Rules for new email

Rules sort new email for you. When an email comes in that matches what you set, a rule can assign it to a teammate, add a tag, or set its status or priority. Owners and admins set them up in Settings > Company > Rules.

Make a rule

1. Click New rule and give it a name, like "Billing questions to Sam".
2. Add one or more conditions. A condition looks at:
   • From: the sender's email address or name. Use "contains @bigclient.com" for everyone at one company.
   • Subject, Message, or Subject or message: words in the email.
   • Mailbox: which of your mailboxes it arrived in.
3. Choose all of these (every condition has to match) or any of these (one is enough).
4. Add what happens: Assign to, Add tag, Set status to or Set priority to.
5. Leave Switched on ticked and click Save rule.

"Contains" matches any of the words or phrases you list, separated by commas, so "refund, money back, cancel my order" catches all three. Upper and lower case don't matter.

Good to know

• Rules only act on new email, never on conversations already in your inbox, imported history or conversations a teammate started.
• They run from top to bottom. If two rules set the same thing (for example, both assign), the lower one wins. Use the arrows to change the order.
• Switch a rule off to pause it without losing it. Each rule shows how many times it has run.
• Tags have to exist before a rule can add them (see Filters, bulk actions and tags).

Coming from another help desk

Importing from Help Scout, Zendesk or Freshdesk brings your workflows, triggers or automations over by name, switched off and marked To set up, because rules don't carry over one to one between help desks. Open each one in your old help desk, then click Edit on the matching rule here to add the same conditions and actions, and switch it on. Delete the ones you don't need.