Set up auto-routing by topic

What auto-routing does

Each new ticket gets analyzed by Atlas and matched against the rules you’ve defined. If a rule matches, the ticket is moved to the destination you set for that rule. If no rule matches, your fallback behaviour decides what happens.

Where to set it up

Open Configuration > AI > Auto-routing. The first time you land there, you can start from a pre-built template (E-commerce, SaaS, Community, etc.) or create rules from scratch. Templates give you a sensible default rule set you can edit.

How analysis works

You pick how much of the conversation Atlas looks at before deciding:

• First message only - fastest, best when customers usually lead with the actual problem.
• First 3 messages / First 5 messages - useful when context only becomes clear after some back-and-forth.
• Custom count - pick your own message threshold.
• Smart detection - Atlas decides when it has enough to route confidently.

You can also set a delay (in seconds) before analysis starts, so a customer who’s still typing isn’t routed prematurely.

What a rule looks like

Each rule has:

• A name and optional description - for your own clarity.
• An instruction - a plain-language description of what should match. Atlas uses this in combination with the structured triggers below to make a routing decision.
• Triggers - pick one or more: keyword match, topic, sentiment, urgency, or language. Triggers narrow what the rule considers.
• Conditions- the actual values to match against the chosen triggers (e.g. keywords list, topic categories, sentiment options like “angry” or “frustrated”, urgency level, language codes).
• An action - either move the ticket to a category or add it to a queue. Both take a target category ID and can optionally tag the ticket or ping a staff role.
• A priority - lower numbers run earlier. Rules with higher specificity should have higher priority (a smaller number) than catch-all rules.

The fallback

If no rule matches, you pick what happens:

• No action - the ticket stays where it was created.
• Move to default - send the ticket to a fallback category you choose.
• Notify staff - leave the ticket where it is and ping a staff role so someone takes a look.

A reasonable starter set

1. Sensitive keywords (chargeback, fraud, abuse) → senior staff queue.
2. Refund / billing keywords → billing category.
3. Bug / crash / error keywords → engineering category.
4. Angry-sentiment fallback → on-call senior support.
5. Everything else → general support (fallback to default).