises to discover, capture, analyze, automate and govern business rules with precision in today’s complex computing environments. The solution can authorize a loan, decide on promotional offers or detect a cross-sell opportunity with high precision and customization. With IBM ODM, teams can add or update new rules at any time using no-code tools, and they can simulate rules prior to deployment to ensure maximum efficiency.

Take the next step

Get the IBM Operational Decision Manager as part of IBM Cloud Pak® for Business Automation . Built for any hybrid cloud, IBM Cloud Pak for Business Automation includes the broadest set of AI- and machine-learning-powered automation capabilities in the market, including content services, document processing, decision management, workflow automation, robotic process automation (RPA) and process mining. With actionable AI-generated recommendations, built-in analytics to measure impact and business-friendly tooling to speed innovation, our software has helped clients reduce process completion times by 90%, decrease customer wait times by half, reduce risk and save thousands of work hours that were then reallocated to higher-value work.

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  • Collaborative Forecasts Concepts
  • Turn On Collaborative Forecasts and Define Forecasts Settings
  • Forecast Types
  • Group Sales Forecasts to Match Your Business
  • Create and Activate Forecast Types
  • Schedule and Product Date Forecasts
  • Territory Forecasts
  • Guidelines for Showing Opportunity Fields in Forecasts Pages
  • Forecast Rollup Methods
  • Select a Forecast Rollup Method
  • Give Users Access to Collaborative Forecasts
  • Set Up Your Forecast Hierarchy
  • Enable Partner Portal Users to Add Opportunities in Collaborative...
  • Activate and Assign Custom Forecasts Pages
  • Considerations and Guidelines for Custom Forecasts Pages
  • Define Your Company’s Forecast Date Range
  • Customizing Forecasts Categories
  • Show, Hide, and Reorder Forecast Columns
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  • Show Quota Information in Collaborative Forecasts
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  • Select a Forecast Currency in Collaborative Forecasts
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  • Managing External Data to Include in Collaborative Forecasts
  • Add Custom Columns That Include External Data
  • Set Up Historical Data for Forecast Charts
  • Manage Opportunity-State-to_Forecast-Category Mappings
  • Considerations for Disabling Collaborative Forecasts Features
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  • See Recent Changes in Forecast Value Changes
  • Reviewing Week-to-Week Forecast Changes
  • Finding Trends Across Forecast Periods
  • Monthly and Quarterly Forecasts
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  • Partner Portal User Opportunities in Collaborative Forecasts
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  • Create Rules to Assign Accounts to Territories
  • Assign Accounts Directly to Territory Records
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  • Assign Accounts and Leads to Territories Manually
  • Add Assignment Rules to Territories
  • Requirements for Assigning Opportunities to Territories Manually
  • Assign Opportunities to Territories Manually
  • Run the Opportunity Territory Assignment Filter
  • Clone Territory Models
  • Activate a Territory Model
  • Configure Territory Permissions and Access for Salesforce Admins and...
  • Run Assignment Rules for a Territory
  • Find Out Which Territories an Assignment Rule Applies To
  • View and Manage Assignment Rules at the Territory Model Level
  • Activating Assignment Rules and Applying Them to Descendant...
  • Preparing Sales Management for Territory Reporting
  • Identify Accounts Assigned to Territories
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  • Disable Sales Territories
  • Explore Your Company’s Territory Model
  • Identify an Account’s Sales Territories
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  • Report on the Accounts and Opportunities in Your Territories
  • Allocations and Considerations for Territories
  • Sales Territories: What’s Different or Not Available in the...

How Account Assignment Rules Work

  • Add Teams to Your Opportunities
  • Set Up a Default Opportunity Team
  • Use Reports to Track Teams
  • Considerations and Guidelines for Using Teams
  • Guidelines and Considerations for Using Opportunity Splits and...
  • Enable Opportunity Teams
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  • Disable Opportunity Teams
  • Considerations for Customizing Teams
  • Opportunity Teams Fields
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  • Enable Opportunity Splits
  • Edit Splits Layouts
  • Customize Split Types
  • Add Opportunity Product Splits
  • Deactivate or Delete Opportunity Split Types
  • Disable Opportunity Splits and Opportunity Product Splits
  • Set Up Audit History for Splits and Opportunity Teams
  • Considerations for Managing Audit History
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  • Considerations for Enabling Multiple Currencies
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  • Create a Path
  • Configure the Last Path Step
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  • Einstein Features in Sales Cloud
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  • Resources for the Sales Professional

Before you create and use account assignment rules, make sure that you review how they work.

Required Editions

  • A territory can have inherited account assignment rules, meaning that the rules were created somewhere higher in the territory hierarchy and also impact the given territory.
  • A territory can have locally defined account assignment rules, meaning that the rule was associated at the given territory.
  • If a territory doesn't have any inherited or locally defined account assignment rules, then it only contains accounts that were associated manually.
  • If an account matches all inherited and locally defined account assignment rules for multiple territories on the same branch of the hierarchy, the account is assigned to the lowest matching territory.
  • If a territory has multiple locally defined account assignment rules, an account is assigned to the territory only if it matches all locally defined account assignment rules on the territory.
  • When referring to picklist values in your account assignment rules, specify the API name instead of its corresponding value. That way, your account assignment rules reflect any updates to picklist values. For example, you refer to the picklist API name Agriculture_Sales. You change its corresponding value from Agriculture Sales to Agriculture. Account assignment rules now reflect Agriculture.

Example

  • Territory C has two rules.

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assignment rules vs business rule

Task assignment – business rules

Introduction

Each WEBCON BPS workflow is a sequence of steps. On intermediate steps, there are usually tasks that must be completed by a user (or a group of users) before the instance may progress to the next step.

The tasks can be assigned in different ways:

  • Based on the logic of the business application (predefined task assignment)
  • By indicating the specific user or group of users
  • Based on a business rule
  • Dynamic, depending on the value of one of the form fields
  • By using the “Create a task” action
  • By using the “Add privileges” action (in some cases it is better to grant permissions to edition instead of assigning tasks)

In this article, we will focus on assigning tasks  based on a business rule .

Task assignment is related to the transition path and requires setting several parameters in the Task creation  tab.

assignment rules vs business rule

Parallelism

Tasks in WEBCON BPS can be assigned to several people in parallel. The “Parallelism” parameter specifies whether the task can be completed by one of them (Completion – Any) or everyone must do it (Completion – All).

assignment rules vs business rule

The choice of the “Completion – All” option requires defining additional parameters. You need to specify what exactly the “All” parameter will mean.

  • All – all people from the indicated group
  • Fixed number – a fixed number of people (e.g. two from a group of three)
  • Percentage – a specified percentage of the group members

The operation executed on parallel tasks allows deciding what to happen when the first person completes the task. For example, in the Customer Service department the task can be assigned to all employees, but if one of them first completed it – for the remaining people the task can be marked as canceled.

A detailed description of this functionality can be found at  Tasks vs Privileges (webcon.com) .

assignment rules vs business rule

Predefined task assignment

The predefined task assignment option allows to configure a business application based only on its logic, without indicating the specific users or groups.

assignment rules vs business rule

For example, in the  Back to the author  step – the task will be forwarded to the person who started the process.

A detailed description of this functionality can be found at  Predefined task assignment (webcon.com)

Based on the business rule

In the 2020 version, the “Always to” section has been replaced with the “Business rule” section.

The existing functionality (which indicates the specific users or groups from the Users list) has been expanded with the ability to create a business rule based on which the tasks will be assigned.

A. Task assignment directly to the people or groups from the Users list

To indicate users to whom the task should be assigned, use the USER LIST function, which is available from the auxiliary list in the “Functions” tab.

assignment rules vs business rule

The values of the USERS LIST function are people or groups separated by semicolons. After approving the Users list, in the “Create a task” tab you can view the users in the tooltip.

assignment rules vs business rule

B. Task assignment based on the business rule

Thanks to the business rule, the tasks can be assigned by using more complex algorithms. In the example below, three BPS groups were created:

  • Management board  – people who manage the company and approve the orders over 1000 PLN
  • KRK and WRC  – the ID of groups managing departments in Kraków and Wrocław. They can make decisions about orders for their branches for smaller amounts (< 1000 PLN)

assignment rules vs business rule

The registration of an order for goods requires information about the department which is making the order (Department form field – a choice field based on the fixed list of values) and the value of the order.

The following rule assigns the task to the Management board if the value of the order is greater than 1000 PLN. If less – the task goes to the indicated department.

assignment rules vs business rule

C. Create a task action

The business rules can also be used during the configuration of the “Create a task” action. The “Always to” and “SQL query” sections were replaced by the “Business rules” section.

Due to the introduced changes in the functionality – during the migration process, the existing configuration of selecting users based on the SQL query and based on the “Always to” parameter will be transferred to the analogical business rule.

assignment rules vs business rule

Dynamic task assignment

Dynamic task assignment is the ability to indicate the users or groups depending on the vale of a form field. In the example below, on the “Order registration” step its Category is indicated. In the data source list of categories, each value on the list is associated with a person responsible for the given category.

assignment rules vs business rule

After selecting the category, the task is assigned to this person.

Task vs Privileges

There are situations where the workflow stops at some step for a longer period of time (e.g. the employee wants to receive new equipment). In this situation, the “Equipment” step will be active for a long time and with it the active tasks assigned to the employee.

The solution in this situation can be the action granting permission for the user to modify the form (without deleting) in place of tasks.

A detailed description of this functionality can be found at  Tasks vs Privileges (webcon.com)

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Classic business rules

A business rule is a server-side script that runs when a\n record is displayed, inserted, updated, or deleted, or when a table is queried.

  • How business rules work

To configure business rules, you first need to determine when the business rule should run and what action it should take.

When business rules run

  • When to run the business rule in relation to a database operation.
  • What record operation the business rule applies to.
  • Asynchronous business rules do not have access to the previous version of a record. Therefore, the changes() , changesTo() , and changesFrom() \n GlideElement methods do not work with async rule script. However, the condition builder and condition field (advanced view) both support the changes() ,\n changesTo() , and changesFrom() methods.
  • Business rules do not honor ACLs until you want them to be honored. For more information, see Relationship between Business Rules and Access Control Rules (ACLs)

Business rule actions

  • Changing field values on a form that the user is updating. Field values can be set to specific values available for that field, values copied from other fields, and relative values determined by the user's role.
  • Displaying information messages to the user.
  • Changing values of child tasks based on changes to parent tasks.
  • Preventing users from accessing or modifying certain fields on a form.
  • Aborting the current database transaction. For example, if certain conditions are met, prevent the user from saving the record in the database.

Prevent recursive business rules

Avoid using current.update() in a business rule script. The update() method triggers business rules to run on the same table for insert and update operations, leading to a business rule\n calling itself over and over. Changes made in before business rules are automatically saved when all before business rules are complete, and after business rules are best used for updating related, not current, objects. When a\n recursive business rule is detected, the system stops it and logs the error in the system log. However, current.update() causes system performance issues and is never necessary.

