How to create time-based rules
Overview
Time-based rules so you can stand behind your commitments to your customers. If you guarantee that you will always reply within a certain time frame, Front can give you a warning as that time approaches.
Time-based rules are Advanced rule conditions part of the Pro plan.
Creating a time-based rule
Step 1
Go into your Settings, select Rules, and Add a team rule.
Step 2
Add your conditions (more information about the fundamental of rules can be found in the Understanding rules article). Front supports two time-based conditions:
- Unreplied after - will trigger if there is no reply to a message after a given delay. This condition will trigger for both inbound and outbound messages depending on the condition selected.
- Unassigned after - will trigger if you receive a message and the conversation is still unassigned after a given delay.
When a time-based rule is triggered, i.e. a WHEN condition is matched, the rule is immediately scheduled. When the timer completes, the rule will evaluate the rest of the rule conditions according to the current conversation and determine whether to execute the actions of that rule.
Step 3
Click Save to save your rule.
Ways to leverage a time-based rule
SLA escalations with move / notify / tag
Time-based rules are notably used to manage company SLAs. With Front rules, there are many ways for you to keep on top of these SLAs. Here are our recommendations:
Move conversations to an escalation inbox - By creating an additional inbox with no connected channels, you can create clear escalation paths and educate your team to prioritize conversations as they become more urgent.
Notify the team and manager - With the notify rule action, you can select key members of a team who should always be kept in the loop as SLAs approach.
Tag the conversation for long-term tracking - You should track conversations at your SLA markers to better identify trends and team performance.
Note: Actions from an asynchronous, or time-based rule will not be used to trigger other rules.
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can i explicitly set timezone for my rules ?
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Can we apply rule with old Email that already be in the Inbox?
or the rule will only active with new incoming Email? -
Thongtod Linthong (Leo) Rules don't work retroactively at this time.
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Cori Morris Thank You for your reply
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I use front for sms & mms messages. Can I use a rule that an unreplied message can be replied to automatically at a certain time?
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Jessica Diaz Hi there, yes, you can create a rule that looks something like this:
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Cori Morris Yay! It worked. Thanks!
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I'm trying to create a kind of specific rule. Our automated texts and emails are sent out to customers a few times a week. Generally the customer don't reply to them but the outbound tickets are left open in our box. Is there a way to set a rule for the ticket to be resolved if there is no customer response?
I originally thought it was to set it to outbound message, body contains "XYZ", unreplied after "x". This page seems to indicate that the rule would close out the ticket if we don't respond and would do it again if the customer responds and we don't respond in time. Or does the body portion of the rule only apply to the newest message in the thread? -
Andrew Bristow Can you share what you're current rule looks like?
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Cori Morris
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Andrew Bristow How are you sending these automated messages? Via our API? Could you send over a Conversation ID for one of these conversations?
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Cori Morris my head of ops said that they are being sent from a database. cnv_kpmi1d is an example
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Andrew Bristow Ok, then you'll need to change the trigger to inbound instead of outbound.
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Cori Morris it actually may be the API, cnv_ku4edt
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Andrew Bristow Can you tell me the name of this rule?
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I use Front App for SMS primarily and in conjunction with Agile/Zapier, etc. I want to create a rule that automated texts don't send between certain hours (I'm noticing texts going out at like 6am, etc)... is this possible with this Rule?
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Emily Cabral Hi there,
There's no way for Front to tell Agile when not to send these automated texts. Maybe there's a way to set this up differently in Agile?
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Cori Morris If I make an after hours rule from 5pm-9am. will it be an error because of the 24 hour period or will that work for auto replies during after hours?
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Ben Leon Hi there! As long as you aren't using a "Day is" condition as well, then it should work as expected from 5pm-9am.
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Cori Morris so this wouldn't work? Would I have to make a rule for each day?
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Ben Leon That will trigger Saturday until 9am. When the end time is "less than" the start time, we add a day.
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Hello Cori, In your example above that I copied here, if the inbound message comes in at 4:45pm will the timer stop at 6:30pm an resume at 9:30am?
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Hi,
I'm trying to create a rule where as long as it is in an inbox there is a re-occuring message to the customers every 6 hours. Basically we are using an inbox as our level 2 support and want to let the customer know we are still working on their issue.
The problem is all the time based rules are based on the customer replying. Is there away to do this with Inbox and Rules so that a message goes out every 6 hours regardless if it is replied to or not?
