About Rules and Rule Groups

A rule is a set of attributes and actions related to KANA Response messages. The attributes define the criteria that a message must meet. The actions describe how KANA Response should handle the message if the message meets the criteria. For example, a rule may determine whether KANA Response routes a message to the Technical Support queue or the Feedback queue.

A rule group is the set of rules associated with an e-mail queue. You can create one rule group for each e-mail queue. KANA Response applies the rules in the group to messages routed to that e-mail queue.

Rules and rule groups enable you to route and categorize messages for the different parts of your organization. For example, you might have rules that route a message having the word "help" in the body to your company's Technical Support e-mail queue. Technical Support can define its own set of rules to route these messages to subqueues based on whether the body of the message contains the word "camera" or "computer."

NOTE: KANA Response runs messages through all rules, and then executes all actions for rules whose criteria are met and that do not conflict with another action.

Types of actions

Sometimes, the way KANA Response applies a rule depends on what type of action is involved. Rules can use two types of actions:

Permanent rule groups

The Rules window for the root department contains at least the following permanent rule groups by default:

Filter rules

KANA Response applies filter rules to messages that have been received by the KANA Response mail server but have not been saved in the database yet. Filter rules help ensure that inappropriate and irrelevant e-mails do not take up room in the KANA Response database.

Incoming message rules

KANA Response applies incoming message rules to messages that KANA Response has saved in the database.  These rules determine how to route messages.

NOTE: If Response is integrated with Response Live, all chat messages are directed to the" Incoming Message" rule group. Individual rules with certain attributes and actions can be created within this rule group. You cannot delete these rule groups.

Outgoing Message Rules

KANA Response applies outgoing message rules to messages that leave the Response system. The Outgoing Message Rule group in the Rules section of the Root Department defines outgoing message rules.

NOTE: You cannot delete these rule groups.

Secure Messaging rules

Rules can be applied to KANA Response Secure Messaging. You can use the standard attributes and actions or create new ones.

Rule hierarchies

You can create rules in a hierarchy. In other words, a rule can have subrules, also referred to as children or child rules. If a plus sign (+) appears next to a rule in the Rules pane, then that rule has one or more subrules. A message that satisfies a rule automatically moves on to the rule's subrules.

A rule hierarchy enables you to:

Rule IDs

KANA Response assigns each rule an ID in the database. The ID number appears in the status bar at the bottom of the Rules window when you place the mouse cursor over a rule.

When KANA Response does not apply rules

KANA Response does not apply rules under the following conditions:

Expired messages are those that return to the queue after KANA Response executes a forward-and-track or collaboration action and the timeout period for these action expires.

Error handling


How do I create a rule group?

How do I create a rule?

Are there any tips on using rules?

How does Response execute rules?

Is there an example of a rule I can look at?

How do I use a regular expression in a rule?

How do I reorder a rule in the hierarchy?