You can prevent recursive business rules by using the setWorkflow() method with the false parameter. The combination of the update() and setWorkflow() methods is only\n recommended in special circumstances where the normal before and after guidelines mentioned above do not meet your requirements.

Create a business rule

  • Precedence between data lookup, assignment, and business rules

Business rules in scoped applications

Every business rule is assigned to either a private application scope or to the global\n scope.

Business rules on specific tables

Most business rules run on a specific table, which is defined in the\n Table field. You can create business rules on tables in the same scope\n and on tables that allow configuration records from another application scope.

For tables that are in a different scope than the business rule record, the types of rules are\n limited.

  • Insert , Update , and\n Delete database operations. You cannot select\n Query .
  • Set field values actions and scripts (the\n Script field).
  • Set field values actions only. You cannot write scripts and you\n cannot abort the database transaction.
  • You cannot create any other types of business rules on tables in a different scope.

Business rules on specific tables cannot be accessed by other business rules or scripts.

Global business rules

Global business rules are business rules where the Table field is set\n to Global . Global business rules may be accessible on multiple tables and\n from other scripts, depending on their scope protection. For a global business rule, define the\n scope protection by setting the Accessible from field:

  • This application scope only : prevents applications in a different\n scope than the business rule from calling this business rule.
  • All application scopes : allows any application to call this business rule. Note: Global business rules do not support domain separation. \n \n

Scripts in scoped business rules

When you write a script in a business rule, you can access:

  • Any script includes and global business rules in the same scope as the business rule.
  • Script includes and global business rules that allow applications in a different scope to\n call them. To call functions from another scope, you must specify the scope of the\n function.
  • For business rules in a unique scope, you can access the scoped system APIs only.

You can create any type of business rule to run when a record is displayed, inserted,\n updated, or deleted, or when a table is queried.

  • \n Navigate to All > System Definition > Business Rules . \n
  • \n Click New . \n
  • \n Click Submit . \n

Global variables in business rules

Predefined global variables are available for use in business rules.

Use the following predefined global variables to reference the system in a business rule\n script.

The variables current , previous , and\n g_scratchpad are global across all business rules that run for a\n transaction.

Prevent null pointer exceptions

Define variables.

User-defined variables are globally scoped by default. If a new variable is declared in an\n order 100 business rule, the business rule that runs next at order 200 also has access to\n the variable. This may introduce unexpected behavior.

To prevent such unexpected behavior, always wrap your code in a function. This protects\n your variables from conflicting with system variables or global variables in other business\n rules that are not wrapped in a function. Additionally, variables such as\n current must be available when a function is invoked in order to be\n used.

Use business rules and client scripts to control field values

Implement both business rules and client scripts for a field to enable users to set\n record values properly using both forms and lists, and to see immediate changes to the values in\n forms as edits are made.

The problem with using only a client script or a business rule to control updates to a\n field is that fields can be changed on either a form or a list. Client scripts and UI\n policies run on forms only (client-side) and do not apply to list editing. Allowing list\n editing with client scripts running on fields in a form can result in incorrect data being\n saved to the record. For systems in which client scripts or UI policies apply to forms,\n either disable list editing or create appropriate business rules or access control to\n control the setting of values in the list editor. A side effect of this is that security\n measures implemented in client scripts are easy to circumvent. The user only needs to edit\n the field in a list.

Business rules on a form are not dynamic, the user must update the record for the change to\n be seen. This makes using client scripts the preferred method for controlling field values\n on forms.

When using both a business rule and client script to control field values, the update\n behavior is the same across the system. This means that updated values are not different\n depending on whether a list of form is used to make the change. This means that the same\n functionality must be implemented twice, once in a client script and once in a business rule\n or access control.

Example: Use a business rule to create email addresses during user record\n import

An organization has a client script that sets the email address for a user to\n first.last@company.com . Administrators do this so they can see the\n email address immediately when they enter the user's information. The administrator then\n performs a bulk import of users from a spreadsheet containing the users' first and last\n names. The expectation is that each user's email address will be set automatically, as they\n are when they edit the form. Since the client script runs only on the form (the interface to\n the record), it has no effect on data imported into the record from outside that interface,\n and no email addresses are created. To solve this problem, the administrator implements a\n business rule that runs when the import occurs and creates the email addresses.

Example: Prevent list edit for a field that is not editable in the form

An organization wants to hide the Priority field on an\n incident form if the assignment group is Development . They create a\n UI policy on the incident form to do this, but their users can still see and edit the\n Priority field using the list editor. To rectify this, apply an\n access control to prevent read access to the Priority field when the\n assignment group is Development .

Using NULL as a field value

The string NULL has a particular role in scripts and is a reserved word.

The reserved word is NULL in all capital letters. A field with the value\n Null or null , for example, is acceptable. Only use\n NULL to clear out a particular field.

Any NULL field values obtained from an import set data source are inserted\n into the staging table as empty field values. You should not use the term NULL as a field value\n in import set transform maps or anywhere in the First name or\n Last name fields. Also, do not use NULL in reference fields as the system\n interprets the value as a string containing the word NULL, not as a reserved word.

Display business-rules

Display rules are processed when a user requests a record form.

The data is read from the database, display rules are executed, and the form is presented to\n the user. The current object is available and represents the record retrieved from the database.\n Any field changes are temporary since they are not yet submitted to the database. To the client,\n the form values appear to be the values from the database; there is no indication that the values\n were modified from a display rule. This is a similar concept to calculated fields.

The primary objective of display rules is to use a shared scratchpad object,\n g_scratchpad , which is also sent to the client as part of the form. This can\n be useful when you need to build client scripts that require server data that is not typically\n part of the record being displayed. In most cases, this would require a client script making a\n call back to the server. If the data can be determined prior to the form being displayed, it is\n more efficient to provide the data to the client on the initial load. The form scratchpad object\n is an empty object by default, and used only to store name:value pairs of data.

Task Active State Management business rule

This business rule determines whether the active field value needs to change based on\n changes to the State field.

The Task Active State Management business rule is executed when the\n State is changed for a task record. Its execution order is 50, and it\n runs before most other task business rules.

  • If the state changes from an active state to an inactive state, the\n Active field is set to false.
  • If the state changes from an inactive state to an active state, the\n Active field is set to true, effectively re-activating or re-opening\n the task.

It is recommended that you leverage the\n (current.active.changesTo([true/false]) action in your business rule, as\n opposed to creating rules on each task table that mark tasks as inactive or active.

Example business rule scripts

Find an example business rule script that helps you with a requirement of your\n organization.

Compare date fields in a business rule

It is possible to compare two date fields or two date and time fields in a business\n rule, and abort a record insert or update if they are not correct.

For example, you may want a start date to be before an end date. The following is an example\n script:

This example has been tested in global scripts, and may need changes to work in scoped\n scripts. In addition to possibly needing API changes, security is more strict in scoped\n scripts.

  • u_date1 and u_date2 are the names of the two date\n fields. Replace these names with your own field names.
  • The first line checks that both fields actually have a value.
  • The next two lines create variables that have the dates' numerical values.
  • The next two lines create different alert messages for the end user: one at the top of\n the form and one by the u_date1 field in the form.
  • The last line aborts the insert or update if the date fields are not correct.

Parse XML payloads

Fields in XML format can be parsed with the system's getXMLText \n function.

returns the string 'joe'.

For information on XPATH, visit w3schools .

Abort a database action in a before business-rule

In a before business rule script, you can cancel or abort the current database action\n using the setAbortAction() method.

For example, if the before business rule is executed during an insert action, and you have a\n condition in the script that calls current.setAbortAction(true) , the new record\n stored in current is not created in the database. The business rule continues to run after\n calling setAbortAction() and all subsequent business rules will execute\n normally. Calling this method only prevents the database action from occurring.

You can use the isActionAborted() method to determine if the current\n database action (insert, update, delete) is going to be aborted.\n isActionAborted() is initialized for new threads and the\n next() method explicitly sets its value to false.

Determine the operation that triggered the business rule

You can write a script for a business rule that is triggered on more than one database\n action.

Use an OR condition in a business rule

An OR condition can be added to any query part within a business\n rule.

Reference a Glide list from a business rule

A field defined as a glide list is an array of values stored in a single\n field.

Here are some examples of how to process a glide_list field when writing business rules.\n Generally a glide_list field contains a list of reference values to other tables.

For example, the Watch list field within tasks is a glide_list\n containing references to user records.

The code below shows how to reference the field.

You can also get the display values associated with the reference values by using the\n getDisplayValue() method as shown below.

Use indexOf("searchString") to find a string in a Glide list

Use indexOf (" searchString ") to return the location of the string passed into the method if the glide list field, such as a Watch list, has at least one value in it.

If the field is empty, it returns undefined . To avoid returning an undefined value, do any of the following:

  • Force the field to a string, such as: watch_list.toString().indexOf (" searchString ")
  • Check for an empty Glide list field with a condition before using indexOf() , such as: \n if ( watch_list.nil() || watch_list.indexOf (" searchString ") == -1)

Lock user accounts

You can lock user accounts if the user is not active.

Default before-query business rule

You can use a query business rule that executes before a database query is\n made.

  • Name: incident query
  • Table: Incident
  • When: before, query

Business Rules

Business rules are used to automate certain actions for requests or records that fulfill certain incoming criteria. Some of the actions that can be automated using business rules include assigning groups, technicians, status, and priority, besides making a note public/private or pausing system notifications for specific users.

You can now create business rules for not only incidents and service requests, but also for notes and notifications. However, there are specific differences in the conditions and actions that can be configured for notes and notifications.

Role Required: SDAdmin or HelpDesk Config

Business rules are categorized and organized under rule groups. You can configure a rule group for all related groups, such as rules for category, priority, assets, etc. Rule groups are incredibly useful because you can restrict or apply only specific rules for an incoming request.

To view the business rules configured in your organization, go to Admin > Automation  > Business   Rules . 

On this page, you can configure business rules for the following:

  • Incident Requests
  • Service Requests
  • Notifications

Business rules are categorized and organized under rule groups. You can configure a rule group for all related groups, such as rules for category, priority, assets, etc.

Rule groups are incredibly useful because you can restrict or apply only specific rules for an incoming request. 

To create a new group, click Rule Group. On the displayed page, provide a name and description and click Add.

assignment rules vs business rule

List View 

On the Business Rules home page, all the configured business rules are available in the List View. On this page, you can perform various actions, including bulk actions. 

On this page, you can organize and manage the rule groups easily.

The various actions that you can perform on this page are as follows:

Rule Group Actions

Expand/Collapse the display of business rules under rule groups. Use the upward/downward arrow on the right on the list to expand/collapse the rules under a rule group. 

Organize rule groups to configure the order in which the rule groups should be executed. Click Organize and use the drag-and-drop operation to define the order of the rules.

Delete rule groups by selecting the groups and clicking the bin button. 

Rules Actions

Enable/Disable rules by selecting the rules and clicking the Actions button.

Execute the next rule by selecting a specific rule and clicking the Actions button. You can perform this action also by hovering over the rule and selecting from the drop down.

