Messenger Settings
Inbound Conversation Settings
Control inbound conversation volume is a Messenger setting which can be configured to limit who has the ability to start a conversation. Because this can prevent customers from starting a conversation, Workflows with a conversation-based trigger (e.g. “Customer opens a new conversation in the Messenger”, “Customer sends their first message”, “Customer sends any message”) will never fire for these customers.
Disabled Messenger
Show the Messenger Launcher is a Messenger setting which can be configured to hide the Messenger from customers. If the Messenger is hidden from customers, any Workflow which involves an interaction with the Messenger (e.g. “When a customer visits your site”, “When a customer clicks on a website element”, “When a customer opens the Messenger”) will never fire for these customers.
Automation Basics
If you have conversation ratings turned on in your Simple automations settings for Leads and Users, this can get in the way of the inactivity triggers working as they should. It can unintentionally get interrupted in a way that blocks other customer-facing Workflows from triggering.
Our team is still exploring a fix for this, but we do have a workaround in the meantime if you see these issues often.
Instead of sending the conversation rating via the basics settings, you should create a Workflow to send these ratings instead. This will prevent the issue going forward.
Workflow trigger settings
Which trigger you choose for your workflow and how you configure the trigger settings will decide who/what can match the workflow and whether it triggers.
Example:
You set up workflow with the trigger "When customer opens a new conversation in the Messenger" and add a step to tag all of these conversations.
A customer replies to a post you sent from Outbound.
This conversation would not be tagged because they didn't start the conversation in the Messenger (they replied to an outbound message).
If you want all conversations to be tagged, you should use the trigger "When customer sends any message" instead.
Audience Targeting
Audience targeting rules can influence who will be affected by a Workflow. If the customer does not match the specified audience criteria, the Workflow will not fire.
Using And/Or rules
When using "OR" rules in audience targeting, only one condition needs to be true for the rule to apply. This means that if any of the individual conditions match, the workflow will trigger, even if other conditions do not.
Example:
Let's say you set up an audience rule based on the City attribute with the following logic:
"City is not Dublin" OR "City is not London".
If a user is in London, the rule will evaluate as follows:
First, it checks: City is not Dublin → Since the user is in London, this condition is true.
Because an "OR" rule only requires one condition to be true, the workflow does not check the second condition (whether the city is not London). The rule is already satisfied, and the workflow proceeds.
This means users in either Dublin or London may still receive the message or trigger the workflow unexpectedly.
So if you want to exclude users in both Dublin and London, you need to switch from "OR" logic to "AND" logic:
"City is not Dublin" AND "City is not London".
With this setup:
The user must not be in Dublin and must not be in London for the workflow to trigger.
If they are in either city, the audience rule does not match, and the workflow does not trigger.
Key takeaways
OR rules trigger if any condition is met.
Negative OR rules can lead to unintended matches because once one condition is true, others are ignored.
Use AND rules when you need all conditions to be met before triggering the workflow.
Person Data & Company Data
Your Workflow may have specific triggers based on personal or company data — these can be any of the standard or custom data attributes available in Intercom. You should check the criteria and conditions set for these triggers, and ensure that the data is correctly inputted and matches the set rules.
Example:
When using branches in a workflow, if checking for:
"Company attribute is not".
The customer must be attached to a company to meet the condition rule and match. If we don't have a company to check the attribute, we won't assume that the condition is true - instead we will fallback to another path.
Frequency & Scheduling
Using frequency and scheduling, you can control when, and for how long, a Workflow is live. It can often be the case that a Workflow is not firing because the criteria for when the Workflow is scheduled is not met.
Custom date schedule
The Workflow may have a custom date schedule — for example, to only fire between Friday evening and Saturday morning. In this case, testing the Workflow outside of these hours will not trigger the Workflow — no matter which trigger is selected.
Office hours
You may have configured Office Hours for your Workflow to fire within — either During office hours or Outside office hours. Workflows only use the default office hours, not the custom office hours set for individual teams.
We recommend moving office hours rules inside your Workflows as conditional branches, rather than in the trigger settings for a Workflow.
Trigger settings are evaluated when your customer interacts with the Messenger, whereas branches are evaluated in real time during a conversation so are much better at handling time-based conditions.
Channels
If your Workflow is configured to specific channels like Email, SMS, or social media, make sure that the channel is correctly connected and active. A disconnected channel might be the reason why a Workflow is not firing.
If a user creates multiple email conversations within a 2-minute window, Intercom will disregard matching to the subsequent conversations.
The user will still be able to create the additional conversations, but Intercom will not elect any Workflows to run in those conversations.
Page URL Settings
Ensure that the Workflow is correctly configured to fire on the right Page URLs or within the correct applications on iOS & Android devices. Misconfiguration in these settings may prevent the Workflow from triggering.
URL targeting best practices
The Current page URL targeting can be added in the "Where to send" section or the main Audience targeting section within the Trigger rule settings. However, their functionality differs based on the section they are placed in:
Audience Targeting: URL configurations here target users based on the last page they visited. This data might not always be current, which may lead to inaccurate Workflows firing.
Where to send: Offers a more reliable targeting based on the actual page the user is currently on. This usually matches the desired outcome.
Using URL targeting in the Where to send section will disable the inbound bot on iOS & Android, as mobile apps don't recognize URLs. If URL targeting is crucial, create one bot specifically for web Messenger and another for iOS & Android without URL rules.
Why 'Current page URL' doesn't work for Facebook/Instagram conversations
The "Current page URL" filter only applies to pages where the Intercom Messenger is installed. This means it does not capture URLs for conversations that originate from external platforms like Facebook because those interactions happen outside your website.
Use 'Page URL' instead
To properly filter conversations from different channels (e.g. Facebook and Instagram), you should use the "Page URL" filter instead. This filter can track the referring page or external sources, allowing you to correctly segment and trigger workflows based on where the conversation started.
By checking these areas and confirming the proper setup, you can not only identify the potential cause for a Workflow not firing but also ensure it is configured correctly for future operations. 👌
If you still need help debugging your Workflow, reach out to our Support team through the Messenger.
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