Test conversations in your rules

Use the Test rule feature in a rule to check if conversations pass or fail the filter conditions and resulting actions you’ve selected. This allows you to quickly debug and validate your rules to ensure they work as expected.

These instructions assume you’re familiar with creating rules.

Step 1

Click the gear icon and select company, workspace, or personal settings in the left sidebar, depending on the space you’re working with. Select Rules and macros or Rules from the left menu, depending on your view.

Step 2

Select an existing rule, or click Create rule to start a new one.

Step 3

Once you’ve built your rule, click Test.

Step 4

In the panel, select whether you want to test the rule with an existing conversation (Option 1), or with a simulated conversation created from scratch (Option 2).

Step 5

You'll see a list of recent open conversations in the inbox(es) you’ve selected in your rule. Hover over any conversation to preview its contents.

Step 6

Enter the conversation ID for a conversation you want to test with, or select any conversation in the list. Click Test. 

Step 7

The test results are summarized in a banner at the top, then sorted into Warning, Failed, and Passed sections for easy troubleshooting.

Other Test rule panel features:

• Click on a condition in the panel to quickly navigate to it on the left.

• Click the arrow icon for a condition to review how the rule evaluated the conversation.

• Click Pick another conversation to test the rule with a different conversation.

• For existing conversations mode: If your rule contains dynamic variables, you'll see a Dynamic variable values section. This is helpful to check the contents of your dynamic variables for the example conversation.

Step 8

If you make changes to your rule, click Test again to re-evaluate the current rule build with your selected conversation.

Step 9

Click Save once you’re done adjusting your rule.

Step 5

Create a simulated message by filling in the following fields:

• Inbox: Select the shared inbox for the message

• Channel: Select if the message is an Email or Messaging (Front Chat) type message

• Contact: Select an existing contact, or enter the contact information for the message sender

• Message: Enter the message contents (body of the email)

Click Test.

Step 6

Similar to testing with an existing conversation (Option 1), the test results are summarized in a banner at the top, then sorted into Warning, Failed, Passed sections, and have the same additional features troubleshooting features.

Click New test to create a new simulated conversation.

Step 7

Click Save once you’re done adjusting your rule.

Step 1

Click the gear icon and select company, workspace, or personal settings in the left sidebar, depending on the space you’re working with. Select Rules and macros or Rules from the left menu, depending on your view.

Step 2

Select an existing rule, or click Create rule to start a new one.

Step 3

Once you’ve built your rule, click Test.

Step 4

Similar to linear rules, a panel will appear allowing you to choose between testing with an existing conversation or a simulated conversation created from scratch.

Step 5

Enter the conversation ID for a conversation you want to test with, select any conversation in the list, or create one from scratch. Click Test. 

Step 6

All rule branches are tested, and each applicable step is labeled with Warning, Failed, Passed, or Unsupported indicators.

Step 7

Click a step to open the test results panel and view additional details. Click Pick another conversation to test with another example conversation, click New test to test with another simulated conversation.

Step 8

Click Build if you need to adjust your rule, then click Save when finished.

From existing conversation mode: All conditions are supported.

From scratch mode: The following conditions are unsupported -

Content

• Conversation has topic

• Email headers contain

• Front Chat visitor URL contains

• Message attachment extension is

• Message attachment file name contains

• Message has attachments

• Message has no attachments

Inbox

• Conversation comes from channels

• Inbox belongs to

Message

• Message direction is

Recipient

• "Bcc" field contains

Status

• Ticket status is

• Ticket status is not

Time

• Conversation is unassigned and open after

• Oldest message is unreplied after

• Time is outside business hours

• Time is within business hours

• Time passed since trigger is

Both From existing conversation and From scratch modes support these actions:

Teammates

• Assign to teammates

• Unassign

• Notify teammates

• Notify assignee (if any)

Status

• Archive conversation

• Reopen conversation

• Delete conversation

• Update ticket status to

Organization

• Add tags

• Remove tags

• Move to inbox

Message

• Reply with Autopilot instructions

Contacts

• Assign based on contact custom field

Account

• Assign based on account custom field

• Notify based on account custom field

All dynamic variables are supported when testing in From existing conversation mode. Dynamic variables are not supported in From scratch mode.

The Test rule feature will not work for:

• Rule triggers

• Rule templates such as CSAT, time goal, rule sets, etc.

This is on the roadmap for future updates.

If a conversation has multiple messages, the Test rule feature uses the last inbound message in the conversation. The last outbound message is used if the last inbound message is not available.

It is not possible to choose a specific message at this time.

If you see "No answer matched" when testing rules with AI conditions or steps, you may see the following errors:

• There was an issue extracting dynamic variables from the message.

• Unknown issues when trying to execute the prompt.

This happens because Front intentionally skips dynamic variable extraction on the following messages that don't typically require AI analysis:

• Messages the system considered phishing

• Messages the system considered spam

• Messages the system considered "auto-submitted": The system scans the headers list and applies regex matching on specific fields against predefined patterns

  • auto-submitted:      /auto-(replied|notified)/i

  • preference:          /auto_reply/i

  • x-precedence:        /auto_reply/i

  • x-autorespond        (any value)

  • x-autogenerated:     /forward|group|letter|mirror|redirect|reply/i

  • x-mail-autoreply     (any value)

  • x-autoreply-from     (any value)

  • x-fc-machinegenerated: /true/i

  • x-autoreply:         /yes/i

  • x-post-messageclass: /9;\s*autoresponder/i

  • delivered-to:        /autoresponder/i

  • x-amazon-auto-reply: /true/i

  • x-facebook-notify    (any value)

  • x-sfdc-binding:      /^bounce-1/i

  • x-qq-auto-reply:     /true/i

• Messages from an email address that states "no reply". It checks this regex pattern: /(?:no|do[-_.]*not)[-_.]*reply[^@]*@/

This feature is available on all plans.