What Are Auto-Assignment Rules?
Auto-assignment rules let you automatically assign incoming conversations in your Inbox to specific team members. Instead of manually sorting through every new email, call, or text that comes in, you can set up rules that say "When a conversation matches these conditions, assign it to these people."
This saves your team time, makes sure nothing slips through the cracks, and ensures that the right person is always handling the right conversations.
Where to Find Auto-Assignment Settings
You can manage your auto-assignment rules from your Inbox settings:
Go to Settings → Inbox Settings → Auto Assignment.
From here, you can create new rules, edit existing ones, reorder them, and remove them.
Tip: Rules are checked from top to bottom, and the first match wins. That’s why the order of your rules matters! More on that below. Because of this, we recommend putting your most specific rules at the top and your broader "catch-all" rules at the bottom.
How It Works
Each rule is made up of conditions (what the rule looks for) and assignees (who gets assigned when there’s a match).
When a new email comes into your Inbox, LeadSimple checks your rules from top to bottom. The first rule that matches wins, and the conversation gets assigned to one of that rule’s team members.
If the conversation already has someone assigned to it, auto-assignment is skipped entirely. These rules won’t override an existing assignment.
Away Mode Note: if a user has Away Mode toggled on, they will be temporarily excluded from auto-assignment. Once they return and disable Away Mode, they will be included in the round-robin rotation again.
The Three Conditions You Can Set
Each rule can use up to three conditions. A conversation must match all of the conditions you set on a rule for it to be a match. Think of it as "AND" logic. If you set an inbox and a contact type, both must match. However, you can leave fields blank to make the rules more broad!
1. Inbox (Email Address)
This condition checks which inbox (email address) the conversation came through. For example, if you have separate inboxes for inquiries@yourcompany.com and maintenance@yourcompany.com, you can route each one to different team members.
If you leave the inbox blank on a rule, that condition is ignored—the rule will match conversations from any inbox.
2. Property Group
This condition checks whether the conversation is associated with a property that belongs to a specific property group. For example, if you have property groups like “North Region” and “South Region,” you can route conversations to the team that manages each area.
The rule looks at the properties linked to the conversation and checks if any of them belong to the property group you selected. If there’s any overlap, it’s a match.
If you leave the property group blank, this condition is ignored.
What if a contact spans multiple property groups?
If a conversation is linked to properties that belong to different property groups (for example, one property in “North Region” and another in “South Region”), the conversation could potentially match rules for either group. In that case, whichever rule is higher in your list wins. This is another reason to pay close attention to the order of your rules when you have contacts that span multiple property groups.
3. Contact Type
This condition checks the type of contact associated with the conversation. The available contact types are:
Owner – the property owner
Tenant – a current tenant
Vendor – a vendor or service provider
Applicant – someone applying to rent
Non-Contact – an unknown sender who hasn’t been matched to a contact record yet (for example, a brand-new email from someone not in your system)
If you leave the contact type blank, this condition is ignored.
Tip: You don’t have to use all three conditions. You could create a rule that only filters by inbox, or only by contact type, or only by property group. Whatever makes sense for your workflow.
Rule Order: Why It Matters
When a new conversation arrives, LeadSimple goes through your rules from top to bottom. As soon as it finds a rule that matches, it stops looking and assigns the conversation using that rule. No other rules below it are checked.
Because of this, we recommend putting your most specific rules at the top and your broader "catch-all" rules at the bottom.