Relays: text message automation
Every Text Gets an Owner & an Answer, Even After Hours.
Relays are text message automations you can switch on. When a text comes in, a Relay can reply, assign it, label it, or tell your other systems.
Your day with Relays
Routine texts get answered on their own. The rest go straight to the right person.
5:50 a.m. · Dispatch
A driver texts before anyone’s in. He gets the on-call number right away, and his text waits as unread for the first dispatcher.
9:15 a.m. · Staffing
A caregiver replies YES to an open shift. The text goes to the scheduling coordinator with a Shift fill label.
1:40 p.m. · Clinic
An unsaved number texts the front office. A Relay asks for their name and gives the thread to whoever handles new patients.
4:20 p.m. · Service shop
A text to a customer doesn’t deliver. The conversation reopens and goes back to the service advisor, labeled Delivery failed.
How Relays work
If you can say the rule out loud, you can automate it with a Relay.
Every Relay has the same three parts: triggers, conditions, and actions. Add multiple conditions and actions with AND and OR logic operators to any Relay for multistep flows.
Triggers
When it runs.
A text comes in or fails to send, a conversation closes, a label gets added, or someone opts out.
Conditions
How it runs.
Choose the phone line, a word in the text, a label, who it’s assigned to, or the hours you’re open.
Actions
What happens next.
Reply, assign, label, close or reopen, leave an internal note, or send a webhook.
Start automating with 58 templates you can switch on.
Each template arrives paused, grouped by the job it does. Change the wording, line, label, or teammate, then turn it on. Pause any Relay without losing the setup.
After-hours replies
After-hours texts get answered and assigned automatically.
An after-hours Relay replies outside the “active hours” you set, labels the text, and keeps it unread for the first person in the next day.
Contacts know they were heard.
The reply can say when you’re available and how to reach whoever’s on call.
Mornings start with the real follow-up list.
Texts that got an automatic reply stay in Unread instead of closed.
People can step out of the office without silencing your number.
An out-of-office reply can cover a teammate’s conversations on a shared line.
Each text goes to one owner; no double texts, nothing missed.
Routing Relays assign and label texts by phone line, a keyword or phrase in the text, a label, or the time it comes in.
Each line goes to its own team.
A text to the Odessa yard goes to Odessa dispatch, labeled by site.
One number can serve three teams.
“Invoice” goes to billing, “apply” gets the application link. The rest go to the office.
Whoever answers first owns it.
The conversation is assigned to the first teammate who replies.
Unclaimed texts stand out.
Threads nobody has picked up get a label you can filter on.
Inbox upkeep
Your queue shows texts that still need a person.
Relays do the inbox cleanup your team would otherwise do all day.
Courtesy replies close themselves.
Label a thread No Reply Needed and it closes. If the contact texts again, the label comes off.
A failed text comes back to someone.
When a text doesn’t deliver, the conversation goes back to an owner. Failures that look permanent get their own label.
Reopened conversations start fresh.
When a closed conversation comes back, the old assignees come off and it’s labeled Reopened for the next person.
The new owner gets the backstory.
On assignment, a Relay can leave an internal note with the context. The contact never sees it.
Webhooks
Your CRM and chat tools sync without anyone copying a text.
Add a webhook to any Relay, and the event goes to your endpoint. Send a webhook in, and a Relay texts the contact or updates their details.
A closed conversation updates the customer’s record.
A new text pings the Slack or Teams channel your team watches.
A booking in another tool sends the confirmation text from your business number.
A STOP reply reaches your CRM, too.
“Our dispatchers were texting 200+ drivers on their personal phones. MessageDesk fixed this. Now everyone texts on our company number. I’ve got visibility. They have accountability.”
Susan G. · Dispatch Manager, Aggregates
Teams that use this
See how teams like yours use Relays.
Healthcare and long-term care
Reminders and staff texts, kept on record and free of PHI.
See the setupRelay questions.
No. Start from one of 58 templates and change the wording, line, label, or teammate. Each one arrives paused, so nothing runs until you turn it on. If none fits, start a blank Relay.
Admins and Managers, by default. Operators can see them. An admin can change that for any role. Relays are set up on a computer, not in the mobile app.
It can, so add Mark Conversation Unread to the Relay. The text stays in Unread until a teammate opens it.
Not on its own. There’s no round-robin action. Teams set one Relay per teammate, each scoped to a different line or label, or send texts to one triage owner who reassigns them.
Both run, in the order you set on the Relays list. Add Stop Processing to a Relay and the ones below it won’t run on that text.
Yes. Add a delay of minutes or hours to a reply. A delay also keeps a quick back-and-forth from getting two automatic replies.
Relays when the whole job happens in MessageDesk, like replying, assigning, and labeling. Zapier when you need another app, or several steps and branches. The same action has the same name in both.
Yes. MessageDesk won’t text a number that opted out. Keep “Reply STOP to opt out.” in every automatic text.
Hand the routine texts to Relays.
See after-hours replies and routing set up for your team in a 20-minute demo.