Skip the remaining rules in the group by selecting a specific rule and clicking the Actions button. You can perform this action also by hovering over the rule and selecting from the drop down.

Skip the remaining rules across all groups by selecting a specific rule and clicking the Actions button. You can perform this action also by hovering over the rule and selecting from the drop down.

Move rules across groups by selecting a specific rule and clicking the Move to Group button and selecting the required group.

Search for rule groups/rules by using the search button. Add at least 3 characters to yield meaningful search results. This action searches through rule names and rule group names. To search for rules, select a rule and then use the search button.

Bulk Actions

These are actions that can be performed on multiple rules or rule groups through a single click.

Delete rule groups by selecting the rule groups and clicking the Bin button. 

Delete rule s under a rule group by selecting the rules and clicking the Bin button. 

Under a rule group, you can select multiple rules and click the Action button to perform the following bulk actions:

Enable/Disable

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Trump trial ends first day of jury deliberations without a verdict

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By Graham Kates , Katrina Kaufman , Olivia Rinaldi

Updated on: May 29, 2024 / 7:42 PM EDT / CBS News

The first day of jury deliberations in former President Donald Trump's "hush money" trial in New York ended without a verdict as jurors asked to review several portions of testimony and rehear the judge's instructions in the case.

The 12 New Yorkers who will decide Trump's fate met for nearly five hours after listening to the judge's directions about how they should wade through the sea of complex legal issues that the case presents. 

Justice Juan Merchan reminded them of their commitment to impartiality, and implored them to set aside their biases to decide the case on the facts and the law.

"Jurors, you will recall that during jury selection you agreed that you must set aside any opinions or bias you have in favor of or against the defendant and if you decide this case against the evidence and the law," the judge said. "You must set aside any opinions and bias and you must not allow any opinion or bias to influence your verdict."

Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records stemming from reimbursements for a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Trump's attorney Michael Cohen made the payment, and prosecutors say Trump paid him back over the course of his first year in office. Trump is accused of illegally disguising the purpose of the reimbursements to hide the payment to Daniels and has pleaded not guilty.

Toward the end of the day, the jurors asked to review testimony surrounding some of the key allegations in the case, as well as the judge's instructions. They will hear both when court reconvenes on Thursday.

Here's how the first day of deliberations unfolded:

Judge begins delivering jury instructions

Former President Donald Trump attends his criminal trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 29, 2024, in New York City.

Court reconvened shortly after 10 a.m. as Merchan took the bench. After settling some housekeeping issues, he began delivering the instructions to the jury.

New York state courts have a standard set of jury instructions for criminal trials, and Merchan hewed closely to those directions. Prosecutors and defense attorneys proposed some alterations during a hearing last week.

"It is not my responsibility to judge the evidence here. It is yours. You and you alone are the judges of the facts, and you and you are responsible for deciding whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty," Merchan said.

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Judge tells jurors to set aside any bias for or against Trump when reaching a verdict

Merchan reminded the jury that they agreed to set aside their opinions of Trump when they were selected to serve and vowed to decide the case solely on the facts and the law.

"Jurors, you will recall that during jury selection you agreed that you must set aside any opinions or bias you have in favor of or against the defendant and if you decide this case against the evidence and the law," the judge said. "You must set aside any opinions and bias and you must not allow any opinion or bias to influence your verdict." 

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Merchan lays out "fundamental principles" that jurors must adhere to

Merchan laid out what he called the "fundamental principles of our law that apply in all criminal trials: the presumption of innocence, the burden of proof, and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt."

He told the jurors that Trump is presumed innocent, and they "must find the defendant not guilty, unless, on the evidence presented at this trial, you conclude that the people have proven the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt," referring to prosecutors. To do so, jurors can consider "all the evidence presented, whether by the people or by the defendant."

Merchan reminded them that they cannot draw a negative conclusion about the fact that Trump did not testify in his own defense, and that he is "not require to prove that he is not guilty."

"The burden of proof never shifts from the people to the defendant. If the people fail to satisfy their burden of proof, you must find the defendant not guilty. And if the people satisfy their burden of proof, you must find the defendant guilty," he said.

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Judge explains the 2 elements jurors must consider to determine a verdict

After defining the terms in the New York statute that Trump is charged with violating, Merchan told jurors they must focus on two elements of the prosecution's case when weighing Trump's guilt or innocence.

To find Trump guilty, the jury must determine that Trump, acting personally or with others, "made or caused a false entry in the business records of an enterprise," and that he did so "with an intent to defraud that included an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof," echoing the language from the statute. He said the same instructions apply to all 34 counts, each of which correspond to a different business record.

"If you find the people have proven beyond a reasonable doubt each of those two elements, you must find the defendant guilty of this crime," Merchan said. "If you find the people have not proven beyond a reasonable doubt either one or both of those elements, you must find the defendant not guilty of this crime."

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Jury begins deliberations after Merchan finishes instructions

Merchan finished issuing his instructions and dismissed the jury to begin deliberations. He laid out several rules they must adhere to when discussing the case.

"First, while you are here in the courthouse, deliberating on the case, you will be kept together in the jury room. You may not leave the jury room during deliberations. Lunch will of course be provided," he said. "If you have a cell phone or other electronic device, please give it to a court officer or sergeant to hold for you while you are engaged in deliberations."

If jurors have a question, they can submit it in writing to the judge. If a juror wishes to speak to the judge, they must do so in open court with the parties present. He told them he is not allowed to discuss "the facts of the case, or possible verdict, or vote of the jury on any count."

He said they would work until about 4:30 p.m. today if necessary, and no later than 6 p.m. on future days.

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The "unlawful means" that jurors could consider

In order to find Trump guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree, jurors must conclude that he "conspired to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means."

They do not have to all agree on which type of "unlawful means." Merchan explained three that prosecutors put forth:

  • Violations of the federal elections campaign act, again otherwise known of FECA
  • Falsification of other business records 
  • Violation of tax laws

For the second one, falsification of additional records, the judge gave several examples of documents that can be considered, beyond the checks, vouchers and invoices at the center of this trial. 

They include tax records issued by the Trump Organization to Cohen, bank records associated with two of Cohen's limited liability corporations and records related to a wire sent to Daniels' lawyer.

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Court publishes judge's jury instructions

The court published Merchan's full set of jury instructions that he read aloud in court Wednesday morning. The 55-page document can be found here .

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Trump: "Mother Teresa could not beat these charges"

Former President Donald Trump and Todd Blanche speak to members of the media at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York on Wednesday, May 29, 2024.

Leaving the courtroom after the jury got the case, Trump spoke for about five minutes, railing against the prosecution and claiming his conviction is a foregone conclusion.

"Mother Teresa could not beat these charges. These charges are rigged. The whole thing is rigged," he said. 

"The whole country is a mess between the borders and fake elections and you have a trial like this, where the judge is so conflicted, he can't breathe. He's got to do his job. And it's not for me, that I can tell you," Trump continued. "It's a disgrace and I mean that. Mother Teresa could not beat those charges, but we'll see. We'll see how we do."

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The Trump defense's closing argument

Trump did not take the stand in his own defense, and his legal team called just two witnesses, including a lawyer who said Cohen told him Trump knew nothing about the Daniels payment in 2018.

In his closing argument , Trump's lead attorney Todd Blanche argued that Trump did not commit a crime and that the business records at issue were not in fact falsified since Cohen was Trump's personal attorney during that time. Above all, he emphasized that Cohen, the prosecution's key witness, should not be trusted — and that there is no way the jury could find that Trump knew about the Daniels payment "without believing the words of Michael Cohen." 

He urged jurors to reject Cohen's testimony, calling him the "GLOAT," or "greatest liar of all time," and the "human embodiment of reasonable doubt." He also cast Cohen as someone who has not only lied under oath in the past, but in this very trial. 

Blanche claimed that Cohen lied on the stand about a call to Trump's former bodyguard Keith Schiller, during which Cohen claims to have spoken to Trump about the Stormy Daniels deal. "That is perjury," Blanche told the jury, raising his voice for emphasis. 

Regarding the "catch and kill" scheme alleged by the prosecution, Blanche argued that there was nothing illegal going on: "Every campaign is a conspiracy to promote a candidate, a group of people working together to help somebody win."

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The basics of the prosecution's case against Trump

As the jury considers its verdict, it's worth looking back on the basics of the prosecution's case against Trump.

Trump is accused of signing off on a scheme to illegally falsify records, with the goal of covering up the $130,000 "hush money" payment made by Cohen to Daniels in 2016. The scheme was designed to subvert election law and keep the payment secret, prosecutors say. 

They allege Trump falsely portrayed reimbursements for the $130,000 payment as monthly checks for ongoing legal services, paid over the course of the first year of his presidency. Each of the 34 counts corresponds to a voucher, invoice or check originating from the payments to Cohen.

Through a progression of witnesses, the prosecution began their case by laying out a broader "catch and kill" scheme to suppress negative stories about Trump during the 2016 election. 

David Pecker was the CEO of American Media Inc., the parent company of the tabloid the National Enquirer, in 2016. A longtime friend of Trump, Pecker testified about how he, Trump and Cohen devised a plan to prevent damaging stories about Trump from surfacing in the months leading up to the election. The Enquirer also published negative stories about Trump's opponents, and positive stories about him. Pecker said the tabloid would run stories by Cohen before they were published.

Pecker agreed to be the "eyes and ears" of the campaign during a meeting in Trump Tower in August 2015, he told the jury. The "catch and kill" effort resulted in three stories being suppressed: those of Stormy Daniels, Karen McDougal and Dino Sajudin. AMI bought the rights to McDougal and Sajudin's stories, while Cohen paid Daniels himself.

In his closing argument, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said that AMI's purchasing of stories on then-candidate Trump's behalf, in coordination with the campaign, amounted to an unlawful campaign contribution. Steinglass said it "turned out to be one of the most valuable contributions that anyone made to the campaign. This may very well be what got Trump elected."

At its core, this is a case about documents, and through witnesses like the Trump Organization's former controller Jeff McConney and Deborah Tarasoff, who handles the company's payroll, the prosecution walked the jury through the allegedly falsified business records and numerous documents that they argue support this contention. 

Prosecutors showed bank records, emails, text messages and call logs over the course of the trial. They also showed two documents bearing the handwriting of Allen Weisselberg and McConney, laying out the repayment calculations for reimbursing Cohen, which they called the "smoking guns."

They wove together a timeline of events that they say can only lead to one conclusion: that the business records were falsified with Trump's knowledge, and that this was part of a larger effort to help Trump's candidacy and prevent voters from learning about potentially damaging information before the 2016 election.

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Jury sends judge a note asking to review testimony from Pecker and Cohen

At 2:56, a buzzer sounded in the courtroom, the signal that the jury had a message to share. Prosecutors, Trump and his team filed in. 

