Build Inbox automations using Workflows

Automate repetitive Inbox tasks – tag, assign, snooze, and route conversations using background Workflows.

Written By Markus from Featurebase

Last updated 1 day ago

Overview

Automate repetitive tasks in the Inbox using Workflows. Background Workflows can tag, assign, snooze, close, prioritize, and apply SLAs to conversations behind the scenes, with conditional logic to route the right cases to the right teammates.

A few common background Workflows to start with:

Create an inbox automation

To build an inbox automation:

  1. Go to Automations → Workflows

  2. Click + New workflow in the top right

  3. Pick a prebuilt template, or build from scratch by choosing a trigger

Common triggers for inbox automations:

  • Customer opens a new conversation in Messenger

  • When customer sends their first message

  • Customer sends any message

In the trigger settings, you can narrow when the Workflow runs. For example, only fire for users on the Enterprise plan with a monthly spend greater than 500:

Add workflow actions

Open the Workflow in the builder and click + Add step to add an action. Common background actions for inbox automations:

  • Tag conversation

  • Tag end user

  • Assign

  • Snooze

  • Wait

  • Mark as priority

  • Apply SLA

  • Add note

  • Close

  • Convert to ticket

Actions in a path run in order from top to bottom. You can also add Branches to route conversations down different paths, or Let Fibi answer to hand off to the AI agent.

Apply rules to an existing workflow

Instead of creating a separate Workflow for each condition, you can use the Apply rules action to evaluate conditions on a single path and run actions only for the cases that match.

The Apply rules action supports:

  • Assign to user/team

  • Tag person

  • Remove person tag

  • Tag conversation

  • Remove conversation tag

  • Set conversation attribute

  • Mark as priority

  • Apply SLA

Each rule has an IF condition and one or more THEN actions. The Workflow checks every rule in the block and runs the THEN actions for every rule whose condition matches – multiple rules can apply to the same conversation.

Use Branches instead if you want the Workflow to send a customer down a single path based on a condition. Branches follow only the first matching path; Apply rules runs all matching effects on the same path.

Example:

Workflow that routes new conversations to your Support team could include an Apply rules block:

  • If Plan is Pro → Apply SLA: Premium Support

  • If Message content contains "login" → Assign to Cross-Functional Support

How Workflow priorities work

When a conversation matches multiple Workflows, the Workflow type determines which runs:

  • Customer-facing Workflows - These contain actions a customer sees, like Message or Reply buttons.

    • Only one customer-facing Workflow runs per conversation

    • If multiple match, the first one in your Workflows list wins

    • Once one is running, no other customer-facing Workflow can take over

    • Drag and drop in the Workflows list to change which one takes precedence

  • Background Workflows - These contain only internal actions like Assign, Tag, Mark as priority, or Apply SLA.

    • All matching background Workflows run in parallel on the same conversation

    • There's no guarantee which order their actions resolve in

    • This is intentional – it's common to run several tagging or routing Workflows side by side

A conversation can match one customer-facing Workflow and several background Workflows at the same time.

For consistent assignments, put the Assign action inside the customer-facing Workflow that owns the conversation – background assignments can race each other.

For the full ordering rules, multi-customer context, and best practices, see Managing the order of your Workflows.

Examples

Use these as starting points for your own inbox automations.

SLA + assign for high-spend customers

  • Trigger: Customer opens a new conversation in Messenger

  • Audience: Plan is Enterprise, or monthly spend greater than 500

  • Actions: Apply SLA → Assign to your premium support team

Prioritize unanswered bug reports

  • Trigger: Teammate has been unresponsive for 15 minutes

  • Apply rules: Message content contains "bug", "error", or "broken"

  • Action: Mark as priority

Route by customer language

  • Trigger: Customer sends their first message

  • Audience rule: Browser locale is XYZ

  • Actions: Assign to a teammate/team who speaks that language → Tag conversation with the language

To only run this while your team is online, set the send time to During office hours in the trigger settings.

Assign by message keyword

  • Trigger: Customer sends any message

  • Audience rule: Message content contains "upgrade"

  • Actions: Assign to your Sales team

Snooze unresponsive customers

  • Trigger: Customer unresponsive (set the inactivity duration, e.g. 10min)

  • Audience rule: Customer is not a VIP (attribute or tag)

  • Actions: Snooze for 1 day

Set conversation data from keywords

  • Trigger: Customer sends any message

  • Audience rules: If Message content matches "urgent" or "blocked"

  • Actions: Set conversation attribute (e.g. urgency)

Route to live chat during office hours

  • Trigger: Customer opens a new conversation in Messenger

  • Audience rules: Conversation urgency is not Low (using CvDAs)

  • Send time: During office hours (set in trigger settings)

  • Actions: Assign to your live chat team