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Automations

Rules that act on conversations without a person: greet, route, tag, ask, wait, raise a ticket, hand to the AI. Built on a canvas, one trigger each.

Overview

An automation is a graph: one trigger at the top, then any number of condition and action nodes joined by edges. When the trigger fires for a conversation, Sellio walks the graph from the top, evaluating each condition and running each action in order. Rules live under Automations in the sidebar; each one has a name, an on/off switch and a run history.

Two nodes can pause a run: Wait parks it for a number of minutes and Ask and wait for an answer parks it until the visitor replies. Parked runs are resumed by the scheduler, so a wait of two hours survives a deploy in between.

Build a rule

  1. 1
    Open Automations and click New rule, or start from a template (below) and edit it.
  2. 2
    Pick the trigger. There is exactly one per rule; a second event needs a second rule.
  3. 3
    Add a condition if the rule should only run sometimes: on a keyword, a channel, outside office hours. Conditions branch, so a rule can do one thing when the test passes and another when it fails.
  4. 4
    Add actions. Drag them onto the canvas and connect them in the order they should run. Each action has a small form: the message to send, the tag to add, the teammate to assign.
  5. 5
    Save, then switch the rule on. A draft (a trigger with nothing connected) is kept but never runs.
  6. 6
    Watch the run history on the rule's page after the first few conversations; it shows which branch each run took.
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Every action that speaks to the visitor is marked as customer-facing in the builder. A rule that ends by sending a message and then closing the conversation reads oddly to the visitor; put the close on the branch where nobody is waiting for a reply.

Triggers

The events a rule can start on. One per rule.

When a customer opens a new conversation
Runs once, on their first message. The usual start for greetings, lead capture and routing.
When a customer sends a message
Runs on every message they send. Pair it with a condition on the message text, or it fires on all of them.
When a teammate sends a message
Runs when someone on your team replies. Useful for notes, tags and closing after a reply.
When a conversation is assigned
Runs as it lands with a teammate, whether by hand, by round-robin or by an earlier rule.
When a conversation is closed
Runs once it is marked resolved. The natural place to ask for a rating.
When a teammate adds a note
Internal notes only, not replies.
When a customer goes quiet
Checked every 15 minutes; fires after 30 minutes of silence from the customer while the conversation is open.
When a teammate goes quiet
Fires when a customer has been left waiting for a reply, so the conversation can be flagged, reassigned or answered by the AI.
When a customer visits a page
Only while they have a conversation open; the page URL is available to a condition.
When a ticket is raised
Runs on tickets linked to a conversation.
When a ticket changes state
Runs on an actual transition (open to in progress, solved, and so on), not on a re-save.

Conditions

What a condition node can test. A failing test follows the rule’s other branch, or ends the run when there is none.

Message
The text of the message that triggered the rule: contains, equals, and so on.
Channel
Where the conversation came from: website, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram, email.
Subject
The email subject or the ticket subject, when there is one.
Office hours
Inside or outside the workspace's business hours, from Settings, then Office hours.
Page
The URL the visitor is on, for the page-visited trigger.

Actions

What a rule can do. Actions run in the order they are connected.

Send a message
Reply to the visitor automatically with the text you write.
Ask with buttons
Ask a question with up to three answers; the branch the visitor taps is the branch the rule continues on.
Ask and wait for an answer
Ask in their own words and pause until they reply; the answer can be saved onto a contact field.
Say when we will reply
Tells the visitor when to expect an answer, read from your office hours, so it cannot go stale.
Let the AI answer
Hand the reply to your active AI agent. Website chat only.
Ask for a rating
Send the star-rating card; the result feeds CSAT in analytics.
Assign to a teammate
Route the conversation to a named teammate.
Add a tag
Label the conversation for filtering later.
Remove a tag
Take a label off the conversation.
Tag the contact
Label the person rather than the chat; the tag shows in Contacts.
Set a contact field
Write a value onto the contact's record, where the details sheet shows it.
Add an internal note
Leave a note for your team on the conversation.
Set priority
Low, normal, high or urgent.
Snooze the conversation
Park the conversation out of the open views for a while.
Wait
Pause for a number of minutes, then carry on. Parked steps are resumed by the scheduler, so a wait survives a restart.
Raise a ticket
Turn the conversation into tracked work with a subject.
Set the ticket state
Move the conversation's ticket to a state.
Close the conversation
Resolve it without a reply.

Templates

The builder ships 14 rules you can start from and change. Each is a complete graph with its messages written; most teams keep three or four running.

  • Let the AI answer first
  • Triage issues to teams
  • Tag conversations containing keywords
  • Ask for a rating when a chat closes
  • Reply outside office hours
  • Chase stale conversations
  • Flag customers left waiting
  • Collect details from leads
  • Note every assignment
  • Raise a ticket for bug reports
  • Ask for a rating when a ticket is solved
  • Flag new tickets for triage
  • Notice visitors on your pricing page
  • Answer frequent questions

Where rules run

Triggers that start from a customer’s message (a new conversation, a message received, a page visited) fire on website chat only. A WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram or email message does not start a rule today, and neither does the AI reply on those channels. Triggers that start from your team’s side (assignment, a note, closing, tickets) fire whatever the channel.

The Let the AI answer action needs an active AI agent; see AI agents. Rules that send a rating card feed the CSAT figures in Analytics.

Updated . Something wrong or missing? Tell us.