Merchan said the jury foreperson signed a note requesting to hear the following transcript portions:

  • David Pecker's testimony regarding the phone conversation with Trump while Pecker was in an investor meeting
  • Pecker's testimony about his decision not to finalize and fund the assignment of life rights related to Karen McDougal 
  • Pecker's testimony regarding a meeting at Trump Tower
  • Cohen's testimony about the Trump Tower meeting

The jury will be brought in and seated, and the transcript portions will be read to them. These are moments that were mentioned during the prosecution's closing arguments Tuesday.

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The significance of the testimony the jury is asking to review

Former President Donald Trump looks on as David Pecker testifies in front of an image of Trump and Karen McDougal during Trump's criminal trial in New York on Thursday, April 25, 2024.

Each portion of the testimony that the jury wants to hear again concerns a critical moment in the prosecution's narrative. 

Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer at the time, testified about receiving a phone call from Trump during an investor meeting in June 2016. An attorney for Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, was shopping her story of having had sex with Trump years earlier, a claim Trump has denied.

"[Trump] said, 'What should I do?'" Pecker said on the stand in April. "I said, 'I think you should buy the story and take it off the market.'"

Pecker said Trump described McDougal as "a nice girl." He said Cohen soon called him and said "you should go ahead and buy this story" and "the boss will take care of it." Pecker said he understood that to mean Trump or the Trump Organization would pay him back. 

Months later, Pecker said he reached an agreement to transfer McDougal's life rights to Cohen, but the deal fell through after AMI's general counsel advised against going forward with the transfer.

"I called Michael Cohen and said to him, 'The assignment deal is off. I'm not going forward. It's a bad idea. I want you to rip up the agreement,'" Pecker testified . "He was very upset, screaming basically."

Pecker and Cohen also both testified about a meeting with Trump at Trump Tower in 2015. Pecker said that was the meeting where he agreed to be the "eyes and ears" of the campaign and be on the lookout for any negative stories about Trump. Prosecutors argued this was the origin of the "catch and kill" scheme that preceded Pecker paying McDougal $150,000, which they said represented an illegal campaign contribution.

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Jury sends second note asking to rehear judge's instructions

The buzzer rang a second time, and Merchan retook the bench. He said the jurors were requesting to hear his instructions again. He called them back into the courtroom to clarify whether they needed to hear all of the instructions, or just a portion.

Merchan said reading the sections of the transcripts that the jury requested would take about 30 minutes.

He said he didn't need an answer on reading his instructions immediately, and dismissed the jurors from the courtroom for the day. 

Merchan said the jury will hear the transcript portions they requested and his jury instructions when court reconvenes at 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, meaning the first day of deliberations is ending without a verdict.

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Lawyers agree on transcript portions for 3 of the requests, but argue about 1

After the jurors left, lawyers for both sides were left to determine which portions of the transcript were responsive to the jurors' requests. The two sides agreed on portions regarding Pecker's testimony about a phone conversation with Trump; his testimony about his decision not to finalize and fund the assignment of life rights related to McDougal; and Cohen's testimony about an August 2015 Trump Tower meeting.

They argued, however, over which exact lines satisfied the request for Pecker's testimony regarding that meeting.

At the end of the day, there were still a few lines — out of dozens of pages of transcript — in dispute, and the judge said he would think about them Wednesday evening.

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Graham Kates is an investigative reporter covering criminal justice, privacy issues and information security for CBS News Digital. Contact Graham at [email protected] or [email protected]

Historic Trump trial comes to a dramatic close, jury deliberations begin Wednesday: recap

Both sides completed their final arguments Tuesday in the historic first criminal case against a former president capping a dramatic six-week trial in which a parade of often high-profile witnesses laid out the evidence that Donald Trump allegedly covered up hush money payments to a porn star to hide another crime.

Jury deliberations will begin Wednesday after instructions from Judge Juan Merchan . The forthcoming verdict – a conviction on all or some of 34 counts of falsifying business records, an acquittal, or a deadlocked jury – could have a major impact on Trump’s campaign against President Joe Biden.

The six-week trial featured 22 witnesses from Trump’s company, campaign, a national tabloid and a porn star. The testimony featured tense moments such as defense lawyer Todd Blanche accusing Trump’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen , of lying on the standand former Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks breaking into tears.

Meanwhile, Merchan threatened to jail Trump if he continued to violate a gag order against talking about witnesses participating in the case. A flock of Republican surrogates showed up to support Trump, and one conspiracy theorist set himself on fire outside the courthouse.

Prosecution cites 'jaw-dropping' evidence against Trump that defense says 'cannot be trusted'

The courtroom drama featured dramatic clashes between lawyers and witnesses, the judge and Trump.

Prep for the polls: See who is running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter Guide

Cohen was a key witness testifying that he submitted invoices for “legal expenses” that Trump knew were to reimburse him for paying $130,000 to silence porn actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. But Trump lawyer Todd Blanche accused Cohen of lying on the stand when he testified he notified Trump about the payment to Daniels. In closing arguments, Blanche called Cohen the “MVP of liars” and “the embodiment of reasonable doubt.”

Merchan scolded Blanche for an “outrageous” statement in closing arguments that the jury shouldn’t “send someone to prison” based on Cohen’s testimony.

Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, described the alleged sexual encounter in enough detail that Merchan questioned why defense lawyers didn’t object more to block her testimony. She testified that she noticed gold nail clippers in Trump’s hotel room and he didn’t wear a condom during the encounter. Trump has repeatedly denied he had sex with Daniels and Blanche argued the payment “started out as an extortion” whether the allegation was true or not.

David Pecker, the former CEO of American Media Inc., which owned the National Enquirer, said he agreed in a meeting with Trump and Cohen in August 2015 to be the “eyes and ears” of Trump’s presidential campaign to buy negative stories about the candidate and never publish them.

Pecker acknowledged paying former Playboy model Karen McDougal $150,000 for her story and then refusing to pay for Daniels because Trump hadn’t reimbursed him. Cohen provided a recording , which prosecutor Joshua Steinglass called “jaw-dropping,” of Trump mentioning the $150,000 figure.

But Blanche raised questions about the credibility of the recording because it cuts off suddenly – Cohen said he got another call – and argued that a meeting to influence the campaign “made no sense.”

Trump paid Cohen for a retainer through invoices marked "legal expenses," so he committed no crime of falsifying business records, according to Blanche. "This is not a referendum on your views of President Trump," Blanche told jurors.

The jury will return Wednesday to receive instructions from Merchan and begin deliberations.

− Bart Jansen

Tuesday proceedings end

Judge Juan Merchan declared an end to the day's proceedings at about 8 p.m. EDT.

– Aysha Bagchi

Judge to give jury instructions in morning, proceedings to start slightly later

Judge Juan Merchan said he will give jurors their instructions on the law to apply in the case tomorrow morning. In light of today's proceedings running late, tomorrow's proceedings will start at 10 a.m. EDT, not the normal 9:30 a.m. EDT start time, Merchan said.

'In the name of justice': Prosecutor finishes closing argument

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass has ended his closing argument. He thanked the jurors for their service and for consistently arriving to trial on time.

"I apologize for trading brevity for thoroughness," he said, in reference to his lengthy time summing up the case.

Steinglass argued former President Donald Trump shouldn't get special treatment in this case. "He's had his day in court," Steinglass said. "The law is the law, and it applies to everyone equally. There is no special standard for this defendant."

Steinglass added that Donald Trump can't shoot somebody "during rush hour and get away with it." The defense objected to that comment, and Judge Merchan sustained their objection. The prosecutor appeared to be referring to a boast Trump made early in the 2016 presidential campaign: "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?"

"In the name of justice," Steinglass urged jurors, "I ask you to find the defendant guilty."

'Beating a dead horse' draws laughs as prosecutor's long closing continues

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass used the phrase "beating a dead horse here" to describe his team's argument that Trump conspired to unlawfully interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

That drew some giggling from the courtroom. I saw at least one juror smiling.

'The false business records benefited one person and one person only'

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass encouraged jurors to consider who stood to benefit from falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels .

The answer, Steinglass said, is Donald Trump .

"He was the one who stood to gain the most," Steinglass said. "He's the only one who'd care about creating the false business records to conceal the Daniels payoff."

"The false business records benefited one person and one person only – and that's the defendant," Steinglass added.

A fixer like Cohen would want credit for hush money deal: Steinglass

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said another reason to credit Michael Cohen's testimony of Trump's involvement comes down to the common-sense question of how a fixer acts.

A person playing that role for Trump might cover their tracks and avoid a paper trail, but that person also wants credit, Steinglass suggested. "They sure as heck want the principal to know."

Trump's alleged knowledge of prior hush money deals part of a pattern , Steinglass says

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass reminded jurors of testimony from former tabloid publisher David Pecker that he updated Trump on two hush money agreements that took place before the Stormy Daniels deal was sealed. Pecker's company paid out money to a Trump Tower doorman and to former Playboy model Karen McDougal in the two deals. Michael Cohen was in communication with Pecker, but Cohen himself paid Daniels.

If you credit Pecker's testimony, Trump knew about those two earlier deals, Steinglass told the jury.

"So why would the defendant be kept in the dark about the Daniels NDA?" Steinglass asked, using an abbreviation for "non-disclosure agreement." 

"That defies common sense," he added.

Hope Hicks cried over her damning testimony: Steinglass

Former Trump aide Hope Hicks made headlines earlier in the trial when she broke down crying on the witness stand. On Tuesday, Steinglass argued Hicks lost her composure after realizing the impact of the damning testimony she'd given against her former boss.

Hicks was testifying about Trump's reaction to a post-2016 election story on the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. Hicks said Trump asked for her thoughts on how a story before the election would have compared.

"I think Mr. Trump's opinion was it was better to be dealing with it now, and that it would have been bad to have that story come out before the election," Hicks testified .

More: Donald Trump trial Friday recap: Former Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks emotional on stand

That was at the end the prosecution's questions for Hicks, and she broke down slightly later, as Trump defense lawyer Emil Bove began asking her questions.

"She realized how much this testimony puts the nail in" the case, Steinglass said.

The prosecution has argued that Trump authorized a hush money payment to Stormy Daniels in order to better his 2016 election chances. That forms part of the prosecution's argument for charging Trump with felonies.

Trump, a frugal and meticulous boss, would know what his checks were for: Steinglass

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass pointed to testimony that Trump is frugal and meticulous in his work and business life. For instance, former tabloid publisher and long-time Trump friend David Pecker testified that Trump was " very cautious" and "very frugal."

This, Steinglass suggested, is evidence Trump wouldn't have paid Cohen $420,000 – largely in checks he himself signed – without knowing the purpose.

Steinglass also pointed to Trump book excerpts in which the celebrity real estate developer characterized himself as careful about his finances. In one excerpt from "Trump: Think Like a Billionaire," he said: "I always sign my checks, so I know where my money's going."

Prosecutor challenges Trump team's claim that 2017 payments were for legal services

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass ridiculed the argument from defense lawyer Todd Blanche earlier today that Donald Trump's 2017 monthly payments to Michael Cohen were for legal services, not to reimburse hush money. Blanche said Trump Organization records accurately represented the payments.

