Each action consists of an API call which you can configure behind the scenes. Fin will automatically choose when to use it and deliver a personalized answer to the customer.

You can connect any system which has an API; that might be your unique internal backend tool you have built for your business, or a third party app you're using like Shopify, Salesforce, Stripe, Jira, and more.

Navigate to Fin AI Agent > Overview > Add data & actions.

Here, you’ll see which actions Fin is using. To edit or manage those actions, click Manage all which will take you to the actions page in settings.

If you have one of the supported apps installed, you’ll see a template for this app listed under Add actions. We currently support templates for Shopify, Stripe, and Statuspage (more on that below).

You’ll also see AI generated action suggestions based on your conversation history.

Action templates are available when the following apps are installed in your workspace:

If the app is not already installed, go to the App Store to install. Once the app is installed, action templates for each app will appear as an action ready to set live.

When you click on a template, you’ll see some information about what the action does and you can test it in the Messenger preview. If you’re happy with the action behavior, just select Set live for AI Agent.

If you want to configure the action you can click on Customize, which will take you to the action builder for advanced configuration.

If you don’t have one of our supported apps installed, the apps will appear here for you to install them on your workspace. After installation, the relevant action templates will appear in the section above.

In Fin AI Agent > Overview > Add data & actions you’ll see your unique AI recommended actions. These are generated based on your conversation history to help you identify potential actions, see what percentage of conversation volume they could resolve, and preview them in the Messenger, before setting anything up.

For AI recommendations to appear, Fin needs to be live on your workspace and you must have sufficient conversation volume.

When you click on an AI recommended action, you’ll find information about what the action does and you can preview it in the Messenger (using example data). AI recommended actions are merely suggestions based on your conversation volume, but they require an API to be connected manually in order to work.

To set the action live, click Set up to configure the API details in the action builder.

Now all you need to do is connect the action to your API by adding the HTTPS URL.

To further customize this action, see the custom action section below. 👇

To set up a custom action for Fin, navigate to Fin AI Agent > Overview > Add data & actions and click New custom action.

First, provide a short name to describe what this action does such as “Get unpaid account balance”. This will help Fin know when to use it.

Then select AI Agent from the "Usage" dropdown to make sure Fin AI Agent can access this action when a customer asks a matching question.

Next, provide a detailed description explaining when Fin should use this action. Include examples of the data this action provides and customer queries it helps answer.

For example:

Use this action to retrieve recent transactions for a customer. This action provides key information such as… Example customer queries include…

You can customize who this action is available for by clicking Add audience rule. This way, you can set up an action to be used when, for example, a logged in user with a verified email asks about their account balance.

If you want to test the action before enabling it for customers, use the audience rules to enable the action just for you or your teammates initially.

Click Next when done which will bring you to the API connection section.

If you want, you can specify if Fin should collect any data before using this action. This can be helpful in cases where you need to make sure data exists before the action is run. For example, you might want to ask the customer for their account number if this is not stored on their user profile in Intercom.

To collect data inputs, click on + Add data input and pick the format of the data that should be collected (text, number, decimal number, or true/false) and give it a name and description so Fin knows how to collect it.

Next, you must specify the HTTPS URL of your API along with the type of request to be made (GET, POST).

You also need to make sure to specify the correct authentication token and to specify correct headers (for example: Accept: application/json or Content-Type: application/json).

Once done, click on Next to proceed to the next step where you can test your action.

You’ll need to test this action to make sure it’s fetching the right data from the API you’re connecting to. You can test your action using two methods:

If everything is looking good, click on Next to set up your response mapping.

When creating custom actions for Fin, there is no need to map response data to Intercom attributes or objects. Instead, Fin directly interprets the JSON response and can then use it to resolve questions. The response is generated based on the ‘Test response’ section. Each line item corresponds to a data point in the JSON response.

By default, Fin can access the full response data to generate replies. Select Restricted data access if you wish to limit the data Fin can read. Check the data fields you want to give Fin access to.

You can also edit the individual data items by clicking on the edit icon to give your response data a customer facing name as well as specify any transformations to the data.

For example, if the API response returns a balance of 0, instead of Fin stating the unpaid balance is 0, it can reply stating that there is currently no unpaid balance remaining.

Then click Set live and that’s it, Fin’s ready to use your custom action. 🎉

To preview your live actions, go to Fin AI Agent > Overview > Add data & actions and use the Messenger preview on the right.

The 'Preview Answer' feature is not available unless either 'Live response' or an 'Example response' has been generated in the Test response section.

Once enabled, the preview will have access to:

We recommend using audience rules to roll out actions in phases to your customer base. This enables you to validate the performance of the action and make tweaks/changes where necessary.

To find existing actions, navigate to Fin AI Agent > Overview > Add data & actions. The number of actions that are currently live is shown in the list AI agent is using.

Go to the Help Desk conversation and select Show conversation events. Events will show if Fin has access to the action and if the action is successfully triggered.

Inbox views can be created with the attribute “Fin AI Agent: Action used in reply”. This attribute is set if Fin calls an action and uses some or all of the response in an answer.

For troubleshooting purposes, all response data generated by custom actions triggered by Fin is recorded for up to 7 days. You can access these logs under the Action > Logs tab.

You can view response data based on what kind of data Fin has access to.