How To Pause Your Bot Automation

Until You're Ready (Like When You're In a LIVE CHAT!)

No, what I wanted was a way to TURN OFF THE BOT AUTOMATION ENTIRELY UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES - like when the user is engaged in a LIVE CHAT session for instance!

Because there's nothing more annoying than entering into a live chat with someone, and having your bot interrupt you with something unrelated! Or worse, something wrong!

Nope, you need a way to PAUSE (or STOP entirely) your bot automation.

Well, here's my solution using a single tag I call RUNBOT.

SIDEBAR: This concept is EXPLAINED & DEMONSTRATED FULLY in the accompanying videos. Watch how I automate the tagging and retagging of audience members, and how I use a simple switch logic to "silence" my bot for as long as I wish.

Main Idea

First, when the chatbot is activated and the conversation starts, add a tag called RUNBOT.

Then, before any and all automation runs (rules, sequences, flows, keywords, default reply etc,) simply check IF RUNBOT THEN ...

When you want to turn off the bot automation, simply remove the tag.

Then when ANY part of the automation runs, it checks and as before, now the RUNBOT tag is missing so it does nothing.

The nice thing about this simple 'kill switch' approach is that you can add back the RUNBOT TAG and your bot automation will start back up.

Extra Idea

You can get extremely creative with bot automation logic using simple tags and you can also “KISS” it by manually removing the RUNBOT tag when you go into LIVE CHAT and adding it back later if you wish. Sometimes the simplest approach works too!

Hope this helps you get the most out of your Manychat bot.

Bonus Idea

If you create a FLOW called STARTBOT (that adds the tag RUNBOT to the client) you can even restart the bot from LIVE CHAT - you may recall that you can run flows from inside the chat interface.