Create an Automation Rule in AIE

AI Email (AIE) automation rules (formerly called “workflows”) automate manual tasks that perform various actions triggered by a selected event for objects such as conversations, leads, accounts, or campaigns. This page describes how to set up an automation rule.

AIE provides a Pause account conversations rule that ensures conversations are appropriately managed and aligned with the latest information in the CRM (Salesforce or HubSpot); for example, when you want to pause ongoing AIE conversations when a specific field in the CRM changes. By default it is off. Refer to Pause Account Conversations Automation Rule.

Automation Rule Playbooks

When creating an automation rule, you can choose from three predefined playbooks:

1. Re-engage Contact in Other Campaign

Automatically re-enroll contacts from one campaign to another based on the last interaction date.
Use Case: Move inactive contacts from a completed campaign into a new one for continued engagement.

2. Create Human Review When a Keyword is Matched

Create a human review task when a keyword is detected in the reply email’s body.
Use Case: Route sensitive or high-value replies, for example, unsubscribe, pricing, speak to someone to a human for manual handling.

3. Cancel a Conversation When a Field Changes

Cancel an ongoing conversation if a contact or account field is updated.
Use Case: Stop outreach when a CRM field like Stage changes from “Prospect” to “Customer” or a custom field like Reached Out? = Yes.

Prerequisites

Before you set up an automation rule:

• If needed, create custom fields. Refer to Add Contact and Account Custom Fields in AIE.

• MAP fields to your CRM. Refer to:

  • Map AIE Contact and Account Fields to HubSpot Properties

  • Map AIE Contact and Account Fields to Salesforce Fields

Create an automation rule

This example shows how to create a cancel conversation rule and uses the Salesforce CRM. However, the basic steps apply to creating any automation rule.

To create a cancel conversation automation rule:

1. In AIE, go to Automation rules.

2. Select New automation rule. A popup opens that lists the available templates.

3. Select one of the available playbooks:

   1. Re-engage contact in other campaign

   2. Create human review when a keyword is matched

   3. Cancel a conversation when a field changes

4. Configure the rule by setting:

   1. Trigger (Examples: reply received, field update)

   2. Conditions (Examples: keywords, CRM field values)

   3. Action (Examples: send to human review, cancel conversation)

      For example, Select Cancel a conversation when a field changes. The rule settings page opens. Because it is a template, its when (sometimes called the “trigger”) and then settings are already in place.

      

5. (Optional) Select Edit (the pencil icon) to change the name of the rule to be something more specific to your organization.

6. In the when panel, select Campaign is All campaigns. A menu opens. By default this rule applies to all AIE campaigns.

   

7. (Optional) Check one or more particular AIE campaigns and select Done.

8. (Optional) In the if panel, add any conditions (filters) to narrow down the set of contacts affected by this rule.

   • Conditions include the CRM fields mapped to AIE and any custom fields. The specifications for the fields in this list are:

     • Supported field types for standard fields: string, boolean, text area, picklist, address, phone, email, url, date, date time, and reference.

     • The only supported field type for custom fields is string.

     • Multi-picklist and formula fields are not currently supported for either type of field.

   • Select a field. The field match logic menu opens.

     • Enter the field’s value and match logic. By default the logic for text fields is contains. For boolean fields it is true or false.

       

     • Select Done.
       

9. If needed, add additional conditions.

10. Select Save. AIE saves the rule and adds it to the All automation rules list.

Important: Saving the rule does not cause it to start running. See the next section for how to activate the rule.

In this example, the rule cancels conversations with a contact in all campaigns whose “Has conversation” field changes to true.

Activate an automation rule

When you save a new automation rule, AIE adds it to the All automation rules tab.

To activate an AIE automation rule:

1. Go to AIE > Automation rules > All automation rules.

2. Locate the rule in the list.

3. Change its toggle to On.

Edit an automation rule

To edit an AIE automation rule:

1. Go to AIE > Automation rules > All automation rules.

2. Locate the rule in the list and select the row. An edit button appears.

3. Select Edit.

Sequence automation rules

To reorder the sequence of how automation rules run:

1. Go to AIE > Automation rules > All automation rules.

2. Locate the rule in the list.

3. At its left side, select the dots and drag the rule to a new location in the list.

Delete an automation rule

To delete an AIE automation rule:

1. Go to AIE > Automation rules > All automation rules.

2. Locate the rule in the list and select the row. If your account has permissions to delete a rule, a delete button appears.

3. Select Delete.

Best practices

Using HubSpot Fields to Cancel Conversations
If you want to remove a contact from a 6sense AI Email campaign when they’ve been reached by other sales activities, you can use HubSpot fields such as:

• Stage

• A custom property like Reached Out? (Yes/No)

Then, create an automation rule in AI Email to cancel the conversation when:

• The contact moves from Stage 1 to Stage 2, or

• The Reached Out? field is marked as Yes.