Automatic reply and acknowledgement of receipt
In short: The separate Automatic replies page has gone. You now create a fixed email straight after a customer message, such as an acknowledgement of receipt or a message outside opening hours, as a workflow with the Message to the customer step. aishaa has converted the automatic replies you had set up into a workflow itself, with the same texts and conditions.
Where to find this
Go to Account > Workflows. There you find your organisation’s workflows, including the workflow aishaa made from your old automatic replies.
Who: from the Organisation admin role.
If you still have a bookmark to the old Automatic replies page, you see the message This is a workflow now there, with the explanation Classification rules, automatic acknowledgements and triage rules became your own workflows: aishaa moved what you had set up into them, with the same labels, texts and routes. In a workflow you see what happened per message and you change it yourself. The Go to workflows button takes you to the list of workflows.
The This is a workflow now message that appears at the old address of Automatic replies, with the Go to workflows button.
What aishaa made of your old automatic replies
aishaa converted your organisation’s active automatic replies once. Inactive replies were not moved.
| Your old setting | Where you find it now |
|---|---|
| Active replies For all classifications | The Acknowledgement workflow. It starts at Message read, for email only (Channel is Email). For each old reply there is a Condition followed by a Message to the customer step set to Send at once. The replies are in your old order; only the first one whose conditions match is sent. |
| Only for new tickets | The condition New conversation is true. |
| Opening hours: Within opening hours or Outside opening hours | The condition Within opening hours is true, or is not true. |
| Mark ticket as answered | After the message, an Update conversation step that sets the status to Answered. |
| Replies for Specific classifications | In the Sorter workflow, on the route of the classification rule the reply belonged to. |
| Attachments to a reply | Not moved. A Message to the customer step only sends text. The description of the workflow states which reply had attachments. |
The Acknowledgement workflow has the description Made by aishaa from your earlier settings: it does what they did, now as a workflow you can change yourself. You change it like any other workflow. How that works is explained in Create, test and publish a workflow.
The Acknowledgement workflow in the editor under Account > Workflows, with the trigger Message read, the condition Channel is Email and a Message to the customer step set to Send at once.
Creating an acknowledgement of receipt yourself
Did you not have an automatic reply yet, or do you want another one? Then create a workflow:
- Go to Account > Workflows and click New workflow.
- Under When, choose the event Message read. That is the moment aishaa has read a customer message.
- Under Only if, add the conditions you want, for example Channel is Email, New conversation is true, or Within opening hours is not true for a message outside opening hours.
- Add a Message to the customer step and write the text under Message.
- Under How, choose Send at once if the message should go out without a colleague stepping in. If you choose A colleague reads and sends it, the message is first ready as a proposal.
- If you want the ticket to be Answered afterwards, add an Update conversation step that sets the status.
- Try out the workflow and publish it.
The fields of Message read and the possible conditions are listed in Triggers and events. You find more examples in Workflow recipes.
How an acknowledgement of receipt goes out
- A message from a workflow set to Send at once goes out in the channel of the conversation, in the name of the organisation. Below it is the signature from Signature for automatic messages (under Organisation > General), not a colleague’s signature.
- With A colleague reads and sends it, the colleague sends the message, with their own signature.
- A message from a workflow is not a reply. It does not change the status of the ticket and does not count as answered. If you do want that, add the Update conversation step.
- The acknowledgement of receipt is separate from the reply the agent writes. The Acknowledgement workflow is therefore set to May write next to an answer: aishaa then does not tell the colleague who sends the reply that the customer has already received a message from this workflow.
Good to know
- A Message to the customer step cannot send attachments.
- A buyer on a marketplace (such as bol.com or eBay) never receives a message without a colleague. An acknowledgement of receipt set to Send at once is refused there. See Messages from marketplaces.
- An email that an incoming email rule closes automatically is not read. A workflow that starts at Message read then does not start. See Incoming email rules.
- The old address of Automatic replies shows the message This is a workflow now. Update your bookmarks to Account > Workflows.
- Your old classification rules and triage rules have been converted in the same way, into the Sorter and Routing workflows. See What are workflows.