This article explains what Crisp Workflows are, how they can be started, and how to build your first automation.

Workflows are no-code automations made of connected blocks. They help you collect information, offer choices, route conversations, update conversation data, trigger actions, and hand structured processes to Hugo when needed. They work best when you need a predictable flow, while Hugo is better for open-ended support questions.

Haven't met Hugo yet? Check out official resources

What are Workflows

Workflows can be used for a variety of usages, they are designed to be flexible and adapt to your exact needs.

Some common usages include:

• Sending preformatted messages or instructions in certain situations
• Collecting information from your users and offering different paths (choices)
• Sorting and categorizing users by verifying metadata (segments, data, language...)
• And much more to reinforce the efficiency and reactivity of your support team

Workflows are here to help you push things a step further.

By building different flows tailored for specific situations, you can automate parts of your support operations and discharge a large chunk of workload from your team. Workflows are here to help you and your users conjointly.

How to start Workflows

Workflows are extremely flexible and versatile: not only in terms of possibilities and use-cases, but also in the way you build and deploy them.

Workflows can be started:

• A. Situationally → By routing your conversations through Hugo and letting him know when to trigger specific workflows
• B. Automatically → By triggering your workflows when users send a message
• C. Manually → By allowing agents to start them at anytime during a conversation
• D. Programmatically → By using our Javascript SDK to start your workflows before users contact you (e.g. when they open the chatbox)

Activating Hugo on all conversations and delegating him the responsibility to start workflows situationally is often the easiest and recommended approach for most businesses.

A. Starting Workflows situationally with Hugo

If you went through our Getting started with Hugo guide, you might recall the mention of "Routing rules". These allow you to describe a situation or topic to Hugo, and select the action Hugo should perform, such as moving the conversation to a certain inbox, or starting a workflow.

We've prepared a dedicated article to help you there → Learn how to start workflows situationally with Hugo routing

B. Starting Workflows automatically when users send a message

This method can be used if you wish to start your workflows globally and automatically on all conversations, any time users contact you. This can very handy if you need to categorize conversations, perform some condition-checks, or offer your users a preliminary flow before handing the conversation over to Hugo or a human agent.

We have you covered with a dedicated article → Learn how to start workflows automatically when users contact you

C. Starting Workflows manually as an agent

Workflows can also be started manually from any conversations by yourself and your team. These allow you to create utility workflows, such as sharing a calendly link, embedding a form in the conversation, or triggering a flow during an exchange with one of your customers.

You've guessed it, we also have an article on that topic! → Learn how to start workflows manually

D. Starting Workflows programmatically without the user sending a message

Finally, in some cases, you may be looking to start workflows programmatically before the user has even sent a message. This can be done with our Javascript SDK, which can be convenient if you wish to trigger a workflow whenever the user opens your chatbox or perform an action while browsing on your platform.

We don't have an arti—Nevermind this, of course we do → Learn how to start workflows programmatically with the JS SDK

How to build Workflows

You can create and manage workflows from Crisp by going to AI Agent → Automate → Workflow Builder.

Creating Workflows

There, you can manage, re-arrange and edit your existing workflows, but also create new ones from the black New Workflow button on the top-right.

When hitting the New Workflow button, you are presented with a few options:

• Template workflow → In order to create a workflow based on an existing template
• Blank workflow → Allows you to start a new workflow from scratch
• Import your own → Import JSON workflows

A simple way to create a workflow is:

1. Go to AI Agent → Automate → Workflow Builder.
2. Click New Workflow.
3. Choose Blank workflow or start from a template.
4. Add your first block depending on how the workflow should start: use an Event block if it should start when a user sends a message, or start with an Action or Condition block if Hugo or routing should enter the workflow directly.
5. Add the Action and Condition blocks needed for your flow, then connect the branches together.
6. Save and deploy the workflow.
7. Decide how it should be triggered: automatically on new user messages, from AI Agent → Guidance → Routing, or by setting Hugo to Directly route to a Workflow.

A few common examples:

• To show a menu with buttons, start from a user message event and send a message with choices.
• To ask for details before handing over to Hugo, collect the information first, then add the Answer with Hugo block.
• To only reply on the first message of a conversation, use a Conversation is new condition.
• If you only need to delay the next step, use a Wait block rather than a Time passed since last message condition.

