Rule workflows

Workflows are strings of rules that help you to automate your business processes. With Front, you can automate processes within minutes by stringing together a series of rules that you can create from our library of ready-to-use rule templates, designed with your most common use cases in mind. 

We’ve made it easier than ever before to create robust, foolproof workflows by locking in how your rules are ordered too. This means you don’t need to worry about creating rules in the right order - we’ve done the hard work for you! Our rules are ordered to mimic the natural stages of a conversation life cycle. More on that below. 

Front rules run in specific order designed to mimic the natural life-cycle of a conversation which we define as 4 phases: Qualify, Route, Assign and Resolve. This means that all rules that fit in the “Qualify” phase will run first before the next phase (i.e. Route) will run.

Each rule that you create from a template automatically falls into one of these phases based on the category it belongs to. You will see these reflected in your rule list.

Workflows organize your rules into phases, and specific rule categories are automatically sorted into each stage. See this article to learn more about our prebuilt rule templates.

• Phases: determine the order of how your rules run 

• Categories: how we organize our templates based on the action a rule takes

Rules related to qualifying conversations like tagging and archiving will act first. Qualifying rules extract and share context from messages, helping you categorize, organize, and prioritize your conversations all in one place. Tags also power analytics and make searching for conversations easier.

Rule categories in the Qualifying stage:

• Tag conversation 

• Archive conversation

Rules related to routing conversations run after a conversation has been qualified. Routing rules ensure conversations are moved to the right inboxes so the appropriate teams can respond.

Rule categories in the Routing stage:

• Move conversation to inbox

Rules related to assigning conversations run after being routed to an inbox. Assignment rules ensure that each conversation is handled by the appropriate teammate.

Rule categories in the Assigning stage:

• Assign to teammate

Rules related to resolving and collaborating on a customer conversation like setting up customer response time SLAs, sending automated customer satisfaction surveys, and auto-replies will run last. Resolution rules help you automate tasks that help you to conclude a conversation.

Rule categories in the Resolving stage:

• Notify teammate

• SLA

• Customer satisfaction survey

• Automated reply

Step 1

Click the gear icon on the top right of Front and into the Company settings tab. Click Rules in the sidebar, then select the Template library tab

Step 2

To create a rule in the Qualifying phase, select the Tag or Archive category, look for a template that fits your needs, then click Create.

Step 3

Add a name for your rule, and edit the rule to fit your team’s needs. Learn more about using rule templates here.

Step 4

Click Create rule to finish. The rule will automatically be added to the Qualifying phase. You can add additional Qualifying rules if needed.

Now you’re ready to add a rule to the Routing phase.

Step 5

Click View routing templates to view the list of available templates.

Step 6

Follow Steps 2-4 for your routing rule, then continue then repeat the process for your Assigning and Resolving phases.

Step 7 (optional)

Once you’ve added all your rules, reorder any rules within each phase if needed. You now have a full process in place to triage your messages.

Please see our pricing page for more information on the rules included in each plan.