Velaro Routing and Rules Guide

What are rules?

Rules automatically route incoming conversations to the right team, bot, or workflow based on conditions you define. Rules run when a new conversation arrives, before any agent sees it.

Creating a rule

1. Go to Rules in the sidebar.

2. Click New Rule.

3. Add one or more conditions (IF).

4. Add one or more actions (THEN).

5. Set the rule priority (lower number = higher priority, runs first).

6. Click Save and Activate.

Rule conditions

You can match on:

• Channel: web chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, etc.
• Time of day / day of week: business hours, after hours, weekends
• Contact attribute: any custom field (e.g. accountTier equals Enterprise)
• Conversation attribute: topic, language, page URL the chat started on
• Survey answer: what the visitor selected in the pre-chat form
• Country / region: visitor's detected location
• Keyword: message contains a specific word or phrase

Multiple conditions in a rule are AND by default (all must match).

Rule actions

• Route to Team: sends the conversation to a specific agent team
• Assign to Workflow: starts an automated workflow
• Set Priority: marks conversation as high/normal/low priority
• Add Tag: tags the conversation for reporting
• Send to Bot: hands off to an AI bot

A rule can have multiple actions (e.g. route to team AND add tag).

Rule priority

Rules are evaluated in priority order (1 first). The first rule that matches wins — lower-priority rules are skipped. Set your most specific rules first (priority 1) and a catch-all last (high number).

Example order:

1. Enterprise accounts → VIP Team

2. After hours → Bot Workflow

3. French language → French Team

4. Catch-all → General Support Team

Business hours rule

Use a Time condition to route differently during business hours:

• Condition: Day is Monday-Friday AND Time is 9:00-17:00
• Action: Route to Support Team

Pair with a second rule (no time condition) as the fallback:

• Action: Route to After Hours Bot

Quick Rule Setup Wizard

The wizard creates common rule sets in 2-3 steps:

• Business Hours: enter your hours → creates an "in-hours" and "after-hours" rule pair
• Geographic Routing: pick countries → creates one rule per country routing to the team you specify
• Language Routing: select languages → creates language-based routing rules
• Survey Routing: pick a survey question → creates rules for each answer

Access the wizard via Rules > Quick Setup.

Team tier escalation

If your plan includes Tier Escalation, you can define tiers within a team:

• Tier 1 agents get the conversation first
• If no Tier 1 agent accepts within N minutes, Tier 2 gets it
• And so on

Set up tiers in Teams > [Team Name] > Routing Tiers.

Routing modes

Queue mode: conversation waits in a queue until an agent accepts it. Agents see incoming conversations and click Accept.

AutoRoute mode: conversation is automatically assigned to the agent with the fewest active chats. No manual accept needed.

Set the routing mode per team under Teams > [Team Name] > Settings.

Auto-Resolve rules vs. Team Auto-Resolve settings

There are two separate controls for automatically resolving inactive conversations:

1. Auto-Resolve rule (Rules page, trigger: "resolve-chat") — site-wide, applies to conversations that match the rule's conditions.

2. Team Auto-Resolve setting (Teams & Routing page) — applies to all conversations on a specific team.

Both run every minute. The shorter timer always fires first — the longer one is never reached because the conversation is already resolved. This is intentional (no double-resolution), but it causes confusion when the two settings disagree.

Example: Team "Support" Auto-Resolve = 30 min. Site-wide resolve-chat rule = 40 min. The 30-min team setting fires first. The rule never triggers for Support team conversations.

Reverse example: Rule = 20 min, Team = 30 min. The 20-min rule fires first. The team setting is dormant — it will never trigger.

The Routing Rules page shows a conflict panel when competing settings exist, with a table showing exactly which timer wins. The Teams & Routing page shows an inline warning on the Auto-Resolve section — red "Overridden" badge when the rule fires first, amber warning when the team setting fires first and the rule is dormant.

Queue Timeout vs. Auto-Resolve — they don't conflict

• Queue Timeout — fires on unassigned conversations (waiting in queue with no agent). Marks them Missed. Set per team in Teams & Routing.
• Auto-Resolve — fires on assigned conversations where both sides go quiet. Marks them Resolved.

These target completely different conversation states. A conversation waiting in queue (unassigned) will never be touched by Auto-Resolve. They cannot conflict.

How to find and fix competing auto-resolve settings

1. Go to Settings → Routing Rules

2. Look for the amber conflict panel at the top of the page

3. The table shows: rule timer, team timer, which one actually fires (bold/green), which is dormant (strikethrough)

4. Click the rule link to edit it, or the team link to adjust the team setting

5. Set both to the same value, or disable the dormant one

You can also see it inline: expand any team in Teams & Routing → enable Auto-Resolve → the status box shows whether a rule is competing.

Troubleshooting routing

Conversation not being routed: check that at least one rule matches and is Active. Check rule priority — a higher-priority rule may be routing it elsewhere.

Conversations resolving faster than expected: a site-wide resolve-chat rule may have a shorter timer than the team setting. Check the conflict panel on the Routing Rules page.

Resolve-chat rule appears to have no effect: the team's Auto-Resolve setting may be shorter, firing first and leaving the rule dormant. Check Teams & Routing for an "Overridden" badge on the Auto-Resolve section.

All agents busy: if queue is full, consider adding a bot fallback rule that activates when queue depth exceeds a threshold.

Wrong team getting the conversation: check rule priority order. The most specific rules should have the lowest priority number.