Workflow Examples

Besides the existing templates available when creating new workflows, you will find a few additional examples to illustrate some of the most common usages/

Out-of-Office Chatbot template

A guide to help you create an Out-of-Office Chatbot or Weekend Responder.

Especially useful to provide continuity in your support when you're unavailable, orient users to helpful resources, or gather information to give you a head start when it's time to reach back.

Asking users for information

A guide to build a workflow which automatically asks users for specific information

Helpful to gather information prior to an agent joining the conversation, and to ask the user for data and information relevant to their request.

Routing Chatbot template

A guide to help you route conversations to the proper team/agents.

This can be used to improve both your team's efficiency, and enhance the quality and relevancy of the support you're able to provide, by ensuring the conversations reach the proper department.

Extra Resources

Learning more about the Workflows

You may want to know more about how to achieve certain use-cases, to better build your own workflow efficiently. We've got some extra guides for you

• How to ask users for information
• How to memorize and update user information
• How to create a list buttons and offer choices to users
• How to send embedded and external links with a button
• How to create a Products Carousel

Video guides

Our articles contain animations and videos to better illustrate and walk you through creating your workflows, but you can also directly hop to our YouTube channel!

We have very detailed videos to help on your journey, if you'd like take a deeper dive into some concepts.

• How to design a Multilingual chatbot
• How to build a Human-like behavior for your chatbot
• How to create a Routing workflow
• How to create an Out-of-Office workflow?
• How to put your Lead Generation on autopilot thanks to Crisp workflows?
• Automate customer journey with Crisp Campaigns and workflow

Going beyond the Workflows

As you already know by now, the Workflow builder is only one of the features available on the Essential and Plus plans. It's a powerful way to better enhance your support's reactivity and cover a limitless amount of usages, but Crisp has many more tools at your disposal.

Read all the available features here to see how you can better take advantage of Crisp!

Frequently Asked Questions

Still have questions which were not covered in this article? Here is a collection of the most frequently asked questions on this topic.

How can I start my Workflow for New Conversations exclusively?

To do so, you can add a Condition block "Conversation is New" right after your first Event block "User Message Matches". Your flow would therefore look like this:

Entry Gate → Event "User Message Matches" → Condition "Conversation is New" → rest of your workflow

You can of course add more conditions, or choose to check a different one (such as if a segment is set, the language of the user, etc)

I'm unable to save changes, there's a red banner appearing, what can I do?

You may have misconfigured certain blocks in your workflow. You can use the "rearrange and "center view" options to re-organize your workflow and give you a clear overview of it.

Make sure that all of your blocks are correctly set up and connected to each other.

When a block contains a misconfiguration, there will be an orange warning left of it. You can hover this warning with your cursor to display a tooltip giving you more information about the error related this block.

Can I start another workflow from the current one, or create a loop?

Absolutely, this can be very helpful to offer more options to your users and start different workflows depending on their choices and needs, but this is also a good way to organize your Workflows in a more efficient and manageable way.

• Read more about the Run Workflow exit block
• This separate section will help you create a loop within the same workflow, to go back to a previous block thanks to Proxies

Why is my Workflow sometimes not starting?

There can be various reasons, make sure to double-check that the configuration of your workflow is correct, and that it is indeed deployed and enabled.

Keep in mind that the workflows will not be triggered automatically in ongoing conversations, if an operator has sent a message in the past 20 minutes, it will not start to avoid interfering.

Where can I test my Workflow?

The Workflow builder interface has an integrated menu to help you test your workflow directly, as covered earlier in this article. However, in some cases you may want to test it live if it contains advanced conditions, or if it is composed of several interconnected workflows.

A good way to test a workflow "live" without causing interference with your users, is to edit the terms detected by your initial "User sent a message" Event block, and to temporarily make it detect a term only known by you (like a password).

Can Workflows generate AI-powered responses to my users?

It sure can! The Workflows can be integrated with Hugo, the AI Agent.

Don't hesitate to check out this page to learn more about Hugo

Updated on: 04/05/2026