Chat rules and routing
Who answers which conversation, and when a thread stops waiting for the bot. Routing is what stops an inbox of fifty threads becoming one person’s problem.
Automation Hub holds routing — which agent or queue a conversation goes to, and the conditions that escalate it out of the bot. A smart rules engine for broader condition-and-action automation is available on workspaces where it is enabled.
Before you start
- WhatsApp connected, so there are real conversations to route.
- Team members invited, if you want to route to named agents — see Settings.
Routing
Routing decides where a conversation lands once it needs a human. Without it every thread sits in one shared queue and gets picked up by whoever happens to look, which is how conversations go unanswered on a busy day.
- Assignment
- Gives a conversation an owner, so it leaves the unowned queue and appears under that agent’s filter in Live Chat.
- Escalation
- Takes a thread out of automation and puts it in front of a human — triggered by an intent, a keyword, or a customer asking for a person.
- Queues
- Group conversations so a team rather than an individual owns them, which survives one person being on leave.
The smart rules engine
Where enabled, a second tab adds condition-and-action rules across conversations — tagging, assigning or escalating based on what a thread contains. If your Automation Hub shows only Routing, the rules engine is not switched on for your workspace yet.
What belongs where
| You want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Answer a predictable question automatically | Flow Builder |
| Recognise a question phrased many ways | AI brain intents |
| Decide which agent handles a thread | Routing, here |
| Message a customer because of a Shopify event | Journeys |
| Send a one-off promotion | Campaigns |
- Live Chat — Where routed threads arrive.
- Inbox and handover — Working the queue.
- Chat rules feature page — What it looks like in the product.
Frequently asked questions
Why does my Automation Hub only show a Routing tab?
The smart rules engine is rolled out per workspace. If only Routing appears, the rules tab is not enabled for you yet — routing, assignment and escalation all still work, and anything more complex can be handled with a condition node in Flow Builder.
Updated 2026-10-04