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How to trigger a Workflow

Choosing the right trigger to start your Workflow.

Beth-Ann Sher avatar
Written by Beth-Ann Sher
Updated over 2 months ago

Every Workflow in Intercom starts with a trigger. This table gives a description of each trigger and their common use cases so you can find the right one for your Workflow.

Trigger

How it works

Common use case

Automatically presents a bot workflow in the Messenger when a customer meets certain conditions i.e. time on page or visited URL.

Customer outreach, engagement and proactive support.

Automatically presents a bot workflow in the Messenger when a customer clicks on a button or other element.

Launch a workflow when a customer clicks a button (e.g. contact, get in touch button).

Automatically opens a bot workflow when a customer opens the Messenger, and before they start typing.

Reduce inbound volume, self-serve common queries, triage and capture information and route to teammates.

Trigger a workflow after a customer sends their first message for every new conversation. Audience targeting includes third-party channels.

Self-serve and take action on third-party channels including email and WhatsApp.

Workflow runs each time a customer sends any message, primarily designed to be non-customer facing.

Tagging, routing to teammates if bot message contains certain words.

Trigger a workflow when a customer calls your phone number associated with Intercom Phone.

Creating IVR flows and inbound call routing for Intercom Phone.

Teammate sends any message

Triggers every time a teammate replies during any inbound or outbound conversation.

Notes:

  • Only background actions are available under this trigger

  • Set ticket state action is not available under this trigger

  • Could trigger on all but one objects: conversation, convo/ticket and not on standalone ticket.

When a teammate responds to a conversation with the priority CvDA is set to high or urgent send a slack notification to the relevant thread.

Trigger automated bot messages and actions when a customer goes idle after a set period of time.

Teammate efficiency when you no longer need to manually check-in with customers who have not responded to a message.

Triggers when a teammate either closes, opens or snoozes a conversation.

Configure and send CSAT when conversation is closed. Send automated messages when conversations become snoozed or are closed.

Teammate changes the conversation assignment

Triggers when a teammate assigns the conversation to a team.

Notes:

Add a note or tag, apply a specific SLA or use AI summarize when a conversation is reassigned.

Teammate adds a note

Triggers when a note is added by a teammate.

Notes:

  • Only background actions are available under this trigger

  • Set ticket state action is not available under this trigger

  • Could trigger on all objects: conversation, convo/ticket, standalone ticket.

When a note is added to an escalation ticket send a slack notification to the relevant thread.

A ticket is created

Triggers when a new ticket is created.

Notes:

  • Only background actions are available under this trigger

  • Tag conversation, Apply SLA, and Set CDA actions will only work if the ticket acted upon was converted from a conversation

  • Tag conversation and Set CDA are not available on ticket triggers, but can be accessed through reusable bots.

  • Known limitation: While using the workflow trigger "ticket is created" the workflow will not trigger from tracker ticket creation.

1) When a support conversation is converted to an operational ticket send a notification to the responsible team Slack channel

2) When a frontline teammate convert the conversation to a specific ticket type, auto escalate to the responsible team (e.g change the team assigned)

3) When a new escalation ticket is created send a notification to the responsible team Slack channel.

Teammate changes the state of a ticket

Triggers when a ticket status is changed by a teammate.

Notes:

  • Only background actions are available under this trigger

  • Tag conversation, Apply SLA, and Set CDA actions will only work if the ticket acted upon was converted from a conversation

  • Tag conversation and Set CDA are not available on ticket triggers, but can be accessed through reusable bots.

Notify internal slack channel when ticket is closed.

Workflows without audience targeting that can be linked to from other bots, creating multiple modular workflows in one conversation.

Teammate efficiency when building and managing bots, minimizing the need to duplicate content across bots.

When using Custom Answers or the Suggest articles task bot with the Customer opens a new conversation in the Messenger trigger:

  • These will only kick in if the customer skips the quick-replies and chooses to start their conversation in the composer.

  • If the customer starts the Workflow path, Custom Answers or Suggest articles will not trigger for the conversation.


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