Trigger Configuration Parameters

On this page

Database Trigger Configuration

Database Change Events
Scheduled Trigger Configuration

Database Trigger Configuration

Database triggers have the following configuration parameters:

Field

Description

Trigger Type

The type of the trigger. Set to Database to make a Database trigger.

Name

The name of the trigger.

Enabled

Default: Enabled. A toggle that indicates whether or not the trigger is enabled. If enabled, the trigger will listen for events and execute its associated function when events cause it to fire.

Event Ordering

Default: Enabled. Indicates whether event ordering is enabled for this trigger.

If event ordering is enabled, multiple executions of this trigger will occur sequentially based on the timestamps of the change events. If event ordering is disabled, multiple executions of this trigger will occur independently.

Tip

Consider disabling event ordering if the trigger fires in response to periodic bursts of events.

For example, suppose you have a daily batch job that inserts data to a collection and a database trigger that fires on inserts to that collection. Whenever the batch job runs, there will be a large number of trigger events to handle.

Ordered triggers wait to execute a function for a particular event until the functions of previous events have finished executing. As a consequence, ordered triggers are effectively rate-limited by the run time of each sequential trigger function. This may cause a significant delay between the database event and the trigger firing if a sufficiently large number of trigger executions are queued.

Unordered triggers execute functions in parallel if possible, which can be significantly faster (depending on your use case) but does not guarantee that multiple executions of a trigger function occur in event order.

Enabled Clusters

The names of one or more MongoDB Atlas clusters that the trigger function can access after an event causes it to fire. A trigger can interact with collections in a cluster if the cluster is listed in this field.

Select Linked Cluster

The name of the MongoDB Atlas cluster that the trigger applies to. The trigger listens for events in a collection within this cluster.

Database Name

The MongoDB database that contains the watched collection.

Collection Name

The name of the collection that the trigger watches for change events.

Operation Type

One or more database operation types that cause the trigger to fire.

Full Document

Default: Disabled. If enabled, indicates that UPDATE change events should include the most current majority-committed version of the modified document in the fullDocument field.

Note

This option only affects UPDATE change events. INSERT and REPLACE events always include the fullDocument field. DELETE events never include the fullDocument field. For more information, see the change events reference page.

Warning

Update operations executed from MongoDB Compass or the MongoDB Atlas UI fully replace the previous document. As a result, update operations from these clients will generate REPLACE change events rather than UPDATE events.

Full Document Before Change

(Beta) If enabled, change events include a document preimage, a copy of the modified document from immediately before MongoDB applied the change. You can access the document preimage from the fullDocumentBeforeChange field of UPDATE, REPLACE, and DELETE events.

Important

Collection-Level Preimage Settings

To include document preimages in change events, MongoDB stores the preimage for each change as part of the change's entry in the oplog. Depending on your use case, this additional preimage data may have negative performance implications and cause operations to fall off the oplog faster than they otherwise would.

MongoDB stores preimages for entire collections. Once preimages are enabled for any trigger on a given collection, you can enable preimages for other triggers on the same collection without additional overhead.

Once enabled, a collection's oplog entries continue to include preimage data even if no triggers actively use them. To stop including preimages in the oplog, you must explicitly disable preimages for the collection.

To learn more, see Collection-level Preimages in the MongoDB Realm documentation.

Function

A MongoDB Realm Function, written in JavaScript, that the trigger executes whenever it fires. The trigger passes the database event object that caused it to fire as the only argument to this function.

This Function exists in a shared MongoDB Realm app called Triggers_RealmApp, which Atlas automatically creates for you.

Note

Triggers created prior to 09 Jun 2020 use the name Triggers_StitchApp.

Tip

Database Change Events

Database change events represent individual changes in a specific collection of a MongoDB cluster.

Every database event has the same operation type and structure as the change event object that was emitted by the underlying change stream. Change events have the following operation types:

Operation Type	Represents
`INSERT`	A new document that was added to the collection.
`UPDATE`	A change to an existing document in the collection.
`REPLACE`	A new document that replaced a document in the collection.
`DELETE`	A document that was deleted from the collection.

Database change event objects have the following general form:

{
   _id : <ObjectId>,
   "operationType": <string>,
   "fullDocument": <document>,
   "ns": {
      "db" : <string>,
      "coll" : <string>
   },
   "documentKey": {
     "_id": <ObjectId>
   },
   "updateDescription": <document>,
   "clusterTime": <Timestamp>
}

Tip

Scheduled Trigger Configuration

Scheduled triggers have the following configuration parameters:

Field	Description
Trigger Type	The type of the trigger. Set to Scheduled to make a Scheduled trigger.
Name	The name of the trigger.
Enabled	Default: Enabled. A toggle that indicates whether or not the trigger is enabled. If enabled, the trigger will execute its associated function on schedule.
Schedule Type	Default: Basic. The schedule on which to run the trigger. In Basic mode, drop-downs control the trigger frequency. You can set the trigger to repeat by minutes, by hours, on a specific day of the week, or on a specific day of the month. The Next Events box shows a preview of when the trigger will run according to the dropdown settings. In Advanced mode, a CRON expression determines when to fire the trigger. The Next Events box shows a preview of when the trigger will run according to the CRON expression.
Enabled Clusters	The names of one or more MongoDB Atlas clusters that the trigger function can access after an event causes it to fire. A trigger can interact with collections in a cluster if the cluster is listed in this field.
Function	A MongoDB Realm Function, written in JavaScript, that the trigger executes whenever it fires. This Function exists in a shared MongoDB Realm app called Triggers_RealmApp, which Atlas automatically creates for you. Note Triggers created prior to 09 Jun 2020 use the name Triggers_StitchApp. Tip See also: MongoDB Realm Functions Provide Server-side Logic.

← Configure Database Triggers Send Trigger Events to AWS EventBridge →