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Trigger types reference

Every event Atender can trigger an automation on, grouped by the type of context it gives the rule (conversation, tag, Issue, case, SLA, schedule, business hours).

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Trigger types reference

Every automation has exactly one trigger: the When part of the rule. The trigger names the event in plain words, and sets the type of context the rest of the rule works with — a conversation event gives you the conversation, contact, channel, and message; a schedule event gives you no entity context at all.

This reference lists every trigger Atender supports, grouped by event type. In the When picker you can search by plain words, such as “reply” or “new conversation”.

Conversation events

  • A new conversation starts — A new conversation is opened on any channel
  • A conversation’s status changes — Conversation moves between statuses — active, snoozed, done, archived
  • A conversation is marked done — A conversation is marked Done
  • A done conversation is opened again — A Done conversation goes back to Active
  • A conversation is archived — A conversation is archived
  • A conversation’s agent or team changes — An agent or team is set or reassigned on a conversation
  • A conversation field changes — A conversation custom-field value changes after creation
  • A conversation has no activity for a while — No message for the idle time you set on the trigger — any message, agent replies only, or customer messages only
  • A caller hangs up in the phone menu — A voice call exits while still in the IVR, before reaching a queue or agent

Sidekick detections at creation time are covered by A new conversation starts. Use A conversation field changes for later changes to conversation custom-field values.

Message events

  • A customer sends a message — A new inbound message arrives on a conversation
  • A reply is sent to the customer — An outbound message is sent on a conversation
  • A customer’s first message in a conversation — The first inbound message on a conversation arrives

Tag events

  • A tag is added — Any tag — or one of the tags you pick in The tag is any of — is applied to a conversation
  • A tag is removed — A tag — or one of the tags you pick in The tag is any of — is removed

The tag is any of sits directly under the trigger. Pick one or more tags, or none to run the rule for every tag. It shows only while the rule has a single branch; with more branches, use the Tag added or Tag removed condition in the branch instead.

Contact and customer tier events

  • A new contact is created — A new contact is created
  • A contact’s details are saved — A contact’s details change
  • A customer’s tier changes — Contact’s customer tier changes (e.g. promoted to VIP)
  • A customer gets a tier for the first time — A contact gets a customer tier for the first time
  • A customer’s tier is removed — A contact’s customer tier is removed

Comment and side conversation events

  • An internal note is added — An internal note is added to a conversation
  • Someone is @mentioned in a note — An internal note @-mentions a user
  • A side conversation starts — A side conversation is started
  • A side conversation gets a message — A message is added to a side conversation

Issue events

  • An Issue is created — A new Issue is filed
  • An Issue changes — Something on an Issue changes — for example its title, description, type, priority, status, assignee, labels, linked conversations or comments. A change made by an automation rule does not start it
  • An Issue’s status changes — An Issue’s status actually changes

All three Issue triggers fire once for each linked conversation/reporter, so ordinary conversation actions can notify each reporter in their own thread. An Issue is created and An Issue changes also fire once with no conversation when the Issue has no linked conversation. The trigger context includes the Issue number, title, status, previous status, type, and priority.

The Issue triggers offer the Issue actions, such as Change Issue status. Conversation triggers offer them too, through the conversation’s linked Issues: the rule runs once per linked Issue. Run by hand does not. See the Actions catalogue.

Incident events

  • An incident or planned maintenance is created — A status-page incident is created, or a maintenance window is planned
  • An incident changes or gets an update — An incident changes status or gets a new update
  • An incident is resolved or a maintenance is completed — An incident is resolved, or a maintenance window is completed

These three triggers fire for both kinds; a rule that only wants one filters on incident.kind.

  • A trend spike is found — Trends detects a meaningful spike for a tag, a topic, or overall volume

Trends triggers are only visible when the tenant has the trends beta flag enabled.

Case events

  • A case is created — A case is created
  • A case moves to another stage — A case moves to a different workflow stage
  • A case is assigned — A case’s assigned agent or team changes
  • A case is closed — A case’s lifecycle status flips to closed
  • A case’s workflow changes — A case is moved onto a different workflow
  • Someone is @mentioned in a case — A case comment @-mentions one or more users

SLA events

  • An SLA is about to be breached — A target is approaching its deadline (configurable lead time)
  • An SLA is breached — A target’s deadline has passed without being met

There is no trigger for a target being met before breach.

Schedule events

Cron-style time-based triggers. Useful for nightly cleanup, weekly digests, recurring outbound batches.

  • On a schedule — “Every weekday at 09:00”, “Every day at 02:00”, “First of the month at 06:00”

A schedule trigger carries no conversation, contact or message context — when its cron time matches, the rule’s action sequence runs once, and no conversation conditions are offered for it.

Business hours events

  • Opening hours start — The transition from outside-hours to inside-hours, per the opening hours for the workspace
  • Opening hours end — The transition from inside-hours to outside-hours

Manual

  • Run by hand — Never on its own — the rule runs on demand from the Manual executions tab against existing conversations

Picking the right trigger

The most frequent mistake is to pick A new conversation starts when you want A customer sends a message. The first runs only once for each conversation. The second runs on each customer message. If your automation must react to the ongoing conversation (tag by content, escalate on a keyword), use A customer sends a message.

For routing calls that end in the phone menu, use A caller hangs up in the phone menu. It runs after the call left the phone menu before it reached a queue or agent, so it is the correct trigger for rules such as assigning these conversations to a phone team. Do not use A new conversation starts for these rules — when the conversation starts, the queue state is not final yet.

For after-hours auto-replies, use A customer sends a message with Only during opening hours turned on in More options and Run set to Outside opening hours, not the Opening hours end trigger. That trigger runs only at the moment you close, not on each message that arrives while you are closed.

See also

Tags

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