Agent procedures

A procedure is a step-by-step playbook the agent follows for one kind of request, such as a cancellation, a refund or an escalation rule. You write the steps as you would brief a new teammate, add if/then branches, and name the tool a step should call. The agent follows the published version in order, one step at a time.

Create a procedure

1. Open Custom Actions and click New procedure

   Procedures are listed in the Procedures section of that page.

2. Name it and describe the trigger

   Name (up to 60 characters) and When should the agent run it? (up to 500). The agent compares each request with the trigger: "A customer wants to cancel or pause their subscription."

3. Write the steps

   Up to 15 steps of up to 1,000 characters, in order: "Ask which subscription they mean and why they want to cancel." The arrows reorder steps; the bin removes one.

4. Name a tool for a step (optional)

   Then call picks the tool a step uses: No tool, the built-in tools (Hand over to a human, Mark the conversation resolved, Collect contact details), your custom actions and your data forms.

5. Add branches (optional)

   Add branch adds an If condition and a then instruction: "If the order is older than 30 days then explain the refund window has passed". Up to 5 branches per step. The optional Else says what to do when no branch applies.

6. Save draft or Save & publish

   Save draft stores your work without the agent seeing it. Save & publish makes it live straight away.

Draft and published

The agent only ever reads the published version. Each procedure card shows where it stands:

Unpublish takes the procedure away from the agent and keeps the draft.

Use what you know about the visitor

Steps, branches and Else can include these placeholders, filled in when the agent fetches the steps.

Attributes include those your site sent with its identity token and, when the visitor's email is proven, those stored on their contact, such as answers a data form saved there. A value that is not known is replaced with an instruction to ask the visitor, so Confirm the refund goes to {{visitor.email}}. reaches the agent with the address in place or with a request to ask for it.

How the agent follows a procedure

The agent's instructions list the name and trigger of every published procedure. When a visitor's request matches a trigger, the agent fetches that procedure's steps before it answers, then:

• works through the steps in order, one at a time, asking the questions a step needs;
• takes the branch whose condition holds, or the Else instruction when none does;
• does not skip or reorder steps, and does not improvise an outcome the steps do not allow;
• treats the procedure as finished only when its last step is done.

Steps that name a tool

Calling the tool is the step: the agent calls it in the turn it reaches that step, without asking the visitor first.

• Custom action: the agent collects the action's inputs and calls it, as described in Custom actions.
• Data form: the agent asks for the form's fields and submits it. Once the form is saved, it calls the tool of the next step, if that step names one, before it writes to the visitor.
• Hand over to a human: the business has already decided, so the agent hands over rather than offering to. It never tells the visitor that a person will take over unless it has actually handed over in that turn.
• Mark the conversation resolved and Collect contact details work the same way. The agent has the contact tool only while lead capture is on with When the agent needs a follow-up or Before handing off to the team, or while nobody can reply live and the visitor's email is unknown. Otherwise, use a data form with an Email field.

If a step cannot be completed, the agent says so and hands over to a human. If the custom action or data form a step names has been deleted or switched off, the agent tells the visitor it will pass the request on, and hands over.

Each time the agent fetches a procedure it counts in the Action calls card on Analytics as a built-in action, for example Procedure: Cancel a subscription.

Example

A refund procedure with the trigger "A customer asks for a refund or reports a damaged delivery":

1. Ask for the order number and what went wrong. Then call: the "Refund request" data form.
2. Check the order. Then call: your "Look up order" custom action.
   • If the order is older than 30 days, then explain the refund window has passed.
   • Else, confirm the request is saved and the team will review it.
3. Pass the conversation to the team. Then call: Hand over to a human.

Test a procedure

Send a matching message in the Test the agent drawer, or save an agent test that must call Procedure: Cancel a subscription. Both use only published procedures, and custom actions named in a step run for real.

Limits

• 30 procedures per workspace.
• 15 steps per procedure and 5 branches per step.
• Name 60 characters, trigger 500, step 1,000, each branch condition, branch instruction and Else 400.
• Procedures are available on every plan.

Common errors