Automations

Run follow-up actions automatically when things happen in your agent, such as notifying your team or sending a webhook event when a lead is captured.

Automations let your agent react to events on its own. When something happens, like a new conversation starting or a visitor leaving their contact details, an automation can run follow-up actions for you: notify your team in the dashboard, or send the event to one of your webhook endpoints.

Automations only run while the integration is turned on. While it is off, nothing runs and nothing is queued for later.

What an automation can do

React to events. Automations can start when a new conversation begins, when a lead is captured, or when a visitor asks to talk to a human. A new conversation event carries the messages that started it, both the visitor's first message and your agent's first reply, so your conditions and messages can use them.
Check conditions first. An automation can look at the event before acting, for example only continue when the lead includes an email address.
Wait before continuing. A Wait step pauses the automation for a number of minutes, hours, or days (up to 7 days) before running the next step, for example to send a follow-up email an hour after a handoff request.
Run actions. Notify your team in the dashboard notification center (optionally also by email or WhatsApp), send an email or a WhatsApp message to any address or number you choose, post a message to your connected Slack workspace, or deliver the event to an active webhook endpoint you configured under Integrations → Webhooks.

Personalize messages with fields

Every text field in a notification or send step can include placeholders like {{email}} or {{name}}. When the automation runs, each placeholder is replaced with the matching value from the event that triggered it, so a captured lead's email can become the recipient of a follow-up email, and a handoff request's message can appear inside a Slack alert. The step settings show the fields the chosen trigger provides right under the message box; click one to copy it, then paste it where you want it to appear. A placeholder whose field is missing from the event is replaced with nothing.

For a Notify the team step you can also leave the message empty: the notification then includes a summary of the event on its own, for example the visitor's first message and your agent's first reply for a new conversation, or the contact details for a captured lead.

Send steps

Three actions send messages outside the dashboard:

Send an email delivers to any address you enter, including a placeholder like {{email}} to email the visitor from the event.
Send a WhatsApp message delivers to a phone number you enter (including the country code), sent from the WhatsApp number connected to this agent. You can choose an approved WhatsApp template from the dropdown or click New to draft and submit a template directly to Meta for review; when a template is selected, it delivers at any time without being restricted by WhatsApp's 24-hour reply window.
Send a Slack message posts to your connected Slack workspace, either to a channel you name in the step or to the default channel from your Slack integration settings.

Because these steps message real people, a send that fails is not retried automatically; the run's Runs page shows the failure so you can fix the step and rely on the next event.

Notification channels

A Notify the team step always posts to the dashboard notification center. In the step settings you can additionally send the same notification by:

Email, delivered to the email address of the account that owns the agent.
WhatsApp, delivered to a phone number you enter (including the country code), sent from the WhatsApp number connected to this agent under Integrations → WhatsApp.

You can pick either channel or both. The WhatsApp option needs two things to deliver: the agent must have a connected WhatsApp integration, and WhatsApp only accepts plain messages to a number that messaged your connected WhatsApp number within the last 24 hours. Send any message from the receiving phone to your connected number to open that window.

Each event runs an automation at most once, so a repeated or retried event never produces duplicate notifications or deliveries. If an action fails temporarily, for example the receiving service is briefly down, the automation retries on its own for a while before giving up.

Turn Automations on

Open the integration

In your dashboard, open Integrations → Automations for the agent you want to automate.

Enable the toggle

Switch Enable Automations on. From this moment, new events are matched against your automations.

Open the builder

Once the toggle is on, an Automations page appears in your agent's sidebar. Open it to create and manage automations.

Build an automation

Start from a template

On the Automations page, click New automation and pick a template, for example getting notified about new leads. The template opens in the visual builder as a draft.

Adjust the steps

Click any step on the canvas to edit it in the panel on the right: change the trigger, edit the condition, pick which webhook receives the event, or change the notification text. When editing a condition, the field box suggests the fields the chosen trigger provides.

Use the toolbar to add more conditions and actions. Drag steps anywhere to arrange them; your layout is saved with the automation, and the Tidy layout button re-arranges everything automatically. To connect two steps, drag from the dot at the bottom of one step to the top of another. To remove a connection, click it and press Delete or use the small × button that appears.

Save and turn it on

Click Save, then Turn on. The automation runs the next time its trigger happens. A draft automation never runs, so you can safely edit without affecting live behavior.

