Automations that run after a wait

Until now, an automation rule ran the moment something happened. That covers routing and tagging well, but a lot of support work depends on what didn't happen: the customer never replied, nobody on the team picked the conversation up, or a conversation sat in Pending for most of a day. Teams handled these by watching the clock or building workarounds outside Chatwoot. Automation rules can now wait before they act.

Choose what to wait for

When you create a rule, there is a new choice under When should this rule run?: Run instantly, which is how rules have always worked, or Run after a wait.

A rule that waits starts from one of three wait conditions:

• Conversation stays in a status: for example, still Pending four hours after it moved there.
• Customer hasn't replied: the customer has gone quiet after your last message.
• No teammate has replied: a customer is waiting and nobody on the team has answered.

Set the wait anywhere between 10 minutes and 30 days. When the time is up, Chatwoot checks whether things are still the same. If they changed, say the customer wrote back or someone resolved the conversation, the rule is skipped. Nobody gets a follow-up for something that was already handled.

Here is a rule that checks in with customers who have gone quiet for a day. If the customer replies first, nothing is sent, and the next reply from your team starts the clock again.

The clock starts on new activity. A rule you save today starts timing conversations from their next status change or message. Conversations already sitting in that state get picked up the next time something happens on them.

Narrow it down with conditions

A rule that waits can also be limited to a specific inbox or status. When the wait ends, Chatwoot checks every condition again and runs the actions only if all of them still match.

The rule below escalates support chats that nobody has answered within 30 minutes, but only in the Support inbox and only while the conversation is still open.

Find rules that wait

Automation settings now have two tabs, Runs instantly and Runs after a wait. Each rule that waits shows how long it waits next to its name.

To set one up, go to Settings → Automation → Create Automation and choose Run after a wait.

Send transcripts to the contact

The Send an Email Transcript action now has a Use contact's email button. A rule or macro can send the transcript to the conversation's contact instead of a fixed address. Combined with a wait, you can send customers a copy of the conversation an hour after it is resolved.