Triggers

A trigger is the event that starts an automation. Every automation has exactly one — a message arriving, a tag being applied, a date coming round, an invoice being paid. Everything else in the automation is what happens next. Triggers work the same way in both builders. In the flow builder the trigger is the first node on the canvas; in a quick automation it is the first thing the form asks for.

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Read this first: triggers are not all available everywhere

An automation belongs to one channel. That decides which triggers you can pick:

• Channel triggers only appear on automations built on that channel. A Story reply trigger exists only on Instagram; Cart order received only on WhatsApp. There is no way to put an Instagram trigger on a WhatsApp automation — build a second automation on the second channel.
• Comment triggers only exist on channels that have comments — Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS and Live Chat are message-only, so nothing on those channels reacts to a comment. Choosing a comment trigger is also what makes the Comment actions steps (reply, like, hide, delete) appear in the builder’s step palette.
• Everything else fires on the event, not on the channel. Contact events, dates, bookings and money events don’t care which channel the automation sits on. When such an automation sends a message, it goes out on the channel the contact was last active on.

When you create a flow, DMLY pre-fills the trigger for most channels — WhatsApp gets WhatsApp message, Telegram gets Telegram message, Google Business gets Google review. On SMS and TikTok it doesn’t: the node reads Choose a trigger and you pick one yourself.

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Channel triggers

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WhatsApp

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Facebook

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Instagram

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Telegram, SMS, Live Chat, TikTok and Google Business

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Triggers that work on any channel

These don’t belong to a channel. They fire on the event itself.

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Scheduled date

Scheduled date fires when a date and time you set arrives — one-off or recurring — and runs for an audience you choose rather than for one contact who just messaged you. Use it for a Monday morning reminder, a monthly check-in, or a seasonal offer. If what you want is a one-off message to a list, a broadcast is the simpler tool; reach for Scheduled date when the message needs branching, a delay, or steps that depend on the contact.

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Birthday / key date

Birthday / key date fires when a contact’s birthday or another key date arrives. The date comes from the contact record, so this only reaches contacts who actually have that date filled in — see custom fields.

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Conversation closed

Conversation closed fires when a conversation is marked done or resolved in the inbox. It’s the natural place for a follow-up: a satisfaction question, a review request, or a tag that feeds a later segment.

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Contact events

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Sales, money and bookings

The rest of the list covers the things your business does, and all of it is channel-independent:

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Keywords

Message triggers can be narrowed with keywords, on both builders. This is trigger setup, not a different kind of bot — there is no separate “keyword bot”.

• With no keywords, the automation replies to every message on that channel. That’s the default, and it’s the single most common cause of a bot answering when you didn’t want it to.
• Matching ignores capitals, and any one keyword matching is enough.
• In the flow builder you also choose how the keyword has to match: Any message (no keyword filter), Message contains a keyword, Message is an exact match, or Message starts with a keyword. Quick automations have no such choice — a quick automation with keywords always matches on contains.

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When more than one automation matches

There is no priority order between automations. Every active automation on the channel whose trigger and keywords match the message will start, and the contact gets every one of those replies. DMLY guards against the obvious version of this at publish time: if another automation on the same channel already answers the same trigger and either both reply to everything or they share a keyword, publishing is blocked and the message names the other automation.

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Why a trigger didn’t fire

The automation isn't live

A trigger is only considered when the automation is Active and has a published version. Saving a draft changes nothing for your customers — see publishing bots. Publishing also opens a fresh draft, so what you edit next is the next version; the live one keeps running until you publish again.

The contact is mid-conversation with another flow

If the contact is already waiting on a question from any flow, their next message answers that question instead of starting something new. Only after that message fails to resolve does DMLY look for a matching trigger.

The bot is paused for that contact

When a conversation has been handed to a human, triggers stop starting flows for that contact and any flow already running freezes rather than fails — it picks up where it left off once the bot is resumed.

The contact opted out

A contact who texts stop (or unsubscribe, cancel, quit, and similar) is opted out, tagged Unsubscribe, and every running flow for them is cancelled. start opts them back in.

It already ran for that contact

An automation can only have one activation in progress per contact at a time, and a flow set to run only once per contact never starts a second time for them.

Nothing is arriving on the channel at all

If no message reaches the inbox either, the problem is the channel, not the trigger — see no inbound messages and automation not triggering.

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Warnings the builder shows on a trigger

The builder flags a few trigger choices that reliably cause trouble. They’re advice, not blocks — you can still publish.

• A workspace notification already fires on this event — clients may receive a duplicate. Review Notification settings. Appears on appointment, invoice and payment triggers that DMLY already sends its own notification for. Either turn that notification off or don’t repeat it here.
• Store-triggered contacts are usually outside the 24h window — start with a WhatsApp Template (or a Checkout Link with a template fallback). A store event says nothing about when the contact last messaged you, and a plain WhatsApp message won’t reach them if it’s been more than a day. See WhatsApp rules and limits.
• Stock triggers such as back-in-stock have no single recipient, so the builder asks you to name a tag whose contacts should be notified.

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