Scenarios
A scenario is a guided, step-by-step flow your AI follows when a caller wants something specific — like booking an appointment or taking an intake. You define the trigger and the steps once, and the AI runs them on every matching call.
What a scenario is
Most of the time your AI answers questions freely from your Knowledge. A scenario is different: it's a small script for a repeatable task. When a caller's intent matches, the AI stops improvising and instead works through your ordered steps — asking each question, collecting each detail, and finishing with an action like booking or a transfer.
Think of it as “if the customer wants to X, collect these details and do Y.” Each scenario is tied to your inbound AI agent and only runs when its trigger fires.
When to use one
- Booking an appointment— ask for the service, a preferred time, and the caller's name, then book it.
- Taking an intake — gather the details you need before a human follows up.
- Status lookups — collect a reference number and answer a specific question.
- Any call where the order of questions matters and you always need the same information.
How a scenario is built
Every scenario has three parts:
- A name — what the caller wants to do, written plainly (for example,
Schedule an appointment). This is the “if the customer wants to…” line. - A trigger — how the AI knows to start. You give it an intent key (like
schedule_appointment) and trigger keywords (likebook, appointment, schedule). When the caller's intent matches, the scenario runs. - Ordered steps — the actions the AI takes, one after another. Each step has a type, an optional prompt (what the AI says), and an optional field to collect.
Step types
Each step in the flow has a type that tells the AI what to do at that point:
- Ask question — say something and listen for the answer.
- Collect info — capture a specific detail into a field, such as
customer_nameorpreferred_time. - Confirm— read details back to the caller to check they're right.
- Branch — take a different path depending on the answer.
- Transfer — hand the call to a person.
- Book appointment — schedule the appointment from what was collected.
- Send message — send a text or notification.
- Send form — text the customer one of your forms to fill out.
- Send payment link — send a Stripe payment link to collect a payment.
- Webhook — call out to another system.
- End — finish the scenario.
You can mark any collect step as Required, so the AI won't move on until it has that detail.
Create a scenario
- 1Open Scenarios from the sidebar. Pick a ready-made suggestion to start from, or select New scenario to build from scratch.
- 2Fill in “If the customer wants to…” with a plain description, such as
Schedule an appointment. - 3Set the intent key and trigger keywords so the AI knows when to start the flow.
- 4Add your steps in order — choose a type, write what the AI should say, and name any field to collect. Mark the essential ones Required.
- 5Keep Active checked, then select Create scenario to save it.
After it's live
Active scenarios show in All scenarios with a count of how many are running. Select any one to edit its steps, change its trigger, turn it off with the Active toggle, or delete it. Turning a scenario off keeps it in your list but stops the AI from using it.