SemAgentAutomations
In the panel, Assistant › Automations gathers what happens on its own in one place: your own answer for certain words (auto-reply) and the handoff rules that pass a conversation to your team.
Until 30 October 2026 these two settings lived in different places: auto-reply in Widget Settings, handoff rules on each widget's own page. Your rules moved as they were; the collapsed In what order do these run? box at the top of the screen shows which one runs first.
The order when a message arrives
- Blocked visitors and the spam filter (Inbox settings) run before everything else.
- Handoff rule: a matching Straight to a person rule passes the conversation to your team; keyword, page and incoming channel rules are checked before the AI.
- Auto-reply: if a word matches, your answer is sent.
- The AI answers everything else.
The order is the same in the chat bubble, email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram. A topic you hand to your team never gets an auto-reply. If the customer explicitly asks for a person or presses Talk to a person in the bubble, the conversation goes to the team regardless of the rules (Human handoff).
Auto-reply
When your chosen words appear, your own answer is sent without the AI running at all. No credits are used and the reply is instant. The switch on the right of the card starts off; while it's off, the AI answers messages (handoff rules still run).
- Rule: with Add rule you fill in When these words appear (words separated by commas, e.g. “opening hours, what time do you open, hours”) and Send this reply. Up to 20 rules, up to 20 words per rule. A rule isn't saved until it has a word of at least three letters and an answer; an incomplete rule shows a note saying so. Each rule has its own On / Off button and a delete button. With no rules yet the card says “No rules yet. Add one for a question you keep getting.”
- Matching: words are matched from the start of a word and suffixed forms count too (refund → refunds, refunded); three letters or fewer match only as a whole word. Case and Turkish characters don't matter.
- Once: the same rule runs only once per conversation. If the customer asks again they got the answer and did not understand it, and repeating the same text would trap them in a loop. Auto-reply never runs on a conversation an agent has taken over.
- In the conversation: the reply it sends is labelled Auto-reply; reports don't count it as an AI answer.
Changes on the card are saved with the save bar at the bottom of the page: “N unsaved changes · Discard · Save” appears, and the panel asks before you leave without saving.
Handoff rules
They decide which conversations go straight to your team and who gets them. Each chat bubble has its own rules: the card lists the Knowledge assistant and the Store assistant one below the other, and the Chat bubble page link next to each heading opens that bubble's settings. If your plan has no such bubble, or your role can't see its settings, that list isn't shown. Every change in these lists (adding, editing, turning on or off, deleting a rule) is saved right away.
Rules work alongside the AI's instructions; they are tried top to bottom and the first match wins. A list holds up to 20 rules (the counter shows “N/20 rules”). Add rule opens the rule window; Example rules adds examples you can edit (on the knowledge assistant “Contracts and billing”, “Legal matters”, “Contact page”; on the store assistant “Damaged item, lost parcel”, “Chargeback”, “Large order”). Each rule in the list shows its name, kind, effect (Straight to a person or Assigns only), the team or person it assigns to and its condition.
Handoff rules and automatic assignment are on the Pro and Enterprise plans; on other plans the list is visible but can't be edited, with a note above it and See plans. Basic handoff (Talk to a person, the offer card, working hours) works on every plan.
Rule types
In the rule window you give a Rule name (your agent sees it on the handoff card; e.g. Payment dispute) and choose When:
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| The message contains these words (Keyword) | Up to 10 words separated by commas; case and Turkish characters don't matter, and inflected forms are caught too. Checked before the AI: if the rule is Straight to a person, the AI isn't called at all (it can't make up an answer and uses no credits). |
| The topic is this (the AI recognises it) (Topic) | Describe the topic in a few words (up to 160 characters; e.g. damaged or wrong item, lost parcel). The rule is added to the AI's instructions; if the AI recognises the topic it passes the visitor to your team without answering. A topic rule always passes to a person. |
| The visitor is on this page (Page) | One address or path per line (e.g. /pricing), up to 5; sub-pages are included, and the whole home page can't be a rule. Checked before the AI. |
| The order total is at least (Order total) | Store assistant only. It applies once the visitor verifies the order with order number + email; the amount is in your store's currency. When the total reaches the threshold and the rule is Straight to a person, the AI's answer stays and the conversation is handed to the team. |
| If it arrived on this channel (inbox routing) (Incoming channel) | Looks at the channel the conversation came from, not at what the message says: Incoming channel rule. |
Incoming channel rule
Other rules look at what the message says; this one looks at where the conversation came from, so it applies on the very first message. You pick one or more of the Channels buttons: Widget, Email, WhatsApp, Instagram, Telegram. “Widget” means the chat bubble of the list you save the rule in (the knowledge assistant or the store assistant); for email, WhatsApp, Instagram and Telegram it doesn't matter which list you save it in: it applies to every conversation from that channel.
With Email selected, a Mailbox (optional) field appears: the rule matches only mail sent to this address (e.g. [email protected]); leave it empty to match every conversation that arrives by email. This rule's real job is assignment, so Pass to a person right away starts off; turn it on and conversations from that channel never reach the AI — they go straight to your team.
Pass to a person right away, or only assign
The Pass to a person right away box in the rule window sets the rule's effect:
- On (Straight to a person in the list): the AI doesn't answer this topic; the visitor sees your team's promise and the conversation goes to the team.
- Off (Assigns only in the list): the rule only assigns; it decides who gets the conversation when it is handed off for another reason.
For a topic rule the box is always on; for an incoming channel rule it starts off.
Assign to
In Assign to you pick a team or a person; the default is No assignment (shared inbox). The assigned team or person shows next to the rule in the list as “→ name”. You define teams, and where a conversation goes when no rule matches, under Team › Teams & routing; the link at the bottom of the card goes there.
Proactive messages
Proactive messages, which pop up next to the bubble while a visitor waits on a page, also run by themselves, but their settings live in the chat bubble: Channels › Chat bubble › Behavior. Rules, conditions, the cart condition and the example rule for cart abandoners: Chat bubble › Proactive messages.
Who can change it?
Anyone whose role has view or edit on the Widget settings row opens the page. Changing auto-reply and the knowledge assistant's handoff rules needs edit on the Knowledge assistant row; changing the store assistant's handoff rules needs edit on the Store assistant row (Users & roles). By default the account owner and Admins make changes; the Editor and the Support agent can read but not change, and the fields show locked for them; a Member doesn't see the page.