Getting started · Lesson 7 of 8
Auto-assign chats across your team
Sharing out by hand works until things get busy. Bugalou can do it for you in three ways, and you can combine them. In this lesson you choose what suits your team.
12 minAvailable from Pro
What you'll learn
- The difference between the three ways to share out
- Switch on auto-assign
- Create a routing rule with round robin
- Keep conversations from being left behind
Step by step
- 1
Choose the way that suits your team
Auto-assign gives each new conversation to the available colleague with the fewest open conversations; that's the simplest start. Routing rules go by content or origin and can share out in turn within a team. Default assignment per channel sends each channel to a person or team. A small team often has enough with the first.
- 2
Switch on auto-assign
Go to Settings › Workspace settings › Preferences and, under Conversation Settings, switch on Auto-assign conversations. From now on, the available colleague with the fewest open conversations gets each new conversation. Conversations already assigned to someone stay with them.
- 3
Agree how you use your status
Click your avatar at the bottom left and choose Away when you're out for a bit or on holiday. Anyone set to Away or offline gets no new conversations, not through round robin either. If you forget, you get conversations while you're gone. So agree that everyone keeps their status up to date, especially before lunch or a day off.
- 4
Create a routing rule with round robin
Go to Routing rules and click + New Rule. Name the rule, choose Keyword as the condition, for example, and enter the words separated by a vertical bar, like appointment|reschedule|cancel. Choose Round-robin in team as the action, select the team and click Create Rule. Messages with those words now go in turn to the members of that team.
- 5
Set a default per channel
At the top of Routing rules, under Default assignment per channel, choose a user or team per channel and click Save. If auto-assign is also on, the least busy colleague in that team gets the conversation. So WhatsApp messages can go to Support and emails to Administration, for example.
- 6
Test every rule
Send a message with the keyword from your own phone or email address and see in the inbox who gets it. Rules run from top to bottom, and you set the order yourself. Put a specific rule above a general one. A new rule has Stop on match on, so later rules are then no longer applied.
Common mistakes
Everyone is set to Away
If nobody is available, the conversation is assigned to nobody. It stays under Unassigned, or with the team. So check there during quiet hours too, and certainly after a weekend.
A team without members
Round robin can only share out among active members of a team. Check under Team settings that everyone is in it, and that the invitation was really accepted.
Keywords that are too broad
A keyword like question matches almost every message, so everything goes to one team. Choose words that really say something, and check after a week whether the split is right.
Tips
- Customers from Germany to your German-speaking colleague? Use the Phone number pattern condition with the country code.
- With Time of day you send evening or weekend conversations to another team.
- With Enterprise, the AI category (description) condition recognises what a message is about, such as a complaint.
- On Starter you can still choose a team or colleague per WhatsApp number under Settings › Workspace settings › WhatsApp.
You're done when
- Auto-assign conversations is on, or you deliberately chose routing
- Everyone knows how the Away status works
- Every rule is tested with a real message
- Someone checks Unassigned every day
Frequently asked questions
What is round robin?
Conversations go in turn to the members of a team. Anyone set to Away or offline is skipped that round.
How is it different from auto-assign?
Auto-assign looks at who has the fewest open conversations. Round robin looks at whose turn it is, however busy that colleague is.
Which plan includes automatic assignment?
Auto-assign and routing rules are part of Pro and Enterprise. The AI category condition needs Enterprise.