Overview

Routing Rules let you automatically route incoming conversations to the right team or agent based on conditions you define. Instead of manually assigning every conversation, rules handle the routing for you — ensuring faster response times and better team organization.

Routing rules are available on the Pro plan and above. Navigate to Automations → Routing Rules in your dashboard.

How Routing Rules Work

When a new conversation arrives, Bugalou checks your routing rules in order (by position). The first rule whose conditions match gets executed. If a rule has "Stop on match" enabled, no further rules are checked after that rule fires.

1. A new message arrives from a customer
2. Bugalou evaluates each routing rule in order
3. If all conditions of a rule match, the rule's actions are executed
4. If "Stop on match" is on, processing stops. Otherwise, the next rule is checked

Creating a Rule

Click "+ New Rule" to open the rule builder. Give your rule a name and optional description, then add conditions and actions.

Condition Types

Each rule can have one or more conditions. All conditions must match for the rule to fire.

Keyword

Match based on the message content. Choose a match type:

• Contains — message includes the keyword anywhere
• Equals — message is exactly the keyword
• Starts with — message begins with the keyword
• Ends with — message ends with the keyword
• Regex — match using a regular expression pattern

Time of Day

Route based on the hour the message arrives. Set a start hour and end hour (0–23), and optionally select specific days of the week (Mon–Sun).

Platform

Route based on the channel the message came from: WhatsApp, Email, Instagram, Messenger, Website Chat, or SMS.

Phone Number Pattern

Match the sender's phone number using a pattern. Useful for routing by country code (e.g., +31 for the Netherlands) or specific number ranges.

Contact Tag

Match conversations from contacts that have a specific tag. For example, route all "VIP" tagged contacts to a priority team.

Action Types

When conditions match, one or more actions are executed:

Assign to Team

Assign the conversation to a specific team. Select the team from the dropdown.

Round-Robin in Team

Assign the conversation to the next available member in a team using round-robin distribution. This ensures work is evenly distributed among team members.

Assign to User

Assign the conversation directly to a specific team member.

Set Priority

Set the conversation priority to low, normal, high, or urgent.

Add Label

Automatically add a label to the conversation for categorization and filtering.

Rule Order and "Stop on Match"

Rules are processed in the order they appear (position 1, 2, 3, …). You can drag and drop rules to reorder them. Enable "Stop on match" on a rule to prevent subsequent rules from being evaluated after this rule fires. This is useful when you want a specific rule to be the final decision.

Managing Rules

• Enable/Disable — toggle a rule on or off without deleting it
• Edit — click a rule to modify its conditions and actions
• Delete — permanently remove a rule
• Reorder — drag rules to change their evaluation order

Combining with Channel Defaults

Routing rules work alongside channel default teams. Each channel (WhatsApp, Email, Instagram, Messenger, Live Chat Widget, SMS) can have a default team set in its settings page. Routing rules can override the channel default if they match first. See Teams Management for details on channel default teams.

Plan Requirement

Routing rules require the Pro plan or higher. On the Starter plan, you can still use channel default teams for basic routing.