Reference
Chat rules and routing
Who answers which conversation, and when a thread stops waiting for the bot. Routing stops an inbox of fifty threads becoming one person’s problem.
Short answer
Automation Hub holds Routing: which agent or queue a conversation goes to, and the conditions that escalate it out of the bot. A smart rules engine for broader condition-and-action automation is available on workspaces where it’s enabled.
Before you start
- WhatsApp connected, so there are real conversations to route.
- Team members invited, if you want to route to named agents — see Settings.
Routing#
Routing decides where a conversation lands once it needs a human.
Without it, every thread sits in one shared queue and waits for whoever looks. On a busy day, that’s how conversations go unanswered.
- Assignment
- Gives a conversation an owner, so it leaves the unowned queue and appears under that agent’s filter in Live Chat.
- Escalation
- Takes a thread out of automation and puts it in front of a human. It’s triggered by an intent, a keyword, or a customer asking for a person.
- Queues
- Groups conversations so a team owns them, not one person. That way nothing stalls when someone is on leave.
The smart rules engine#
Where enabled, a second tab adds condition-and-action rules: tag, assign or escalate based on what a thread contains.
Only see Routing? The rules engine isn’t switched on for your workspace yet.
What belongs where#
| You want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Answer a predictable question automatically | Flow Builder |
| Recognise a question phrased many ways | AI brain intents |
| Decide which agent handles a thread | Routing, here |
| Message a customer because of a Shopify event | Journeys |
| Send a one-off promotion | Campaigns |
Frequently asked questions
- Why does my Automation Hub only show a Routing tab?
- The smart rules engine is rolled out per workspace. If only Routing appears, the rules tab is not enabled for you yet — routing, assignment and escalation all still work, and anything more complex can be handled with a condition node in Flow Builder.