Timed Cascade Rules

You can display different cascades at different times of the day in both NATS3 and NATS4.

NATS4

Go to Billers Admin, setup your cascades, and click the Edit Cascade Rules icon. Use show and hide rules to show and hide cascades for a specific time period.

NATS4 Cascade Rules with Start and End Times

NATS3

The following PHP code returns a different cascade shortname at different times of the day. To use it, install it in your Smarty plugins directory, create or enable two Hidden Cascades, set the $defaultCascadeName and $specialCascadeName to the shortnames of your two hidden cascades, and Manually add a cascade to your join form. Use this Smarty function to set the value parameter in your cascade form. For example:

<input type="radio" name="cascade" checked="checked" value="{smarty_function_output_this_hours_cascade_name}"} />

Code

<?php
/* change the cascade based on hour of the day */
/* For more details, please see @FIXME
/* NOTE : this does not check whether or not your cascades are setup properly */
/* USE AT YOUR OWN RISK -- NO WARRANTY PROVIDED */
function smarty_function_output_this_hours_cascade_name() {

    $startHour = 10;
    $endHour = 13;

    $defaultCascadeName = 'default';
    $specialCascadeName = 'default2';

    $currentTime = localtime( mktime() , 1);
    return $currentTime['tm_hour'] >= $startHour && $currentTime['tm_hour'] < $endHour ? $specialCascadeName : $defaultCascadeName;
}
?>

Credits

• Special thanks to Nick @FIXME for assistance with this article.