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Omnichannel support for Workflows
Omnichannel support for Workflows

How to trigger inbound workflows over WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Email and SMS.

Beth-Ann Sher avatar
Written by Beth-Ann Sher
Updated over 3 months ago

Create inbound workflows over a broader range of channels, increasing the coverage of your automations in order to deflect, triage and route inbound conversations more efficiently, while providing your customers with support on the channels they use day-to-day.


Get started

You can create your workflow using any trigger, except:

  • Customer visits a page

  • Customer clicks a website element

  • Customer opens a new conversation in the Messenger

  • Reusable workflow

Channel selection

From the trigger settings, you’ll be able to select the channels you would like this workflow to apply to. When your customers send you a message on these channels, this workflow will trigger if they meet the criteria you specify in the Audience section.

Note:

  • You’ll need to be integrated to the channels you want to use.

  • To use Workflows for mobile, you’ll need to upgrade to the latest iOS and Android SDKs.

  • Learn more about channel compatibility.

Creating workflows over email

Selecting Email as a channel will allow you to send an auto reply if a customer sends their first message over email. You can also tag, assign, let Fin answer, and route these messages, as well as showing reply time expectations.

To get the most out of this trigger, we recommend creating a separate workflow solely for email, as functionality is limited on this channel. By selecting Email alongside other channels, the paths and follow up actions available to you will be limited to those available over email.

By default, successive workflow and automation messages would be sent as one single consolidated email to the end user.

Email predicates

There are three email-specific predicates you can use when configuring audience targeting:

  • Email Recipient: use this predicate if you want to target any email address(es) users add to the "To" or "Cc" fields

  • Email To: for targeting email addresses users add only to the “To” field

  • Email Cc: for targeting email addresses users add only to the “Cc” field

This will ensure that your automations only trigger in the intended scenarios.

You can also use the predicates to create branches within workflows to trigger conditional logic.

When your support team has been cc’d to an email, you can enable Fin to reply to these emails by using "Email cc" in the audience targeting (you can also instruct Fin to wait for some time before replying to give your teammates a chance to reply first).

For greater flexibility, use the “Email to” predicate if you would like to create different auto-reply messages (and other steps and actions) depending on the email address a user sends their message to.

If you have set up an email auto reply in Settings > Channels > Email > Customization for the same target audience as your new omnichannel workflow, the message and actions created on the workflow will override the message in your settings.

If a customer has replied to the same email within 2 minutes, workflows are designed not to trigger. This is to prevent potential loops with auto-replies or similar automated email responses.

So if a workflow triggered on a customer's email and the customer sends another email within a 2-minute window, the workflow will not run again.


Channel compatibility

The table below highlights which actions are compatible with each available channel.

Key

🟢 = fully supported

🟡 = functionality supported, but there may be visual differences between channels

🟠 = partially supported (functionality is partially affected)

🔴 = not supported

Content

Web

iOS

Andr

WA

FB

IG

TW

SMS

Email

Write a message

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

↳ Rich text

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟢

↳ Add emoji

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

↳ GIF

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟠

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟠

🟢

↳ Articles

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟡

↳ Image

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟠

🟢

↳ Attachment

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟢

↳ Product tours

🟢

🔴

🔴

🔴

🔴

🔴

🔴

🔴

🔴

Collect customer data

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟡

🔴

↳ Allow customer to update data

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟡

🟡

🔴

Expected reply time

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Pass to reusable workflow

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Custom Action (using API)

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Send an app

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

Pause for customer to reply

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Reply buttons

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟡

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🔴

↳Start over button

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟡

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🔴

↳ Save reply to attribute

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🔴

Condition

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Data selection buttons

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟡

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🔴

Note:

  • Send an app opens a URL in a new tab (webpage) on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, email, and SMS.

  • For Facebook and Instagram integrations, reply buttons cannot be clicked on by the user, they show as numbers and the user must reply with that number to continue the Workflow. If the customer replies with something other than the number, the reply buttons will be repeated.

  • For WhatsApp, interactive buttons and menus are available for up to 10 reply buttons.

    • We send buttons for up to 3 options.

    • Lists/menus for up 4-10 options.

    • Numbered lists fallbacks for 11+ options.

Actions

Web

iOS

Andr

WA

FB

IG

TW

SMS

Email

Tag conversation

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Tag person

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Assign conversation

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Send Ticket

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🟠

🔴

Disable customer reply

🟢

🟢

🟢

🔴

🔴

🔴

🔴

🔴

🔴

Close conversation

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Conversation Data

Web

iOS

Andr

WA

FB

IG

TW

SMS

Email

Set OrderID

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Set CurrentOrder

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Set Issue Type

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Set Product Area

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Set Urgency

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Integration actions

Web

iOS

Andr

WA

FB

IG

TW

SMS

Email

Create lead in Salesforce

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Create case in Salesforce

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Create contact in Hubspot

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

🟢

Current known limitations

  • We currently do not support "channel-branching" - ie. having different paths depending on the user channel.

  • We currently do not support channel specific preview of your workflow.


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