Recipe — Send a confirmation email on inbound email
Atender doesn’t send case-received confirmation emails by default — this is intentional, because not every team wants to acknowledge every inbound message. If you do, an automation is how you opt in.
This recipe builds a rule that sends an Email Studio template back to the caller in the same language the email came in on.
What this rule does
- Trigger: A new inbound email lands in any of your inboxes.
- Action: Atender renders the Case Received Email Studio template in the inbox’s own language and sends it as a reply on the same conversation.
Build it
1. Create the template
If you don’t already have one, create the Case Received template in Email Studio with translations for every language your team operates in. The template typically includes:
- Acknowledgment of receipt
- The conversation’s human-readable ID (
{{conversation.human_id}}) - Expected response time
- A note that they can reply to the same email to add details
2. Create the automation
- 1 — Trigger —
Conversation created - 2 — Condition —
conversation.channel equals email - 3 — Branch —
Always - 4 — Action —
Send Email Studio template - 5 — Template — Case Received (pick by name or ID)
- 6 — Language strategy —
Match the inbox language
3. Throttle it (optional but recommended)
If you have flapping mail-loop scenarios (auto-responders replying to your auto-responder), throttle the rule to 1 per contact per 24 hours. This prevents a feedback loop without blocking legitimate confirmations on separate cases days apart.
4. Simulate before enabling
Run Simulate Execution against the last 7 days of inbound emails. Confirm the matches look right — every new inbound email should match, but agent replies and outbound communication should not. If the match list looks wrong, double-check the trigger is Conversation created (not Message received, which would also fire on subsequent customer replies).
5. Enable
Toggle the rule on. The next inbound email will receive a confirmation within seconds of arrival.
Verify it worked
Send a test email to one of your support inboxes. Within a few seconds, you should receive a reply with the confirmation template’s content, rendered in the language you sent in.
Open Manual Executions and confirm the action ran successfully.
Variants
- Don’t confirm internal/automated senders. Add a condition
contact.email not contains "noreply" AND contact.email not contains "@yourcompany.com"so the rule skips bounce notifications and internal forwards. - Confirm only outside business hours. Set the rule’s Schedule restriction to Outside business hours. Pair with a separate in-hours rule that does in-line routing instead.
- Different templates by inbox. Use multiple branches:
If conversation.email_address = support@... → Send Support Confirmation; Else if = sales@... → Send Sales Confirmation; Else → Send Generic Confirmation.
Troubleshooting
-
Symptom: Confirmation goes out in English even though the customer wrote in another language. Fix: Check that the channel’s inbox language is set, and that the template has a translation for that language. The fallback is English when a translation is missing.
-
Symptom: Customer keeps getting confirmation emails on every reply. Fix: The trigger is Message received, not Conversation created. Switch the trigger.