Automation Workflows

Automation lets Mersal react to what your contacts do — a keyword they text, an event that fires, a delay you need — instead of you sending every message by hand. Workflows are built visually at /user/automation/create, by dragging nodes onto a canvas and connecting them.

Node types

Every workflow is built from a small set of node types, combined however your logic requires:

Node	What it does
Start	The entry point every workflow begins from.
Keyword	Fires the workflow when an incoming message matches a keyword you define.
Trigger	Fires the workflow on a generic event, rather than a specific keyword.
Wait	Pauses the workflow for a defined delay before continuing to the next node.
Condition	Branches the workflow down different paths based on logic you set.
AI: Send (ai_send)	Sends an AI-generated reply as a step in the workflow.
AI: Generate (ai_generate)	Uses AI to generate content as an intermediate step, for use later in the flow.

Combining these lets you build anything from a simple "reply to this keyword" auto-responder up to a multi-step branching flow with waits, conditions, and AI-generated content along the way.

Starting from a preset

You don't have to start from a blank canvas — Mersal ships with 11 ready-made presets covering common automation patterns. Starting from a preset and adjusting it is usually faster than building a workflow node by node, especially for your first few automations.

Testing, repeating, and activating

Before a workflow runs against real contacts, you can test it to confirm the logic behaves the way you expect. Workflows can also be configured to repeat, and are switched on and off independently — so you can build and refine a workflow while it's deactivated, then activate it once you're confident it's ready, without deleting your work in between.

For a hands-on walkthrough of building a workflow end to end, see Building an Automation Workflow.