Procedures enable Fin to resolve complex queries like damaged order claims or account troubleshooting from start to finish. Natural language instructions can be combined with deterministic controls to keep Fin adaptable as conversations shift, while enforcing your rules and policies and taking secure actions across your systems to deliver accurate, reliable answers.
In this article, we will show you how to get started quickly, and build a first simple procedure.
Note: Fin Procedures is currently in closed beta. Access is limited during the beta period and available only to select customers with a contract. Please contact your account manager to confirm eligibility and learn how to join.
Get started
Go to Fin AI Agent > Train > Procedures and click + New procedure.
Choose how to build your procedure
There are two ways to create a Fin Procedure. You can either use AI to speed up the process or build it manually for total control.
Option 1 (Recommended): Use draft with AI to describe your process in plain English. Fin will utilise information from your help center, data connectors and historical conversations to generate a full draft of a Procedure for you to review and iterate upon.
Option 2: Build from scratch if you already know exactly how you want to structure the logic and steps yourself.
Option 1: Let AI draft it for you (Recommended)
The fastest way to get started is to let Fin build the procedure for you.
Navigate to Fin AI Agent > Train > Procedures and click + New procedure and select Let AI draft your procedure.
Describe the process: Write what you want the procedure to do in natural language.
Example Prompt: "Help a customer book a meeting. Ask for their desired date. If the date is in the past, explain we can't travel back in time. If it is more than 7 days away, say we haven't opened those slots yet. Otherwise, give them this calendly link: [link]."
Answer Clarifying Questions: Fin may ask a few short questions to clear up ambiguity. These are optional, but answering them helps Fin create a clearer first draft.
Review: Fin will automatically generate the Trigger, Instructions, and Logic needed. You can then edit the draft.
Option 2: Build from scratch (Example: Booking a Call)
In this example, we will build a procedure that checks a customer's requested date and only provides a booking link if the date is valid (within the next 7 business days).
1. Define when Fin should use the Procedure by naming the procedure clearly and writing a detailed trigger description.
In the trigger panel, you'll define what causes the procedure to start and who it applies to:
Description: Add a detailed description of when to trigger this procedure, and even when not to.
Add examples of conversations: There are two ways to add examples to help Fin recognize the right time to start the procedure:
Search your customer conversations: Search through real past conversations and select examples that should (or should not) trigger this Procedure. This pulls actual customer phrasing, which is often more realistic than manually written examples.
Add manually: Type in example phrases yourself if you know common ways customers ask about this topic, or if you don't have relevant conversation history yet.
Note: Here you can also customise the channels and audience to determine what groups of customers this procedure should run for - for example, only on email, only for users with a certain email address domain, etc.
2. Begin writing instructions to tell Fin what to do
Start by telling Fin to ask the customer when they want to meet. This is as easy as writing a simple instruction.
In the first step, type: Ask the customer what date they would like to book their demo appointment for.
When writing instructions, ensure they are simple and clear. Use common action verbs (like ask, check, send, update, escalate) instead of abstract or formal language (such as validate, ascertain, perform, facilitate).
💡 Pro tip: If a human wouldn't naturally say it, Fin may struggle to interpret it.
3. Use the conditions step to tell Fin what to do in different situations
We can enhance our natural language instructions and add more deterministic control using the Condition step to tell Fin what to do in different scenarios. We can use a Condition step for this and add branches for the different scenarios.
Condition steps are best used for major forks in logic where the paths are distinct, not for simple trivial decisions.
Type / and select Condition.
Branch A (IF): Type:
If the date provided is in the pastin the box.Then add the following instructions in the indented step.
Inform the customer that we cannot book appointments in the past.Indented Step: Type / and select End to end the procedure.
Branch B (ELSE IF): Click the ellipsis (...) and select Add else if condition.
Condition: Type:
If the date is more than 7 days ahead of today, not including today.Type in the indented steps below
Tell the customer that we only open booking slots one week in advance.Type / and select End to end the Procedure.
Branch C (ELSE): Click the ellipsis (...) and select Add else condition.
Indented Step: This is the valid "Happy Path." Type:
Send the customer the link and tell them to click into it to proceed with booking: calendly.com/demo-booking.Indented Step: Type / and select End.
4. Optionally configure Fin to intentionally handoff to a team by using @Escalate
You can also optionally configure Fin to handoff to a particular team member by using the @Escalate tool. In this example, we can add an additional instruction to illustrate this.
Delete the End step.
Replace this with an instruction that says:
Tell the customer you are handing them off to a team.
Pro tip: Conditions are great when used with data connectors. By integrating data from external systems, you can instruct Fin to branch its behavior based on the specific outputs it receives.
While you can build these rules using natural language, leveraging Code Conditions gives you even more control and complexity. This ensures Fin can programmatically evaluate the data and do the right thing based on the exact information available.
Test your procedure
Before you set your procedure live, you should utilize Simulations to verify that it works.
Click the Test these instructions button at the bottom of the editor.
Fin's AI will automatically suggest a "Happy path" scenario to test. These are useful to get a feel of what Simulations can do.
Run the simulation to watch Fin execute your steps, trigger the mock API, and follow your logic.
If you see a green success message, you are ready to set it live!
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