The Action step

A flow does not only send messages; behind the scenes it tags people, records what they said, and assigns the conversation to a colleague. The Action step is where all of that happens. This guide covers the step's place in a flow, the thirteen action kinds, why the order matters, and what the pre-publish check looks at here.

💡 The field-by-field setup of every action is covered in How the Action step works and in the articles split by subject. This article is about the step's behaviour inside the flow.

What it does

The Action step sends nothing to the person (with one near-exception: a team notification appears in the panel and never reaches the customer). Its work stays on the contact card, in the conversation, or on the comment under a post.

One step can hold several actions — at most 20. They are applied top to bottom, in order.

The step works on both channels; only the comment actions are Instagram-specific.

The thirteen action kinds

Tags — Tag actions

• Add tag — puts a tag on the contact.
• Remove tag — takes it off.

Fields — Field actions

• Write to a field — writes a value into a contact field (placeholders allowed).
• Increase/decrease a field — raises or lowers the number in a field. A value that cannot be read as a number counts as 0, so the first increase on an empty field gives 1.
• Clear a field — empties the field.

Conversation and team — Conversation and team actions

• Assign the conversation — assigns it to a team member, or removes the assignment.
• Conversation status — sets the conversation to Open or Closed.
• Hand over to a human — the automation stops in this conversation, the conversation opens, the team takes over.
• Notify the team — drops a notification in the panel. It never reaches the customer.