Why wasn't Cohen "paid a dime in 2018?" Steinglass asked jurors. Because Cohen wasn't being paid for legal work in either 2017 or 2018, Steinglass said.

Steinglass added that Cohen had spent more time being cross-examined at Trump's hush money trial than doing legal work for Trump in 2017, and said Cohen would have been making an hourly rate of $42,000 if the payments were for legal services.

"That'd be a pretty good hourly rate," Steinglass said with sarcasm.

Steinglass also said Cohen was making more money than any government job would ever pay. 

"And don't I know that," the Manhattan line prosecutor added, drawing at least a few chuckles from the courtroom .

More: Would cameras in the courtroom change Donald Trump's New York hush money trial?

Jurors see handwritten notes that allegedly point to a planned tax crime

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass showed jurors a document dealing with Cohen's tranfer of $130,000 to Stormy Daniels' lawyer, Keith Davidson, in 2016.

The document has handwritten notes that ex-Trump Organization executive Jeffrey McConney testified belonged to Allen Weisselberg . Weisselberg was the long-time chief financial officer at the Trump Organization. He is currently in jail for committing perjury in Trump's New York civil fraud case.

The notes refer to "grossing" up $180,000 to $360,000. Prosecutors say two reimbursements to Cohen – one for the $130,000 hush money to Daniels and a second for $50,000 related to polling services – were doubled to account for taxes Cohen would have to pay. That, according to prosecutors, reflected a plan to commit tax fraud under New York law .

This seems aimed at showing Trump falsified business records in order to hide a plan to violate New York tax law. That's one of three crimes or potential crimes prosecutors say Trump was trying to cover up by falsifying records. To win a conviction, prosecutors have to show not just that Trump falsified records, but also that he was trying to conceal or commit another crime.

Here are the handwritten notes jurors just saw:

Trump executive's testimony used against former president

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is pointing to the testimony of former Trump Organization financial controller Jeffrey McConney as evidence Trump was reimbursing Michael Cohen with a series of 2017 payments that are at the heart of this business records case. Prosecutors say Trump falsified records to conceal that the payments were reimbursements to Cohen for hush money he paid to Stormy Daniels .

McConney testified he was told by former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg that the payments were reimbursing Cohen.

Steinglass told jurors to think about who McConney is as they consider that testimony.

"He has no axe to grind," Steinglass said of McConney. "He has every incentive to help his former boss."

McConney nonetheless said he was told this was a reimbursement, Steinglass noted.

Prosecutor's argument shifts from hush money to alleged cover-up

After a short break in proceedings, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass has resumed his closing argument. He explained to the jury that he'd gone over Trump's alleged conspiracy to influence the election. But after the election, he continued, Trump also needed to keep people from knowing about the conspiracy.

Plus, Michael Cohen wanted his money back .

Steinglass is now showing jurors a transcript of Cohen's testimony that Trump approved a scheme to reimburse Cohen over 12 months while misrepresenting the payments as ongoing legal expenses.

Jurors paying attention as long day continues

Judge Juan Merchan excused jurors for a short break at 4:54 p.m. EDT. He then commented that jurors continued to appear attentive, even as proceedings have extended beyond the normal 4:30 p.m. EDT end time.

What the judge said is true. I haven't seen any jurors dozing off or appearing distracted, even as they have heard several hours of arguments from just two lawyers today.

Merchan indicated the jurors have made arrangements to stay late today, and that proceedings could go past 7 p.m. EDT.

'What have we done?': Prosecutor points to election reaction as evidence of Trump's guilt

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass showed jurors a text exchange between Stormy Daniels' former lawyer, Keith Davidson, and former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard . Davidson texted Howard after the 2016 presidential election results started to come in: "What have we done?"

Steinglass suggested Davidson's reaction to news of Trump's victory shows how players involved in the Trump-related hush money deals fully understood their importance to the election.

More: National Enquirer editor said Stormy Daniels' affair story was true: Texts shown to jury

'This is damning': Prosecutor says evidence shows Trump OK'd hush money

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is displaying text messages and call records that he says support Michael Cohen's testimony that Trump authorized the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.

Keith Davidson , the former lawyer for Daniels, testified that he believed Cohen didn't have the authority to spend money on his own, Steinglass noted. Even after Cohen told Davidson "I'll just do it myself," Davidson testified, he understood the money would be coming from Donald Trump or a related corporation.

Steinglass also showed a call record indicating Cohen called Trump 10 minutes after hearing that Daniels might be about to share her story with the Daily Mail. Cohen didn't reach him, but Melania Trump texted the next morning asking Cohen to call Trump on his cell phone.

Steinglass also showed jurors a record of a call that he said was half an hour before Cohen filled out the paperwork for the hush money wire transfer.

"This is damning," Steinglass said.

'Pandemonium': Prosecutor says Access Hollywood tape is key context for hush money

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is talking to jurors about the infamous Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump discussed kissing women without waiting and grabbing their genitals. The tape was published by The Washington Post on Oct. 7 of 2016 – about a month before the 2016 election.

Steinglass played a response video Trump posted in which he characterized his words on the tape as simply that – words. Steinglass also referred to Trump characterizing his words as "locker-room talk," reminding jurors that Cohen testified that phrase was a suggestion from Melania Trump .

"You gotta remember this race could not have been closer," Steinglass said. The tape and events that followed were capable of costing Trump the whole election, and he knew it, Steinglass said.

Steinglass then played jurors a video recording of Trump at a campaign event on Oct. 14, 2016. Trump talked about lies at the rally, saying if 5% or 10% of people think they're true, "we don't win."

"It caused pandemonium in the Trump campaign," Steinglass said of the tape.

At the same time that Trump was desperately trying to sell the distinction between words and actions, he was trying to muzzle a porn star who had a story to tell about a sexual encounter while Trump was married, Steinglass said.

"Stormy Daniels was a walking, talking reminder that the defendant was not only words," Steinglass said. "She would have totally undermined his strategy for spinning away the Access Hollywood tape."

The trial goes on, but Tuesday’s protesters are mostly done

Nearly all the demonstrators outside of the courthouse − both pro-Trump and anti-Trump − packed up shortly after 4 p.m. EDT.

They did not stick around for the end of final arguments.

“We’re going to Trump Tower − you coming?” yelled one member of the ex-president’s contingent.Throughout the day, maybe 150 demonstrators of all stripes drifted into and out of the one-block park across the street from the courthouse.

Things occasionally got tense, as adherents of Trump and Biden dropped F bombs on each other; there was also, reportedly, at least one punch thrown.

With each confrontation, however, two or more New York police officers quickly moved in to stop things from getting out of hand.

−David Jackson

Steinglass pushes back on evidence manipulation argument

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is pushing back on a suggestion from Trump lawyer Todd Blanche that evidence has been manipulated. Blanche targeted, in particular, an audio recording that Michael Cohen said he secretly made of a conversation he had with Trump where the two discussed hush money payments to former Playboy model Karen McDougal.

Blanche said there is "a lot of dispute" when it comes to the recording, and that the government hasn't shown it's reliable. The recording cuts off abruptly after Trump and Cohen discuss financing.

"Don't accept this invitation to muddy the waters," Steinglass said to jurors of Blanche's comments. Cohen would have no incentive to manipulate evidence because he had already pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, Steinglass said.

Steinglass also said the recording "is nothing short of jaw-dropping," adding Trump talks about not paying with cash.

Here's a transcript of the recording prepared by the prosecution and shown earlier in the trial:

Trump slams Rep. Bob Good, a gag-order-get-around trial attendee, and endorses opponent

House Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Bob Good , R-Va., attended the hush money trial on May 16 and, along with several other Republican lawmakers, defended Trump against the judge's gag order .

But on Tuesday morning, Trump endorsed Good's opponent, State Sen.  John McGuire , who also made a quiet appearance at the Manhattan courthouse the same day.

"Bob Good is BAD FOR VIRGINIA, AND BAD FOR THE USA," Trump posted on Truth Social.

Good had initially endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 primary, but eventually backed Trump when DeSantis dropped out of the race in January.

– Kinsey Crowley

Prosecutor defends public's right to know Stormy Daniels' story

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors they might wonder why they should care if Trump had a sexual encounter with porn star Stormy Daniels in 2006.

Steinglass said that thought is understandable, but it's harder to say that the American people "don't have the right to decide for themselves whether they care or not."

Trump's alleged scheme to prevent negative stories from getting out ahead of the 2016 election "could very well be what got President Trump elected," Steinglass said.

This may be more of a moral argument from Steinglass than a legal one. Ultimately, Judge Juan Merchan will instruct jurors on the law around campaign finance violations. Then jurors will be tasked with deciding if Trump falsified records and, if so, whether he was trying to cover up unlawfully interfering in the 2016 election through the hush money to Daniels.

'We didn't pick him up at the witness store': Prosecutor on Michael Cohen

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass blamed former President Donald Trump for the prosecution's use of Michael Cohen in the criminal hush money case.

"We didn't pick him up at the witness store," Steinglass said of Cohen. "The defendant chose Michael Cohen to be his fixer because he was willing to lie and cheat on Mr. Trump's behalf."

Trump chose Cohen "for the same qualities" that Trump's lawyers now say should cause the jurors to reject Cohen's testimony, Steinglass added.

Steinglass then showed jurors an excerpt from one of Trump's books in which Trump said: "I value loyalty above everything else."

When will the Trump trial end?

The Trump trial could end this week , depending on how long the jury takes to deliberate.

Closing arguments are scheduled to wrap up Tuesday. Judge Juan Merchan has asked the jury to come in Wednesday, even though the court is typically off that day, so he can hand the case over to them.

While there is technically no limit on how long the jury deliberations can take, experts say three days would be considered a long time.

– Kinsey Crowley 

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass defends Michael Cohen's testimony

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass is spending a lot of time defending the same witness Trump lawyer Todd Blanche spent a lot of time attacking today: Michael Cohen .

Steinglass spoke of an Oct. 24, 2016 phone call Blanche has said Cohen got caught lying about on the stand. Cohen said the call to Trump's bodyguard was to get Trump on the phone about the Stormy Daniels hush money deal. After Blanche showed text messages to the bodyguard indicated Cohen wanted to talk about harassing phone calls he was getting from a 14-year-old, Cohen said he believes he also spoke to Trump about the deal.

"Even if you're not convinced" that both things happened in that call, Steinglass told jurors, "a far less sinister explanation" is Cohen got the time of the call wrong.

"This was not the final go-ahead. That would come two days later on October 26th," Steinglass added.

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass begins prosecution's closing argument

Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass has begun his closing argument. Steinglass indicated earlier today that this is likely to be lengthy: he estimated he needs 4-4.5 hours.

Judge instructs jurors to disregard Trump lawyer's 'prison' comment

Following the lunch break, Judge Juan Merchan instructed jurors to disregard the comment from Trump lawyer Todd Blanche about sending Trump "to prison" if they convict him. Merchan told the jurors they may not consider sentencing at all when they are deliberating in the case.

