For any team, you'll often find repeatable administrative tasks that can be automated - like assigning a specific type of conversation to an in-house expert or tagging certain messages for tracking purposes. This is what Inbox Automation rules are for made for!
Rules can automatically:
- Tag conversations
- Tag contacts
- Close or snooze conversations
- Assign conversations to the right team or teammate
- Mark conversations as priority
- Reply to incoming conversations or add private notes
- Trigger a webhook
This article will help you understand how rules work. After reading, check out our guide to rule conditions and try to create a rule.
How it works
Inbox Automation rules allow you to automate a wide range of actions, so you can save time in the long run. Head to your Inbox and from the left sidebar, choose Inbox Automation, to create rules for your inbox.
Every rule needs three things:
1. Triggers (WHEN)
Triggers specify the types of events that will cause Gist to start evaluating the conditions of your rule and see if they are met.
2. Conditions (IF)
Filter conditions are the criteria that determine whether a rule will be actioned on. More on how to use and/or statements in your filters can be found in this article.
3. Actions (THEN)
Actions specify the actions that will result when the rule is processed successfully (when all filters are met). You have the option to check off Stop processing other rules to prevent the actions of the rule to trigger other rules.
Need some inspiration? Checkout our collection of most popular rules so far!
Ordering of rules
You are able to order your rules if you want certain ones to take priority over others. This means that the one ordered higher will have its actions take precedence, and the lower rule may only apply some of its actions so as not to conflict with the other. Time-based rules are special, in the sense that they will only be processed if the conditions are met at the designated time.
To prioritize your rules in the list, you can drag and drop them into your preferred order or, move them quickly to the top or bottom of the list from the dropdown on the right:
As you add more rules, you may want to view only a subset of them. To do this simply add filters to the list to show specific rules:
If a conversation doesn’t match any of your rules, it won’t be tagged, or marked as priority but it will be assigned to your default assignee, which you can select at the bottom of the rules list:
Option to stop processing other rules
If after a rule is processed, and you don't want other rules listed below to apply, check the Stop processing other rules box. When this option is checked, subsequent rules will be ignored even if they would apply to the conversation.
The exception to stop processing are time-based, or scheduled, rules. Rules with Unreplied after conditions are scheduled by time, and therefore are not taken into consideration as a rule to be stopped.
Need Help?
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