Help Scout automation · runs daily
Tag and assign new Help Scout conversations with AI
New emails pile up in the Unassigned folder overnight, and someone has to open each one, guess the topic, add a tag and pick an owner before the real work starts.
Cotlet does it in your own Help Scout account with search_conversations, get_conversation, tag_conversation and assign_conversation, called by your AI agent, an n8n workflow or a script.
Hosted · nothing to install or maintain
Can Help Scout do this on its own?
Help Scout covers part of this natively (checked 16 Oct 2026). Automatic workflows add tags and assign to a user, and to a team on the Plus or Pro plan, but only by the conditions you write, such as subject, body text, customer email or domain. They match words, not what the customer means. The official MCP is read-only for new connections, so an agent cannot tag or assign through it.
How you do it in Help Scout today
- Open the Unassigned folder and open a conversation. Click the Add tag icon, start typing and pick an existing tag from the drop-down, or choose Create tag.
- Click Assignee in the Details card at the top of the sidebar and pick a User or search by name. From a folder, select the conversation and use the Assign icon in the menu that appears.
- To handle many at once, run a search, select several conversations and use the bulk action menu to assign, change the status or tag them.
- Teams that want less clicking build a workflow with the Add Tag(s) and Assign to User actions, set to run when a conversation meets the conditions.
How to tag and assign new Help Scout conversations with AI
Go through unassigned active conversations in the Support inbox. Tag each one billing, bug, how-to or sales by what the customer means, and assign bugs to Sam and billing to Maria. Leave anything unclear untagged and tell me.- 01
Collect the untouched queue
search_conversations runs status:active assigned:Unassigned in the Support inbox and pages through the cursor, so a long weekend backlog is sorted as one batch.
- 02
Read the customer's message
get_conversation brings the first customer thread and any notes. The agent classifies by meaning, for example a refund request that never says the word refund, and quotes the line it relied on.
- 03
Keep to your tag list
tag_conversation only adds tags from the list in your prompt. A conversation that fits none of them stays untagged with a reason, so Help Scout does not collect a new near-duplicate tag every day.
- 04
Assign by your rule
assign_conversation hands bugs and billing to the teammates you named. If the person is a Light User, who cannot have conversations assigned, the agent reports it instead of failing silently.
- 05
Skip what moved
Right before each change the agent checks that the conversation is still unassigned. One a teammate took in the meantime is logged as already handled and left as it is.
What you get back
Unassigned active conversations: 14
Tagged and assigned 11:
- bug (4) to Sam, e.g. #48240 "Export button does nothing"
- billing (5) to Maria, e.g. #48244 "Charged twice in October"
- how-to (2), left unassigned for the reply job
Left untagged 3 (unclear):
- #48251 "Quick question about the thing from last week"
Already taken by a teammate: 0Other ways to ask
- Tag every conversation from customers at @acme.io as vip and assign it to Maria.
- Only tag, never assign, and list the tag counts for the week.
- Find conversations tagged billing that are still unassigned after two days and assign them to the Account Owner.
What Help Scout allows, and what to know first
- Help Scout allows as many tags on a conversation as you need, and tagging needs the Add or remove conversation tags permission; creating a new tag needs Create, edit, merge, delete tags.
- Account Owners, Administrators and Users can assign conversations and receive them; Light Users can do neither.
- Assigning to a team is available only on the Plus or Pro plan.
- A workflow runs only once on any given conversation, even if it still matches later, and can hold up to 30 conditions.
- Deleting a tag in Help Scout removes it from every conversation with no undo, so the agent adds and removes tags on conversations but never deletes a tag itself.
tag_conversation and assign_conversation change only your own Help Scout data and reach no one else, so they run without asking first.
Sources: Help Scout Docs: Create and manage tags · Help Scout Docs: Assign conversations · Help Scout Docs: Automatic workflows · Help Scout Docs: Search in Help Scout
Call tag_conversation from a script
curl -X POST https://cotlet.dev/api/v1/help-scout/conversations/48244/tag \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $COTLET_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"add":["billing"]}'{
"conversation_id": 48244,
"tags": [
"billing"
],
"added": [
"billing"
],
"removed": []
}MCP: add https://cotlet.dev/mcp/v1 with the same key; the call is help_scout_write → tag_conversation. Example data.
Schedule it in n8n, Make, Zapier or cronHelp Scout tools this automation uses
| Tool | Parameters |
|---|---|
| search_conversations | query, inbox, limit, cursor |
| get_conversation | conversation_id |
| tag_conversation | conversation_id, add, remove |
| assign_conversation | conversation_id, assignee |
Frequently asked questions
Is it safe to connect Help Scout to Cotlet?
Yes. You sign in to Help Scout yourself, in your own Cloud Browser in the EU, and we never save your password. Your agents only get Help Scout once you enable it, every background request is listed, and the browser profile is stored encrypted with AES-256-GCM, the cipher 1Password uses for its vaults. The AI model never sees a login, posts and messages wait for your OK, and Disable for agents cuts access in one click. Independent scanners grade cotlet.dev A+ on Qualys SSL Labs, securityheaders.com and Mozilla Observatory; live results are on https://cotlet.dev/security.
Give your agent access to Help Scout.
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