'Outrageous': Judge rebukes Trump defense lawyer for prison comment

After Trump lawyer Todd Blanche finished his closing and jurors were excused for lunch, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Judge Merchan to give jurors a special instruction about the "ridiculous comment" Blanche made about sending Trump to prison. Merchan already sustained an objection from Steinglass when Blanche told jurors they "cannot send someone to prison" based on Michael Cohen's testimony.

Steinglass noted the charges in the case carry no minimum sentence, so jail or prison time might not happen even if Trump is convicted. It was a "blatant and wholly inappropriate effort" to create sympathy for Trump, Steinglass said.

Blanche said the judge is already slated to give a regular instruction on this point to jurors after the closing arguments are over.

"I'm gonna give a curative instruction," Merchan said. "Saying that was outrageous, Mr. Blanche," Merchan added.

"You know that making a comment like that is highly inappropriate," Merchan told Blanche. "It's hard for me to imagine how that was accidental in any way."

'Not a referendum on your views of President Trump': defense finishes closing

"This is not a referendum on your views of President Trump," defense lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors at the end of his closing argument.

Blanche said the trial is not about whom jurors voted for or plan to vote for. Instead, it's only about the evidence they heard in the courtroom, he said.

If jurors stick to that evidence, they will return an "easy" and "quick" not guilty verdict, he said.

'He's the human embodiment of reasonable doubt, literally': Trump lawyer on Cohen

In his tenth and final argument for reasonable doubt in the case, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche again attacked Michael Cohen as a liar.

"He's the human embodiment of reasonable doubt, literally," Blanche said. Cohen's financial wellbeing will depend on this case, Blanche added. "He is biased and motivated to tell you a story that's not true."

Cohen is the G.O.A.T. of liars, Blanche said, referencing an abbreviation for "greatest of all time."

"He has lied to every single branch of Congress. Both houses. The House and the Senate," Blanche said of Cohen. Cohen has lied to the Department of Justice, to federal judges, to state judges, and to his family, he added. "His words cannot be trusted."

After all those lies, Cohen came to the trial, "raised his right hand, and he lied to each of you," Blanche said.

"You cannot send someone to prison" based on Cohen's testimony, Blanche added. Judge Juan Merchan sustained an objection to that comment.

10 reasons why there is reasonable doubt: Trump lawyer

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche ended his closing argument by offering ten reasons for reasonable doubt in the case.

Blanche argued the evidence didn't show Trump was aware or responsible for invoices, vouchers, and checks that make up the 34 allegedly falsified records in the case.

Blanche also targeted allegations he expects the prosecution to make in its closing about Trump's intent. He said Trump had no intention to defraud, and no intention to commit or conceal another crime. Prosecutors have to prove both those elements of Trump's intent.

Blanche also said there was no illegal agreement to influence the 2016 election through a "catch-and-kill" scheme .

Blanche argued that Stormy Daniels' allegation of an affair with Trump was already public by 2016. Testimony at trial discussed the publication of a rumor about it as far back as 2011.

Blanche also said evidence in the case had been manipulated. He noted, for example, testimony of an Oct. 15, 2016 factory reset of Cohen's phone.

The tenth and final reason for reasonable doubt, Blanche said, is that Cohen – who testified to various aspects of the prosecution's case – is a liar.

'He's literally like an MVP of liars': Trump lawyer on Michael Cohen

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche accused the prosecution of being "perfectly willing" to have a witness commit perjury and lie to the jurors. Judge Juan Merchan sustained an objection to that accusation.

"He's literally like an MVP of liars," Blanche said as he continued to target Cohen.

"He lies to reporters, he lies to federal judges. In fact, he's also a thief. He literally stole," Blanche said, referencing Cohen's own admission to stealing from the Trump Organization by claiming a larger reimbursement than he was owed for a payment unrelated to the Daniels hush money deal.

Blanche then played an audio recording for jurors showing Cohen's animus toward Trump. Cohen described picturing Trump getting booked and finger printed on criminal charges, and having a mug shot taken. It "fills me with delight," Cohen said. Cohen also thanked the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, including its "fearless leader," Alvin Bragg.

'That was a lie, and he got caught red-handed': Trump lawyer on Cohen

Near the end of his closing argument, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche focused on the prosecution's star witness: Michael Cohen . Blanche told jurors they "only know from one source" what Trump knew in 2016 – Cohen. Prosecutors have alleged Trump knew about and authorized a October 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Blanche elevated his voice as he attacked the former Trump lawyer and fixer, noting text messages indicating that a call from Cohen to Trump's bodyguard on Oct. 24, 2016 was to discuss harassing phone calls Cohen was getting. Cohen had earlier testified the call was to get Trump on the phone to provide an update on the Stormy Daniels hush money deal. After Blanche showed Cohen the text messages on cross-examination, Cohen said he believed the call was also about the deal.

"It was a lie!" Blanche exclaimed to jurors on Tuesday. "This was a lie about the charged conduct involving Ms. Daniels," he said.

"That was a lie, and he got caught red-handed," Blanche continued.

"That is per-jur-y," Blanche said, putting emphasis on each syllable in the last word.

Blanche distances Trump from Daniels hush money and election concerns

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche questioned prosecutors' suggestion that Trump would have paid hush money to Stormy Daniels because of the 2016 election, as well as their claim that Trump actually authorized the payment.

Blanche said no one wants their family to hear these sort of allegations.

Blanche also said the release of the Access Hollywood tape – in which Trump crudely described groping women's genitals – wasn't the "doomsday event" the prosecution made it out to be. "He never thought it was gonna cause him to lose the campaign. And indeed, it didn't," Blanche said. 

"Michael Cohen, however, had a different view," Blanche argued to jurors. He noted Cohen said the tape "was catastrophic."

These arguments from Blanche may have two aims:

  • Encouraging jurors to believe Cohen acted alone, and
  • Encouraging jurors to believe that, if they conclude Trump authorized the payment, it wasn't for the election, and therefore wasn't an unlawful campaign contribution.

Prosecutors have suggested the tape's release put pressure on the Trump campaign to not let any more stories get out that could hurt Trump's standing with women voters. That, according to prosecutors, was added incentive to quiet Stormy Daniels with a hush money payment.

'No evidence' but Cohen's words that Trump knew about 2016 hush money deal: defense lawyer

There is "no evidence," Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said, "except for Mr. Cohen's words that President Trump knew about that agreement in 2016."

Blanche was referencing the $130,000 hush money deal involving porn star Stormy Daniels.

Blanche pointed to a text exchange between Daniels' then-manager Gina Rodriguez and former National Enquirer editor Dylan Howard , in which Rodriguez asked if Howard was working "in favor" of Trump and Howard said he was not. Howard acknowledged in the text exchange that his CEO endorsed Trump.

'Nothing sinister': Blanche defends hush money practice

"There's nothing wrong with a non-disclosure agreement," Blanche told jurors. "There's nothing illegal, there's nothing sinister about it," he added.

Prosecutors in this case don't dispute that claim generally, but they say the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels is different because it allegedly violated federal campaign finance laws .

Judge rejects gag request in Trump’s classified documents case

The federal judge in former President Donald Trump's  classified documents case  rejected an urgent request from prosecutors to prohibit him from  commenting on FBI agents  who seized the records at Mar-a-Lago.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon found  Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith's request Friday lacked “professional courtesy" for not meeting with Trump’s team first to discuss the defense’s concerns.

Smith's team  had asked  Cannon  on Friday  to prohibit Trump from commenting  about law enforcement agents after Trump claimed the FBI “was authorized to shoot me” and agents were “locked &loaded ready to take me out” when they went to Mar-a-Lago.

Trump’s lawyers, who were preparing for final arguments in his New York hush money case, asked to meet Monday before prosecutors filed their motion. After being rejected, defense lawyers on Monday asked Cannon to hold prosecutors in contempt for the request. She rejected that request.

“This is bad-faith behavior, plain and simple,” Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche, Emil Bove and Christopher Kise wrote.

– Bart Jansen

'This started out as an extortion': Blanche on Stormy Daniels

Blanche played for jurors a recording of a conversation between Michael Cohen and Keith Davidson , the lawyer who negotiated the hush money deal for Stormy Daniels. Davidson says during the recording that Daniels told him he "better settle this God damn story" because if Trump loses the election, "we lose all (expletive) leverage."

Daniels testified at trial that she never yelled at Davidson and, on the recording, it sounded to her like he is making a threat.

You can listen to the recording here:

Blanche suggested to jurors that Daniels has been cashing in on her allegations about Trump, noting she has a book.

"This started out as an extortion. There's no doubt about that. And it ended very well for Ms. Daniels, financially speaking," Blanche said.

'He was shocked': Defense's take on secret recording by Cohen of Trump

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche reminded jurors of a recording they heard during the trial, which Michael Cohen testified involved a discussion between him and Trump about a hush money deal with former Playboy model Karen McDougal .

Cohen testified that he secretly recorded Trump in order to reassure David Pecker, whose media company paid McDougal $150,000, that he would get his money back.

"There is a lot of dispute about that recording. A lot," Blanche told jurors Tuesday. He added that the government hasn't shown the recording is reliable.

Blanche played a portion of the recording that he said featured the voice of Rhona Graff , Trump's former executive assistant. He then told jurors the government didn't ask her a single question about the recording, even though she testified.

"The recording cuts off, as you know," Blanche said. He said there is "no doubt" the recording features discussion of David Pecker and his media company, but said there is "a lot of doubt" about whether it discussed McDougal.

When Trump asks about financing in the recording, "he has no idea" what Cohen is talking about, Blanche said. Cohen and Trump are "literally talking past each other about what is going on," he said.

"He was shocked," Blanche added, speaking about his client.

Biden and Trump campaigns conduct dueling news conferences

Another political first for the Trump hush money trial: Dueling news conferences by the presidential campaigns.First, the Biden team produced surrogates who denounced Trump to reporters stationed across the street from the courthouse.

“He wants to sow total chaos,” said Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro. The Biden campaign said their news conference wasn’t about the hush money trial per se, but about Trump himself, particularly his role in the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021 .

Other speakers included two Capitol police officers who were injured in the Jan. 6 riot, Michael Fanone and Harry Dunn.

“Those supporters were fueled by Trump’s lies,” Fanone said.

After watching the Biden proceedings from a distance, a trio of Trump aides took to the microphones to accuse the Biden people of political desperation over the trial.

“Why is Joe Biden now making this a campaign event?” said Trump senior adviser Jason Miller .

This was the first time that top Trump and Biden officials faced off in the same place at the same time, but it won’t be the last; there’s a June 27 debate coming up in Atlanta.

– David Jackson

'Makes no sense': Blanche attacks election conspiracy claim

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors he doesn't think they need to address whether Trump participated in a conspiracy to unlawfully influence the 2016 presidential election. That allegation from prosecutors has to do with why Trump has been charged with felony counts of falsifying records – but it's irrelevant to the charges if jurors conclude Trump never falsified records to begin with.

