Automations

The filter block lets you control automation flow based on conditions. When a condition is met, the automation continues to the next step. When it's not met, the flow stops.

Use filters to route emails, apply labels, or trigger actions based on sender, content, model predictions, or other criteria.

Add a filter block

In the automation builder:

1. Hover over an existing block (like "Tekst Processing")

2. Click the + icon that appears

3. Select Conditions > Filter

Configure the filter

After adding the filter, set your condition:

1. Select a variable from the dropdown (e.g., From > Email, Subject, Priority)

2. Choose an operator (varies by data type - see below)

3. Enter the value to check against

The configured filter appears with yes/no paths:

Available operators

Operators change based on the variable type you select:

Text fields (email, subject, body, domain):

• EQUAL / NOT_EQUALS

• CONTAINS / NOT_CONTAINS

• STARTS_WITH / ENDS_WITH

• EXISTS / DOES_NOT_EXIST

Numbers (custom extracted fields):

• EQUAL / NOT_EQUALS

• GREATER_THAN / GREATER_THAN_OR_EQUALS

• LESS_THAN / LESS_THAN_OR_EQUALS

• EXISTS / DOES_NOT_EXIST

Arrays (predictions like category, tags):

• CONTAINS_ANY / NOT_CONTAINS_ANY

• IS_EMPTY / IS_NOT_EMPTY

Dates (message created, updated):

• BEFORE / AFTER

• EXISTS / DOES_NOT_EXIST

Most text operators are case-insensitive by default, so "urgent" matches "URGENT" or "Urgent".

How filters work

When an automation runs, the filter checks your condition:

• Condition met (yes): Continue to the next block on the yes path

• Condition not met (no): Stop the flow

Add another block to the yes path by hovering over the filter and clicking the + icon below the yes arrow.

Example: Label emails from a specific sender

Create a filter to check if the sender email equals support@tekst.com. On the yes path, add an "Add Labels" action to tag the email as "Important" in Outlook.

Condition examples

Filter by sender domain:

From > Domain EQUAL "tekst.com"

Check for urgent keywords:

Subject CONTAINS "urgent"

Route high-priority emails:

Priority EQUAL "HIGH"

Filter by category prediction:

Classification > Category CONTAINS_ANY "Order", "Invoice"

Check if attachment exists:

Attachments IS_NOT_EMPTY

Filter by date range:

Message Created At AFTER "2024-01-01"

Check custom extracted field:

Extraction > Customer ID EXISTS

Variables like Priority, Category, Intent, and Sentiment come from Tekst's AI model predictions on your messages.

Multiple conditions

Click + add condition in the filter block to combine multiple checks:

• AND logic: All conditions must be true (e.g., From domain = "tekst.com" AND Priority = "HIGH")

• OR logic: At least one condition must be true (e.g., Subject contains "urgent" OR Priority = "HIGH")

You can also chain multiple filter blocks sequentially for more complex routing.

Common use cases

• Route emails from specific domains to different teams

• Apply tags based on Tekst model predictions (priority, category, sentiment)

• Trigger actions only for emails containing certain keywords

• Filter by sender to automate replies or forwarding

• Check if custom fields exist before processing orders or invoices

Chain multiple filters to handle complex routing. Each filter adds another condition to check sequentially.

Next steps

Combine filters with actions like "Forward Email," "Assign to Team," or "Send Reply" to build complete automation workflows. See Create your first automation flow for a step-by-step example.

This article gives an overview of automations and how they help our customers define both simple and complex business rules. An automation consist of flows that define a set of conditions and actions. Both are explained in more detail below.

The power of automation in business communication

Automation in business communication helps streamline tasks and workflows, allowing teams to focus on complex, high-value interactions rather than repetitive administrative tasks. In Tekst, “automation” refers to a system that automatically manages and routes communication flows - such as emails and tickets - based on rules that you define, ensuring timely responses, organized inboxes, and faster resolutions.

What is an automation?

An Automation is a set of predefined actions that run without manual intervention. At its core, an automation operates based on triggers (events that activate the automation), conditions (rules that define what the automation should do) and actions (actions that define what actually needs to happen based on the condition). When triggers and conditions are met, Tekst will automatically carry out actions that you set up to manage and organize incoming messages.

