Automation overview — chatbots, rules and built-ins

🎯 Goal

Understand the automation building blocks, so you pick the right one for each job and launch your first bot in minutes.

🧰 What you need

• A connected number

Two kinds of flow, one engine

	Chatbot (conversational)	Rule (run-alongside)
What it does	Holds a conversation: asks, waits for answers, branches	Does something in the background when an event happens
Examples	Main menu, lead capture, order status bot, booking	Tag price enquiries, notify sales on “bulk order”, follow up if nobody replied
Waits for replies?	Yes	No. Steps that wait aren’t available
Several at once?	One chatbot holds a chat at a time	Many can run on the same message

New chatbot and New rule both open the same builder. A flow is a rule when Background rule (runs next to chatbots) is on in its trigger panel.

Who goes first

For each customer message, chatbots run before rules. When a chatbot handles a message, rules are skipped for that message, so a rule can’t talk over a bot mid-conversation.

The Automation page

login.meapi.in/automation

• Top right: Templates, New rule and New chatbot.
• Tabs: All, Chatbots, Rules (each with a count), Templates, Built-ins, and Hours & teams.
• One card per flow: its name and trigger, a Live · v3 or Draft badge, Chatbot or Rule, and how many chats are in progress.
• The ⋯ menu on a card: Edit, Pause (or Publish), Duplicate, Delete. Click the card to open the builder.

Steps: launch your first chatbot from a template

1. Open Automation and click Templates.
2. Pick Welcome + main menu, check the Chat preview, and click Use this template.
3. Fill in your business name, timings, address and links, then Create draft. The draft opens in the builder — see Start from a chatbot template.
4. Click Test and type hi as the customer. The path lights up on the canvas; nothing is sent.
5. Click Publish, add an optional note, and confirm. The switch beside the flow name turns On. Send hi from your phone to your business number to try it for real.

Below the templates, Classic starter flows has 15 more: Main menu · Lead capture · Order status lookup · Appointment booking · Customer feedback (CSAT) · AI answers with human fallback · After-hours lead capture · Click-to-WhatsApp ad welcome · Order confirmation + review request · Birthday wishes · Welcome back after opt-in · Support triage · Product catalogue browser · Language picker · Abandoned cart reminder (webhook).

Safety rules built in

• Flows only start from customer messages (or explicit events), so a bot’s own message never triggers another bot.
• Loop caps: a run stops after 50 steps, a step visited 3 times, or 5 jumps between flows.
• An agent’s reply pauses the bot on that chat for 2 hours. A Human handoff step pauses it for 12 hours.
• The 24-hour window is respected: outside it, message steps need a template, or the flow stops.

Drafts, publishing and versions

You edit a draft. Publish makes it live. Chats already inside the flow finish on the version they started with; new chats use the new version immediately. Every publish is kept under Versions, where you can compare, load an old version as the draft, or roll back. Rules converted from the old automations page carry a from old automations badge. See Test, stats and versions.

What’s next

Triggers →Every way a flow can start.Flow builder basics →Canvas, steps, branches, variables.Welcome, away and drips →No-builder automations.