Each agent can have up to 20 automations, and each automation can hold up to 25 steps.

Keyboard shortcuts

The builder supports the shortcuts you would expect from a visual editor:

Ctrl+Z (or Cmd+Z on Mac) undoes your last change, and Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y redoes it.
Ctrl+S (or Cmd+S) saves the automation.
Delete or Backspace removes the selected step or connection.
Escape clears the current selection.

If you try to close the page with unsaved changes, the builder asks for confirmation first, so an accidental tab close never loses your work.

See what ran

Every automation has a Runs page showing its most recent runs: when each run happened, whether it completed, and what each step did. Failed runs show the reason, and runs that are still retrying or paused at a Wait step show as waiting. Run history is kept for 30 days.

Turning it off stops everything immediately

When you switch Automations off, all automations stop right away. Events that happen while the toggle is off are skipped permanently; they are not delivered later when you turn it back on. Runs that were paused at a Wait step also stop instead of resuming.

Troubleshooting

An automation did not run

Check that the Enable Automations toggle is on for the right agent. The event must happen while the toggle is on; events from before you enabled it are not processed retroactively. Also confirm the automation itself is turned on: a draft automation never runs. The automation's Runs page shows whether it fired at all.

I cannot save or turn on my automation

The builder lists everything that needs fixing in the issues panel above the canvas, for example a step that is not connected to the rest of the automation, a condition without a value, or a webhook action without a chosen webhook. Steps with a problem are also marked directly on the canvas. Click an issue in the list to jump to the affected step, fix it, and the Save and Turn on buttons become available again.

I cannot draw a connection between two steps

The builder only allows connections that can actually run: a step cannot connect to itself, nothing can connect back into the trigger, and a connection that would send the automation around in a circle is rejected while you drag. Connect steps so they flow from the trigger down to your actions.

I deleted a step or connection by accident

Press Ctrl+Z (or Cmd+Z on Mac) to undo. The builder keeps a history of your recent changes while the editor is open, so you can undo and redo freely before saving.

The sidebar entry only appears while the Automations integration is turned on under Integrations → Automations. Turn the toggle on and the page appears.

A webhook action stopped delivering

Webhook actions only deliver to endpoints that are still active under Integrations → Webhooks. If the endpoint was paused or deleted, the action stops permanently for new events until you re-activate the endpoint or point the automation at another one.

A team notification never showed up

Notifications respect your notification preferences. If you muted the Automations category in your notification settings, the action still counts as completed but you will not see the message. Unmute the category to see future notifications.

The email copy of a notification did not arrive

Email delivery goes to the email address of the account that owns the agent. Check your spam folder first, and confirm the address on your account is correct under your account settings. The dashboard notification is still delivered even when the email cannot be sent.

The WhatsApp copy of a notification did not arrive

Three things need to be true for WhatsApp delivery: the agent has a connected WhatsApp integration under Integrations → WhatsApp, the number in the step settings includes the country code, and the receiving phone messaged your connected WhatsApp number within the last 24 hours. WhatsApp rejects plain messages outside that 24-hour window, so send any message from the receiving phone to your connected number and the next notification will come through. The dashboard notification is still delivered even when the WhatsApp message cannot be sent.

A send email or send WhatsApp step failed and did not retry

Steps that message people directly are never retried automatically, so a temporary hiccup cannot accidentally message someone twice. The Runs page shows why the send failed: a recipient placeholder that was empty for this event, an address that is not a valid email, a phone number without a country code, or a WhatsApp message outside the 24-hour reply window. Fix the step and the next event will send normally. For WhatsApp messages that must deliver outside the 24-hour window, enter the name of an approved template in the step settings.

A Slack message was not posted

The Send a Slack message step needs a connected Slack workspace under Integrations → Slack. If the step names a channel, your Slack app must be invited to that channel; if it does not, the message goes to the default channel from your Slack integration settings, so make sure one is chosen there. If Slack was disconnected or the authorization expired, reconnect it and the next event will post normally.

A run has been waiting for a long time

A run paused at a Wait step shows as waiting until the wait is over, which can be up to 7 days. If the automation is turned off, archived, or moved back to draft while a run is waiting, the run stops instead of resuming, and the Runs page shows why.

The same event seemed to happen twice

Automations deduplicate per event: one new conversation or one captured lead runs each automation at most once, even if the page was refreshed or the form was submitted again with the same details.