Workflow activation

Plans and permissions:

• Change a workflow’s activation: AI agents, billed separately
• Review and confirm suggested actions in Copilot: Copilot, billed separately
• Change a workflow’s activation: Admin, Manager, or Team Lead role, or a custom role with Workflows set to Can create, edit, and delete workflows
• Review and confirm suggested actions in Copilot: Admin role, or a custom role with Copilot access set to Can access Copilot on the AI support tab
• You can activate a workflow only on channels where your company has that AI agent: Email agent, Chat agent, or Voice agent.
• Admins can also turn on Copilot for individual people in Manage team > People management.

Use activation settings to decide how a workflow runs on each channel, and how much it does without a person checking. You can keep a workflow off, let it prepare actions for your support team to approve in Copilot, or let it handle cases on its own, for all matching cases or a share of them.

To change them, go to AI support > Workflows, open the workflow, and select Manage activation.

How activation works

• Each channel has its own setting. Email workflows can be Inactive, Agent review, or Automated, and chat and voice workflows can be Inactive or Automated.
• A new workflow is Inactive on every channel.
• Activation changes take effect as soon as you select Update activation. You don’t need to publish the workflow again.
• Manage activation is unavailable while the builder has unsaved changes. Save or publish them first.
• The Workflows page shows each workflow’s activation in the Email agent, Chat agent, and Voice agent columns. To list workflows by activation, use Filter by status….

How Agent review works in Copilot

With Agent review, the AI agent prepares everything and your support team decides what happens. Use it to check a workflow on live cases before you automate it.

For example, this workflow updates the ticket and then replies:

1. A support team member opens a matching ticket in Zendesk and opens Copilot. The first action appears as a Suggested action.
2. The support team member checks the action and selects Confirm action, or Cancel to skip it. After a confirmed action, the workflow continues to its next step.
3. When the workflow reaches a reply, Copilot shows the drafted reply. The support team member reviews it and selects Move to editor to send it from Zendesk, editing it there if needed.

Because the AI agent doesn’t reply on the ticket itself, these cases can show as Skipped: no reply on the workflow’s Monitor and View cases tabs. That’s expected and doesn’t mean the workflow failed. To check that it ran, open the case on the View cases tab and look at its step history. If a case shows no activity at all, contact our team.

For setting up Copilot in Zendesk, see Copilot sign-in in Zendesk.

Emails that no workflow handles can get a reply from the email agent’s automated knowledge answers, which have their own Agent review operation mode. See Operation mode.

Change a workflow’s activation

Important: With Automated, the workflow replies to customers and updates cases without review. Test it first, as described in Building workflows.

1. Go to AI support > Workflows and open the workflow.
2. Select Manage activation.
3. To add a channel, select Add channel and choose Email agent, Chat agent, or Voice agent. To remove one, open its card’s menu and select Remove channel.
4. On each channel’s card, choose an activation level and its options (see below).
5. Select Update activation.

The badges next to the workflow’s name update to show where it’s active. To turn the workflow off, set each channel to Inactive.

Activation options

Email agent

Chat agent and voice agent

Increase automation gradually

Start with less automation and increase it as your results hold up. A typical ramp:

Keep in mind: Set a timeline and an accuracy target for leaving Agent review, so a workflow doesn’t stay there indefinitely. To measure accuracy, use Workflow bulk testing. To watch results after each increase, use the Workflows page.