Still, Blanche challenged the suggestion that Trump engaged in an election-related conspiracy. He said "sophisticated people" like Trump and David Pecker – the former head of the National Enquirer's parent company – couldn't have believed they were able to influence the election through the publication's limited circulation when "millions and millions of people voted in the 2016 election."

The idea that an August 2015 meeting was going to influence the election "makes no sense," Blanche added. Pecker and Cohen both testified to having a meeting with Trump at Trump Tower that month to discuss how they could snap up potentially damaging stories to Trump's campaign and also publish negative stories about Trump's political opponents.

Actor Robert DeNiro calls Trump a ‘clown’ and ‘buffoon’ outside courthouse

Actor Robert DeNiro , flanked by former Capitol Police officers who defended the building on Jan. 6, 2021, called former President Donald Trump a “clown,” a “buffoon” and a “joke” outside the courthouse where Trump is on trial.

“He wants to sow total chaos,” said DeNiro, a surrogate for President Joe Biden who grew up in New York City. “He’ll use violence against anyone who stands in the way of his megalomania and greed. But it’s a coward’s violence.”

DeNiro noted Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and for misstating the value of his real estate. But DeNiro said over the shouts of hecklers and the honking of a car on the street outside the courthouse that Trump must be defeated or he would never leave the White House again.

“When Trump ran in 2016, it was like a joke, this buffoon running for president,” DeNiro said. “With Trump, we have a second chance and no one is laughing now. This is the time to stop him by voting him out once and for all.”

DeNiro was joined by Harry Dunn and Michael Fanone , two of the Capitol police officers who were injured defending the building when a mob of Trump supporters rioted and interrupted Congress certifying Biden’s 2020 win against Trump.

“These guys are the true heroes,” DeNiro said. “They stood and put their lives on the line for these lowlifes, for Trump.”

Blanche says Trump didn't have an intent to defraud

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche said he expects Judge Merchan to instruct jurors that, to find Trump guilty, they must conclude he falsified records and that he had an intent to defraud when he did so.

Blanche pointed to a 2018 tweet by Trump, in which Trump mentioned a retainer agreement with Cohen. A legal retainer is a compensation agreement that reserves a lawyer or pays for future services. Cohen submitted several invoices in 2017 – which form part of the allegedly falsified records in the case – referencing a retainer. Cohen testified no retainer actually existed.

Blanche said Trump wouldn't have posted that tweet if he had any intent to defraud.

Blanche says almost no evidence of planned tax crime

To find Trump guilty of the 34 felony counts in the case, the jurors must find not only that Trump falsified the 34 records, but also that he did so in order to commit or conceal another crime.

One of the theories the prosecution advanced about that purpose before trial was that the falsified records were covering up a plan to violate New York tax laws . The prosecution has also said there was a plan to violate New York election laws, and that the allegedly falsified records were hiding the violation of federal campaign finance laws through the hush money to Stormy Daniels.

The only evidence of a tax purpose for how payments to Cohen were recorded, according to Blanche, was former Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg saying the payments were grossed up. "Is there any other proof of that? Any other evidence? No, there's none," Blanche asked and answered.

'Case Turns On Cohen': Trump lawyer attacks Michael Cohen's credibility

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche displayed a portion of the transcript of Michael Cohen's testimony with a header above it titled: "Case Turns On Cohen."

The transcript excerpt featured Cohen saying he was in a meeting with Trump and former Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg , when Weisselberg allegedly said they would pay Cohen for the Stormy Daniels hush money, as well as for another expense and a bonus, over 12 months.

Cohen didn't even pretend to be part of that conversation, Blanche said – seeming to attack the lack of testimony from Cohen about what he himself said in the meeting. Blanche characterized it as weak evidence from the government about Trump's role in the alleged repayment scheme.

Blanche says lack of testimony from Trump sons Eric and Don Jr. is reason to acquit

Blanche argued that the lack of testimony from Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump – who are seated in the audience today – is a reason to acquit Trump. The two Trump sons were running Trump business operations during their father's presidency, and allegedly signed two checks that make up two of the 34 records that their father is allegedly responsible for falsifying.

"That is reasonable doubt," Blanche said.

The Trump defense team, like the prosecution, didn't call the two Trump sons to the stand, although it did call two other witnesses.

"We have no burden to do anything," Blanche said, emphasizing the prosecution chose to call Michael Cohen but not the sons.

Supreme Court rejects appeal from Stormy Daniels' former lawyer Michael Avenatti

Outside of the Manhattan courtroom today, the Supreme Court rejected an appeal from Stormy Daniels ' former lawyer Michael Avenatti .

The disgraced California lawyer represented Daniels in her 2018 lawsuits against Trump .

The Supreme Court denied the appeal of his 2020 conviction for an extortion scheme in which he tried to get up to $25 million from shoemaker Nike .

Avenatti is also serving sentences on two other convictions tied to stealing profits from Daniels' book, cheating clients out of millions of dollars, and failing to pay taxes.

– Kinsey Crowley &  Maureen Groppe

'That's a red flag': Blanche argues lack of evidence on vouchers

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told jurors there is "no evidence" Trump knew anything about the Trump Organization's voucher system. "No evidence - not a single word," Blanche added.

This is a reference to a portion of the 34 records that Trump is allegedly responsible for falsifying. The vouchers were the digital entries in general ledgers at the Trump Organization that labeled payments to Michael Cohen as legal expenses.

Blanche said he doesn't know how the government is going to address the alleged lack of evidence, but told jurors to be skeptical if prosecutor Joshua Steinglass reads quotes from a decades-old Trump book. During the trial, the prosecution brought in two book publishers who read excerpts from Trump's books.

"You should be suspicious. That's a red flag," Blanche said.

'The bookings were accurate': Trump lawyer defends records

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche noted his client was in the White House at the time of the alleged records falsifications, arguing there wasn't evidence that Trump "had anything to do" with how payments to Michael Cohen were recorded on a ledger.

Cohen testified that Trump was in a meeting with him and former Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg about how to reimburse Cohen for the $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. "He approved it," Cohen told jurors about Trump. According to prosecutors, the reimbursement payments were falsely recorded as 2017 legal expenses.

Blanche defended the accuracy of the records on Tuesday.

"The bookings were accurate and there was absolutely no intent to defraud," Blanche said.

'This case is about documents': Trump lawyer to jurors

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche noted to jurors that Trump doesn't face any charges for allegedly having a sexual encounter with porn star Stormy Daniels in 2006 – an allegation Trump denies.

"This case is about documents. It's a paper case," Blanche said. "This case is not about an encounter with Stormy Daniels 18 years ago," he added.

Still, Blanche took the time to dispute Daniels' story, saying Trump has "unequivocally and repeatedly" denied the alleged encounter happened.

Biden campaign to hold courthouse news conference

Another interested party is visiting the scene outside the Trump trial courthouse: The Joe Biden presidential campaign.

“The Biden-Harris campaign will hold a press conference with special guests outside of the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse,” said an e-mailed announcement.

Among the spectators awaiting the Biden campaign news conference: Officials with the Trump campaign, who said they will be responding afterward.

'President Trump is innocent': Trump lawyer attacks prosecution's case

"President Trump is innocent," defense lawyer Todd Blanche said early into his closing argument. "He did not commit any crimes," Blanche added. "The district attorney has not met their burden of proof – period."

Blanche told the jurors they "should want and expect more than the testimony of Michael Cohen," referring to Trump's former lawyer, who was the prosecution's star witness. Blanche also said the jurors should want more than the testimony of Deborah Tarasoff , a Trump Organization employee who testified about invoices and checks that are at the core of the 34 felony counts Trump faces.

Blanche also referenced Stormy Daniels without using her name – telling jurors they should want more than a woman saying something happened in 2006. Daniels said she and Trump had a sexual encounter that year, after meeting at a celebrity golf tournament.

Blanche also told jurors they should want more than the testimony of former Daniels lawyers Keith Davidson, who testified about her $130,000 hush money deal. Davidson was "just trying to extort money" from Trump ahead of the 2016 election, Blanche said.

The consequence of those defects in the prosecution's case, Blanche said, "is a not guilty verdict, period."

Trump proclaims innocence before attending closing arguments

Former President Donald Trump continued to profess his innocence before closing arguments in his New York hush money trial, arguing “there is no crime” and “hopefully it doesn’t work out for them.”

Trump is charged with falsifying business records to hide his reimbursement to former lawyer Michael Cohen for his $130,000 payment to silence porn actress Stormy Daniels, to prevent another salacious story before the 2016 election.

Trump, who didn’t testify in his own defense, argued to reporters outside the courtroom that there is nothing wrong with securing a nondisclosure agreement. Trump also argued any personal payment couldn’t have violated campaign finance law.

“It’s a very sad day,” Trump said. “This is a dark day for America.”

Low-key demonstrations outside the NYC courthouse

About 50-60 people shuttled into and out of the small park across from the courthouse as lawyers inside prepared their final arguments.

Most of the early witnesses were anti-Trump, but a contingent of more than 20 supporters showed up to support the former president as he traveled to the courthouse.

“We wanted to let him know that people in New York support him,” said a Trump flag-carrying man with a white beard and a red suit who identified himself as “Hungry Santa” (he produced a business card with that name).Other demonstrators made clear they did not support Trump.

Brad McCormick, 38, an educational consultant from Brigantine, N.J., hawked copies of a game book called “Trump Madness.” Readers are presented with outrageous quotes on a variety of topics, and asked if Trump really said those things (in many cases, the answer is yes).

McCormick also said he came to the courthouse out of a “sense of duty.”

“You’ve got to do something,” he said.

Tiffany Trump, Don Jr., Eric attend closing arguments

Three of former President Donald Trump’s children – Donald Jr., Eric and Tiffany – accompanied him to the closing arguments Tuesday in his New York hush money trial.

Trump’s daughter in law, Lara Trump, who is co-chair of the Republican National Committee, also attended.

A parade of SUVs delivered Trump’s entourage to the local courthouse on the sunny, 70-degree morning, a day after the Memorial Day holiday.

Trump lawyer begins by thanking jurors

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche began his closing argument by thanking the jurors, noting that they have consistently arrived on time for the trial.

Prosecution plans lengthy closing argument

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche estimated his side's closing argument will last about 2.5 hours. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass said the length of his argument may change based on what comes up in the defense's argument, but gave an estimate of 4-4.5 hours.

Judge Merchan said those estimates mean arguments and instructions may not conclude by the normal end time of 4:30 p.m. EDT and he will check whether jurors are able to stay later.

Judge Merchan arrives in courtroom

Judge Juan Merchan entered the courtroom at 9:31 a.m. EDT. Merchan said he sent his proposed jury instructions to both trial teams on Thursday.

Trump arrives in courtroom

Former President Donald Trump arrived in the courtroom at 9:25 a.m. EDT. We are still waiting for the judge and jury.

Alvin Bragg in attendance for closing arguments

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg entered the courtroom at 9:24 a.m. EDT. Bragg has attended some previous days of trial. He is seated in the second row of benches behind the prosecution team.

