Automation rules do routine work on conversations for you: they send a channel to the AI assistant, notify a team, tag, set priority or an SLA policy, reply or call a webhook. Each rule has conditions and actions and runs when a customer starts a conversation, when a conversation changes, or once an hour. Rules live under Admin > Productivity > Automations.
Who can manage rules
Creating and changing rules needs the Manage automations permission; the Admin role has it. Rules act on behalf of the platform itself, not of the agent who wrote them, so they work whatever the permissions of the agents in the conversation.
Rules a new platform already has
- One rule for each inbox the platform had at launch, on the New conversation tab, named after the inbox with → assistant at the end: when a conversation arrives in that inbox, the rule assigns it to the AI assistant. Switch the rule off to take the bot off the channel.
- Handoff to a team → notify the team on the Conversation update tab: when a conversation moves to a team, for example when the AI assistant hands it over, every member of that team gets a panel notification and an email «A conversation is waiting for an operator».
The names and descriptions of these rules are written in the platform language of the day they were created. You may rename, change or switch them off like any other rule.
Three kinds of rules
The page has a tab for each kind:
- New conversation: rules that run once when a customer starts a conversation. Conversations started by agents do not set them off.
- Conversation update: rules that run on the events you pick in Events: Agent assigned, Team assigned, Priority change, Status change, Outgoing message and Incoming message.
- Time triggers: rules that run once an hour and check every conversation created in the last 90 days.
Creating a rule
- Open the tab of the kind you need and press New rule.
- Give the rule a Name and, if you like, a Description. A new rule starts enabled; the Enabled box appears when you edit it later.
- Check the Type, and for Conversation update pick one or more Events.
- Under Match these rules, add conditions with Add condition.
- Under Perform these actions, add actions with Add action.
- Press Create. An enabled rule works at once.
Conditions
A rule has two groups of conditions. In each group you choose Match ANY below. (one condition is enough) or Match ALL below. (every condition must hold). Between the groups, AND means both groups must match and OR means one is enough. A group with no conditions is ignored, so most rules use only the first one.
Each condition is a field, an operator and a value. The operators are equals, not equals, set, not set, contains any of, contains none of, starts with, greater than and less than; the list offers only the ones that fit the field. For text fields such as Content and Subject you can tick Case sensitive match.
Fields you can test
| Rule type | Fields |
|---|---|
| New conversation | Email (the customer's address), To email address, Content, Subject, Status, Priority, Assign team, Assign agent, Inbox, Business hours |
| Conversation update | Status, Priority, Assign team, Assign agent, Hours since created, Hours since first reply, Hours since last reply, Hours since resolved, Hours since last resolved, Inbox, Business hours, Previous status, Previous priority, Previous assigned user, Previous assigned team |
| Time triggers | The same as Conversation update without the four Previous fields and Business hours |
In conditions, Assign team and Assign agent mean the team and the agent the conversation has now. The Previous fields hold the value before the change that set the rule off, for example to react when a status changes from one value to another. Hours since first reply and Hours since last reply count replies from your agents and the AI assistant; replies sent by rules do not count. Every rule type can also test your contact custom attributes, listed under Contact.
Business hours is Open (within business hours) or Closed (outside business hours) at the moment the rule runs. It uses the business hours and timezone of the conversation's team, or else those under Admin > Workspace > General; if neither has business hours, the condition never matches. For example, add Business hours, equals, Closed to the rule that sends an inbox to the assistant, and the bot takes new conversations only outside your working hours.
Actions
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Assign team | Gives the conversation to a team. When the team changes, the current agent is taken off it. |
| Assign agent | Gives the conversation to an agent or to an AI assistant. |
| Set status | Sets any status except Snoozed. |
| Set priority | Sets the priority. |
| Add private note | Adds a note only agents see. |
| Send reply | Sends a reply to the customer in the conversation's channel. |
| Send CSAT | Sends the satisfaction survey, once per conversation. |
| Set SLA | Applies an SLA policy. |
| Add tags, Set tags, Remove tags | Adds tags, replaces all tags, or removes tags. |
| Notify agents | Notifies the chosen recipients in the panel, by email and in the browser: Assignee, Assigned team, any team or any agent. A Subject and a Message are both required. |
| Snooze | Snoozes the conversation for a time such as 30m, 3h or 2h30m. |
| Trigger webhook | Calls one of your webhooks with an event name you choose, for example priority.escalated. See Webhooks. |
A rule may have several actions; they run in the order listed. In Send reply and Add private note you can use the expressions described in Email templates.
Order and execution mode
On the New conversation tab, once there is a rule, a selector above the list sets what happens when several rules match: Execute all matching rules or Execute first matching rule. Drag rules up and down to set their order. With the first option every matching rule runs; with the second only the highest one does, which lets a specific rule above a general one take priority.
Example: route a new channel to the assistant
A channel you add after launch has no rule yet, so the AI assistant does not answer there.
- Open the New conversation tab and press New rule.
- Name it, for example
Telegram to assistant. - Add the condition Inbox, equals, your new inbox.
- Add the action Assign agent and pick your AI assistant; it is listed next to the agents.
- Press Create.
More in Routing a new channel to the assistant.
Example: notify a team
This is how the built-in handoff rule works, and you can build similar ones:
- Open the Conversation update tab and press New rule.
- In Events pick Team assigned.
- Add the condition Assign team, set.
- Add the action Notify agents, recipients Assigned team, and write a Subject and a Message.
- Press Create.
In the subject and message you can write {{ .Conversation.ReferenceNumber }} and {{ .Conversation.Subject }}. The built-in rule uses dictionary entries instead of fixed text, so its email follows the platform language even after you change it.
Example: escalate a stale conversation
- Open the Time triggers tab and press New rule.
- Choose Match ALL below. and add Status equals Open, Hours since last reply greater than
24and Priority not equals High. - Add the actions Set priority High and Notify agents with recipient Assignee, a Subject and a Message.
- Press Create.
The Priority condition matters: after the first run the conversation is High, so the rule stops matching and the agent is notified once, not every hour.
Things to know
- A time rule checks matching conversations every hour and remembers nothing between runs. Add a condition that your action changes, as in the example above, or the action repeats each hour.
- Changes made by a rule's actions do not set off Conversation update rules.
- Send CSAT goes out once per conversation, however many rules ask for it.
- Each rule can be switched off and on again from the list without deleting it.