Automations
Vincent Depassier · September 24, 2026
Every message and call in the Inbox can start an automation, and an automation can answer back into the conversation. That is how you route a new lead to a table, tag a conversation by its content, notify the account owner, or send an answer that needs data only your workspace has.
The trap: Instagram has no channel filter of its own. The trigger's channel type offers Email, SMS, WhatsApp, Phone and Live chat — not Instagram. Instagram messages start an automation only when the channel type is Any channel. To react to Instagram alone, use Any channel and pick the Instagram channel in Channel, or check the channel inside the flow.
The trigger
Use the System Event trigger with the feature Inbox, then choose:
Setting | Options |
Action | Received, Sent, Drafted, Scheduled, Updated, Deleted, Call received, Call started, Call answered, Call ended, Call missed |
Channel type | Any channel, Email, SMS, WhatsApp, Phone, Live chat |
Channel | Optional — one specific channel |
The event carries the message, its recipients and attachments, the channel and the conversation. The conversation id is at {{context.trigger.message.conversationId}}, which is what you pass to the reply node.
Two things fire more often than you might expect:
WhatsApp messages sent from the phone count as Received as well as Sent. A flow on Received that answers automatically can end up answering your own team. Check the sender in the flow.
WhatsApp media arrives as an Updated event once the file is in, after the Received event for the message.
Replying: the Reply in Inbox node
Reply in Inbox (in the Communication category) answers into an existing conversation, over whatever channel it uses.
Input | What it does |
conversationId | The conversation to answer. Usually |
body | The text. Supports templates |
isHtml | Send as HTML. Ignored by text-only channels such as WhatsApp and SMS |
internalNote | Post a note for the team instead of sending anything to the contact |
blobIds | Files to attach. With files, the body is optional |
It returns the new message's id, the conversation and the send status — Sent, Failed or Queued.
Remember what each channel can carry: files are dropped on WhatsApp and SMS, and on Instagram the text and each file go out as separate messages. See Replying.
internalNote is the safe way to have an automation add information to a conversation — a lookup result, a score, a summary — without the customer seeing it.
Sending an email that shows up in the Inbox
The Send Email node can record what it sends as an Inbox conversation: turn on tracking in the Inbox and choose the email channel. The reply the customer sends back then lands in that conversation.
Instagram nodes
The Instagram nodes — reading and answering comments, sending direct messages, publishing media — work with an Instagram channel. See Communication Nodes.