Prosecution arrives for closing arguments

The prosecution team entered the courtroom at about 9:14 a.m. EDT. We are still waiting on Trump's trial team as well as the judge and the jury.

What time does the Trump trial start today?

Proceedings are scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. EDT.

What to expect in closing arguments

Closing arguments offer each side a chance to go over evidence from the trial and make arguments about the inferences and conclusions that may fairly be drawn from that evidence.

Prosecutors may point to checks with Trump's signatures, excerpts from Trump's books, and recordings introduced at trial in order to bolster the testimony of star witness Michael Cohen, who testified that Trump authorized him to pay Stormy Daniels hush money in 2016 and approved a plan to cover it up in 2017.

The defense is likely to attack the credibility of Cohen, including by highlighting that he previously pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. Trump's team may also point to the high burden of proof prosecutors face: prosecutors must prove each element of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

Who goes first in closing arguments?

Under New York law , the defense team gives its closing argument first, followed by the prosecution. After both sides have spoken to the jurors, Judge Juan Merchan will instruct them on the law to apply in the case.

Trump rails against trial, quotes scripture

Former President Donald Trump posted a series of messages Monday, on the eve of closing arguments in his New York hush money trial, railing against the case as election interference and quoting scripture.

Besides criticizing Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Trump questioned why the prosecution gets the final word before jury deliberations. Typically in summing up the evidence in a case, prosecutors make their statements, defense lawyers speak and prosecutors get a final rebuttal because they have the burden of proving their case.

“Big advantage, very unfair,” Trump said in an all-caps post on Truth Social.

Trump also quoted a passage from the book of John in the Bible about personal sacrifice. Trump and his supporters have described his four criminal cases as political persecution.

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” the post said.

Could Trump go to prison?

Each count against Trump carries a maximum penalty of four years in prison and no minimum amount of jail or prison time. If Trump is convicted on all counts, Merchan will be tasked with deciding on a sentence for each count, and also deciding whether the sentences will coincide with each other or be run one after the other. However, New York law caps sentences for Class E felonies such as those Trump is charged with  at 20 years .

Legal experts told USA TODAY it's possible Trump could get just probation, even if he were convicted on every count. Most predicted any incarceration sentence on each count would run simultaneously with the others, so Trump wouldn't be ordered to serve more than four years behind bars. Experts also said Trump would likely be free while his expected appeal ran its course.

What is Trump on trial for?

Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal or commit another crime. The records – including checks, vouchers, and invoices – all relate to payments to former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen in 2017. Prosecutors say the payments were reimbursing Cohen for $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels in 2016, but the records were falsified to make the payments look like 2017 legal expenses.

Prosecutors say Trump was covering up the violation of federal campaign finance laws through the hush money, which was handed over less than two weeks before the 2016 presidential election. They also say Trump was trying to hide a plan to violate New York tax and election laws.

Trump has pleaded not guilty, and Trump defense lawyer Todd Blanche has denied the payments were reimbursing the hush money.

Why does Trump's team say the case should be dismissed?

Judge Juan Merchan may issue a ruling today on Trump's request to toss out the entire case ahead of jury deliberations.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche told Merchan that prosecutors haven't put on enough evidence for the case to go to the jury because the business records at issue weren't false. He said documents show Trump was paying Michael Cohen for ongoing legal services in 2017. Blanche also said the prosecution's case shouldn't be able to stand given Cohen's history of lying, including – according to the Trump defense lawyer – during this trial.

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New Rules to Overhaul Electric Grids Could Boost Wind and Solar Power

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the biggest changes in more than a decade to the way U.S. power lines are planned and funded.

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Two workers in yellow safety vests and hard hats stand in the path of a high voltage power line.

By Brad Plumer

Reporting from Washington

Federal regulators on Monday approved sweeping changes to how America’s electric grids are planned and funded, in a move that supporters hope could spur thousands of miles of new high-voltage power lines and make it easier to add more wind and solar energy.

The new rule by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate electricity transmission, is the most significant attempt in years to upgrade and expand the country’s creaking electricity network. Experts have warned that there aren’t nearly enough high-voltage power lines being built today, putting the country at greater risk of blackouts from extreme weather while making it harder to shift to renewable sources of energy and cope with rising electricity demand.

A big reason for the slow pace of grid expansion is that operators rarely plan for the long term, the commission said.

The nation’s three main electric grids are overseen by a patchwork of utilities and regional grid operators that mainly focus on ensuring the reliability of electricity to homes and businesses. When it comes to building new transmission lines, grid operators tend to be reactive, responding after a wind-farm developer asks to connect to the existing network or once a reliability problem is spotted.

The new federal rule , which was two years in the making, requires grid operators around the country to identify needs 20 years into the future, taking into account factors like changes in the energy mix, the growing number of states that require wind and solar power and the risks of extreme weather.

Grid planners would have to evaluate the benefits of new transmission lines, such as whether they would lower electricity costs or reduce the risk of blackouts, and develop methods for splitting the costs of those lines among customers and businesses.

“We must plan our nation’s grid for the long term,” said Willie Phillips, a Democrat who chairs the energy commission. “Our country’s aging grid is being tested in ways that we’ve never seen before. Without significant action now, we won’t be able to keep the lights on in the face of increasing demand, extreme weather, and new technologies.”

The commission approved the rule by a 2-1 vote, with the two Democratic commissioners in favor and the lone Republican, Mark Christie, opposed. Mr. Christie said the rule would allow states that want more renewable energy to unfairly pass on the costs of the necessary grid upgrades to their neighbors.

“This rule utterly fails to protect consumers,” said Mr. Christie. He said it “was intended to facilitate a massive transfer of wealth from consumers to for-profit, special interests, particularly wind and solar developers.”

It could take years for the rule to have an effect, and the commission could face legal challenges from states concerned about higher costs.

Nationwide, energy companies have proposed more than 11,000 wind, solar and battery projects, but many are in limbo because there’s not enough capacity on the grid to accommodate them. What’s more, individual developers are currently required to pay for grid upgrades to accommodate their projects in a process that is piecemeal and slow.

Some critics say that’s like asking a trucking company to pay for an additional lane on a highway that all motorists ultimately use. A better approach, they say, would be to plan ahead for broad upgrades with the costs shared by a wide set of energy providers and users.

But the question of who pays for those grid expansions has sparked furious debate.

Officials in states that are less enthusiastic about wind and solar power, like Kentucky or West Virginia, say they could be forced to foot the bill for new multibillion-dollar transmission lines meant to help states like New Jersey or Illinois fulfill their renewable energy ambitions.

To allay those concerns, the commission laid out guidelines around how to split the costs of new transmission projects. Before any lines are planned, utilities and grid operators are supposed to work with states on a formula for allocating costs to customers based on the potential benefits from the new lines.

There is some precedent for this. The grid that handles electricity in 15 Midwest states, known as MISO, recently approved $10.3 billion in new power lines, partly because many of its states have ambitious renewable energy goals that require more transmission. MISO estimated the lines would create up to $69 billion in total benefits , including lower fuel costs and fewer blackouts. The grid operator was then able to split the costs even among states that didn’t have renewable policies but would share in the rewards.

“It’s super hard, and not everyone got what they wanted, but we all agreed that we would sit in a room and figure this out,” said Carrie Zalewski, a former state regulator for Illinois who is now with the American Clean Power Association, a renewable energy trade group.

Mr. Christie said the final rule didn’t give states enough power to object to how the costs would be shared. But Allison Clements, the other Democrat on the commission, said that giving each state a veto was “a recipe for inaction.”

The rule would also require utilities and grid operators to consider new technologies that might cost more upfront but could make grids more efficient and deliver long-term benefits, such as advanced conductors that can carry twice as much current as traditional lines.

Environmental groups and renewable energy companies praised the new rules.

“This is a monumental day in the fight against climate change,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic majority leader, who had urged the commission to pass a forceful grid-planning rule.

Over the past year, Mr. Schumer and other Democrats have warned that efforts to fight climate change could fail if the nation’s grids aren’t overhauled. Power plants that burn coal and gas are a major source of the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet. While the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act poured hundreds of billions of dollars into cleaner alternatives like wind and solar power, one recent analysis found that half of the climate benefits of that law could be lost if the United States can’t build new transmission at a faster pace.

It remains to be seen how effective the new rule will be, since that will depend on how grid operators implement it. A 2011 attempt by the commission to encourage transmission planning largely faltered , in part because many utilities were opposed to new long-distance lines that might undercut their monopolies, said Ari Peskoe, director of the Electricity Law Initiative at Harvard Law School. Because of the decentralized nature of the nation’s grids, there is only so much that federal regulators can do to force operators to comply.

“I suspect this rule will be helpful in parts of the country where there’s already momentum for more transmission development” such as the Northeast, said Mr. Peskoe. “But in places where big utilities are resistant to more transmission, I don’t know if FERC can do that much.”

The new rule affects grid planning within 12 large regions around the country , but it wouldn’t require the planning of transmission to connect those different regions to each other, which some experts say is an even bigger need. The rule would also not affect the main grid in Texas, which is insulated from federal regulations because it doesn’t cross state lines.

The rule also doesn’t address the logistical and political challenges of constructing new long-distance power lines. It can take a decade or more for developers to locate a project through numerous jurisdictions, receive permits from a patchwork of different federal and state agencies and resolve lawsuits about spoiled views or damage to ecosystems.

The Biden administration recently finalized a program intended to cut the federal permitting time for certain large transmission lines in half. But speeding things up further might require action from Congress, where lawmakers have struggled to agree on new transmission policies.

In a separate rule on Monday, the federal energy commission did, however, outline certain situations in which it might override state objections to a small subset of new power lines.

At issue are a set of ten “national interest electric transmission corridors” that the Energy Department has tentatively identified across the country — places where new lines would be particularly beneficial. If state regulators either blocked or delayed a project in those corridors, the federal commission could step in to approve it.

But some experts question how often this would happen, since the commission has historically preferred to collaborate with states.

An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of one of the commissioners. She is Allison Clements, not Alison.

How we handle corrections

Brad Plumer is a Times reporter who covers technology and policy efforts to address global warming. More about Brad Plumer

Our Coverage of Climate and the Environment

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Heat and drought are taking a toll on the tiny soil creatures  that help to lock away planet-warming carbon, according to a new analysis.

A group of health experts, economists and U.S. government lawyers are working to address a growing crisis: people dying on the job from extreme heat. They face big hurdles .

After halting a test of controversial technology to fight global warming , the city of Alameda, Calif., said it had found no “measurable health risk” from the giant salty-mist-spraying fans.

Adopting Orphaned Oil Wells:  Students, nonprofit groups and others are fund-raising to cap highly polluting oil and gas wells  abandoned by industry.

Struggling N.Y.C. Neighborhoods:  New data projects are linking social issues with global warming. Here’s what that means for five communities in New York .

Biden Environmental Rules:  The Biden administration has rushed to finalize 10 major environmental regulations  to meet its self-imposed spring deadline.

F.A.Q.:  Have questions about climate change? We’ve got answers .

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