Automations and proactive messages

Automations let Sela do routine work for you without the AI: assign a new conversation, tag it, notify a teammate, create a work item or call your own system when something happens. This page covers the Automation hub, the rule builder, the built-in automations, scheduled messages, and the state of proactive messages.

Open the Automation hub#

Open Automation in the left rail, then Automation. You need the automations read permission to see the hub. Agents can read it but cannot change it. Managing automations needs the automations manage permission, which managers, admins and owners have.

The hub has four tabs:

If a banner says Automated sending is paused, the workspace-wide outbound pause is on and no automated message is going out until it is turned off.

Plans and limits#

The hub opens on every plan, so an Inbox workspace can still control the built-in automations. Building and enabling custom workflows needs the Operations plan or higher. On a workspace without that access you see "Deterministic automations require Operations or Scale".

Each purchased branch brings the full allowance, pooled across the business account. Prices and add-ons, including the 5,000-run pack, are on Plans and billing.

What counts as a run. A run is counted just before the first action of a rule that has at least one action. Internal retries do not count again; a replay you start yourself does.

What happens at the limit. Usage warns at 80 percent, is still allowed up to 110 percent, and is blocked at 110 percent. A blocked run fails without executing any action. There are no automatic overage invoices. Buy a run pack or upgrade to continue.

Per rule, the builder allows up to 20 conditions, 20 actions and 10 branches, and a workspace can hold up to 200 rules.

Start from a template#

Templates are the fastest way to a working rule. Open the Templates tab, pick one, fill the setup form (message text, team, delay, and so on), optionally limit it to certain channels, and create it. The result appears under Workflows as a draft.

The templates are grouped into four categories:

Two situations disable a template card:

• It needs an automation plan and the workspace does not have one (shown as a plan requirement).
• Its trigger has no live emitter yet (shown as unavailable). See triggers below.

Build a workflow#

In Workflows, create a new rule. The builder is a graph: a trigger, then conditions, then actions, with branches when you need different outcomes. Besides the actions below, the graph has message and menu steps for sending a reply or a chat menu to the customer.

1. Choose the trigger event.
2. Add conditions, for example channel, priority or tags.
3. Add actions in order.
4. Save. The rule is a draft. It will not run until you explicitly enable it.
5. Enable it from the rule list.

After a rule runs you can open its run history, see failures in the failure queue and Replay a failed run. Archiving a rule stops it but keeps its history. If a rule takes over a built-in surface, the matching built-in is locked so the two do not both send.

Triggers#

The full vocabulary has 23 events. Only the events below are emitted by the platform today, so these are what a workspace can build against.

These events exist in the contract but currently have no emitter, so a rule listening for them will never fire: conversation.resolved, conversation.assigned, tool.completed, customer.stage_changed, task.due, appointment.upcoming, payment.failed, whatsapp_flow.submitted and whatsapp_flow.failed. The builder and template list only offer live triggers.

Actions#

Call your own system with execute webhook#

The execute webhook action delivers the trigger payload, signed, to one chosen endpoint. The endpoint must be created first and subscribed to the event that fires the rule, otherwise the delivery fails with "endpoint no longer subscribed to this event". Webhooks need the Scale plan. Payload format, signing and retries are on Webhooks.

Built-in automations#

The Built-in tab lists automations you switch on without building anything.

Out-of-hours reply. Under Business hours you set the timezone, open hours per day and an away message in English and Arabic. Choose how often it repeats (every message, hourly, every 4 hours, every 12 hours or daily), limit it to channels, and optionally suppress the AI reply while you are closed.

Social follow-up. For WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Telegram you can send an inactivity nudge after a delay, auto-close after a further delay, and send a message after close. The page counts scheduled, sent, closed and skipped items. It respects the 24-hour Meta reply window, so a nudge that would fall outside the window is not sent as free-form text. This needs an automation plan.

Scheduled messages#

To send a reply later, use Send later in the composer: in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or a date and time you pick.

• Earliest 30 seconds from now, latest 30 days ahead.
• Up to 50 active scheduled messages per conversation, 16,000 characters each.
• You can cancel a scheduled message before it goes out.
• A message that could not be sent shows "Scheduled message wasn't sent" with a Dismiss button.

Forms can also be scheduled, up to 7 days ahead. See Inbox and conversations for the composer.

Proactive messages#

The dashboard still contains a Proactive messages page where you can author rules with triggers such as page visit, time on page, scroll depth, exit intent, returning visitor, cart abandonment and schedule, plus delay, URL pattern, maximum shows and cooldown hours.

Campaigns and WhatsApp marketing#

Bulk marketing messages are not part of the Automation hub. WhatsApp templates, the 24-hour window and the messaging wallet are covered on WhatsApp. A separate WhatsApp marketing module appears in the sidebar only for workspaces linked to Arqam.

Examples#

Route new WhatsApp chats to a team. Template: route by channel. Trigger conversation.created, condition channel is WhatsApp, action assign_operator or team assignment.

Tag and notify on escalation. Trigger conversation.escalated, actions add_tag (for example "needs-human") and send_notification to the team lead.

Send paid orders to your fulfilment system. Trigger payment.confirmed, action execute_webhook to your endpoint, and verify the signature on your side.

Create a task when an approval is decided. Trigger approval.decided, action create_ops_item on the relevant board.

Troubleshooting#