For example, an automation could be set to sort and tag incoming customer support emails based on predictions and/or keywords. If the prediction “Billing” is made by the model, the automation could tag the email as “Billing” and assign it to the appropriate team.

Components of automations in Tekst

1. Triggers

A trigger is an event that starts an automation.
Triggers currently only include receiving a new email. In the future Tekst might add new triggers to start an automation. 

2. Conditions

Conditions specify the rules for the automation to work. They define the criteria that must be met for the automation to proceed. Common conditions might include predictions made by the model or include specific keywords in an email or subject or domain. An overview of all the possible conditions and their explanation can be found in the article on conditions.

3. Actions

Actions are the tasks the automation will complete when the conditions are met.
For example, an action might be to forward an email to a certain team, assign a priority level, or send an automatic reply. 

The actions that are presented to the person configuring the flow depend on the integration type that is used. Actions in a flow related to an outlook integration, will be different from Salesforce integrations, because the use cases are completely different.
We discuss the different type of actions in more detail in the designated article.

4. Apps

Apps are blocks that allow customers to define custom actions designed using TypeScript.
They enable customers to extend and personalize the automation capabilities within their workflows, giving them flexibility to tailor specific actions to fit unique business needs. By creating Apps, customers can go beyond the standard automation options, developing bespoke actions that handle more complex tasks, integrate with third-party systems or apply custom logic directly within the Tekst environment.

This article outlines all the steps required to setup your first flow.

The basic overview of flows is described in the "Discover Flows" article.

1. Create a new flow.

Go to yoursubdomain.tekst.com/automations and click "New Flow". The placement of this button depends on the view you use (grid or list view):

2. Select an inbox.

Select the required inboxes and hit "Apply". Flows can run on 1 or more inboxes but require at least one inbox to be configured. If you configure more then 1 inbox, they need to be the same type. You cannot mix Outlook and Zendesk in one flow for example. 

3. Build your first flow

You are now ready to build your flow. You can give the flow a name and a description and add more building blocks.

A possible building block is adding a label in Outlook.

This can be done by adding the condition for the email address. You can do this by hovering over the 'Tekst Processing' Block and clicking on the '+' icon:

This allows you to add new blocks. Select "Conditions" and click "Filter". In the Filter you can now add the required variable, which in this case is the email address.

You can now select the operators. In this case we want to validate whether the sender is EQUAL to support@tekst.com so that's the operator we'll use. 
The result will look like this:

The filter will result in a yes or no:

• In case of no (the email did not come from support@tekst.com) we will stop the flow.
• In case of yes (the mail did come from support@tekst.com), we can add a new block again by hovering over the circle and clicking the '+' button.

We now want to add the action "Add Labels". In this action block we can enter the label we want to add to the mail if the conditions above have been fulfilled. 
In this example we'll write 'Important'.

Congratulations, you have now built your first flow! 
The flow is now complete and looks like this:

This guide goes over the steps to set up the human approval automation step and explains its functionality.

Prerequisites

In order to include a human approval step within your automation, you need to first:

• Have the role of contributor or administrator.
• Have an automation.
• Recommended: installed the Tekst Outlook App.

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Setting up the human approval step

Step 1: Select the Human Approval step

It can be found under the conditions steps.

Step 2: Fill in the variable that needs to be approved

Within the human approval settings a variable needs to be selected. This is the variable that will be shown to the end-user for approval.

Multiple variables can be selected and they can be all sorts of different types (message data, model data, a custom variable).

Step 3: Include information for the end-user

A label and a description can be added, which will be shown to the end-user who needs to approve the content of the variable. Optionally, it is possible to specify the type of variable that is used, which can be, for example, a CSV file. If set to auto, it will try to automatically detect the variable type and show it in a suitable way to the end-user.

Step 4: Specify follow-up paths

Finally, after completing setting up the human approval step, it is important to specify how the automation needs to continue when approved or rejected.

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How it looks for the end-user

The automation approval step will be shown on two different places: within the messages module of Tekst itself and on the Outlook App side panel, which is the most useful option of the two, since you can view it within Outlook itself.

More info on how to install the Outlook app here.

If a CSV file is used as a variable, it is possible to edit it first before approving. The automation will then continue with the corrected CSV file.