Inquiry Auto-Routing: Categories, Conditions, and Workflows

Last updated: October 15, 2026

Route inquiries by defining a category field, matching rules, the responsible destination, and a fallback. FORMLOVA workflows can evaluate a submitted response and send an email to the matching owner. Email-send actions and custom auto-replies require Standard or above. You can design the draft and routing matrix on Free.

Decide who handles unmatched categories and failed sends before enabling notifications. Addresses below are illustrative; confirm real destinations before any actual send.

What This Article Covers

Create an inquiry form
Set up category-based routing workflows
Configure an auto-reply email

Workflow email actions require the Standard plan (JPY 1,480/month) or above.

Step 1: Create an Inquiry Form

Tell the AI what you need in one sentence.

Create an inquiry form. I want to collect name, email address, inquiry category (Technical Support / Sales / Billing / Other), and the inquiry details.

FORMLOVA builds a draft with the right field types. The category field is set up as a dropdown or radio button.

For more on creating form drafts, see How to Create a One-Shot Form Draft.

Start free with categories and fallback ownership

The following is a proposed trial request, not a result measured for this article. Use a test form before changing an existing live form.

Create a private inquiry test draft with name, email, optional company, category (technical support / buying enquiry / billing / other), and message. Produce an unconfigured matrix for each category owner, fallback owner and urgent destination. Ask about unknown addresses. Stop at draft preview and proposed conditions; do not publish, configure email or send.

Check the output before proceeding:

Do category values match rule conditions, including any allowed empty value?
Are other/unmatched enquiries owned, and are overlapping rules intentional?
Are category instructions and the message field clear on mobile and desktop?

Draft an intake with clear ownership

Free lets you test fields and preview. Actual email routing requires Standard or above; registration alone does not start forwarding.

Create a free routing draft

Create an account, verify your email, connect FORMLOVA to a supported AI chat, then paste the proposed request above. Review the saved draft before publishing.

Step 2: Set Up Category-Based Routing

With the form ready, describe the routing in chat.

Set up workflows for this form. If the inquiry category is "Technical Support" forward to tech-support@example.com. If it's "Sales" forward to sales@example.com. If it's "Billing" forward to billing@example.com. Include the inquiry details in each email.

This is a proposed setup request. Inspect the saved workflows for the actual form, category values, destinations, subject and enabled state; a chat confirmation alone is not verification.

What Each Workflow Contains

Each workflow has the same structure:

Trigger: response.created (fires when a form response is submitted)

Condition: Evaluates the inquiry category field value

Uses the eq (equals) operator
One workflow per category value

Action: send_email

To: The email address matching the category
Subject: Reflects the inquiry content
Body: HTML containing the respondent's name, email, and inquiry details

A response event triggers condition evaluation and actions. Response storage, workflow execution and email delivery are separate checks. Use authorized test recipients and an actual published-form response, then inspect execution and send results. A preview submission is not a production response or delivery test.

Handling "Other"

You can specify a fallback for unmatched categories.

For "Other" inquiries, forward to the default inbox at info@example.com.

This adds one more workflow with a condition for the "Other" value.

Step 3: Add an Auto-Reply

Set up a confirmation email for respondents alongside the routing.

Set up an auto-reply email for this form. Say "Thank you for your inquiry. A team member will get back to you shortly."

For details on auto-reply configuration, see How to Create and Customize Auto-Reply Emails.

Advanced: More Specific Routing Conditions

You can use any field value as a condition, not just the category.

Example 1: Route High-Urgency Inquiries Separately

Add an "Urgency" field (Low / Medium / High) to the form, then:

If urgency is "High", also forward to urgent@example.com.

Example 2: Route by Keyword

If the inquiry details contain "cancellation", also send to retention@example.com.

This uses the contains operator.

Example 3: Combine Conditions

If the category is "Sales" AND the company name field is not empty, forward to enterprise-sales@example.com.

Multiple conditions per workflow are evaluated with AND logic.

Available Condition Operators

For reference, here is the complete list of operators available in workflow conditions.

Operator	Meaning	Example
`eq`	Equals	Category is "Technical Support"
`neq`	Not equals	Category is not "Other"
`gt`	Greater than	Rating above 3
`gte`	Greater than or equal	Rating 4 or above
`lt`	Less than	Rating below 3
`lte`	Less than or equal	Rating 2 or below
`contains`	Contains	Details contain "cancellation"
`not_contains`	Does not contain	Details do not contain "test"
`is_empty`	Is empty	Company name not provided
`is_not_empty`	Is not empty	Phone number provided

Available Workflow Actions

Beyond email routing, workflows support these action types:

Action	Description	Plan
send_email	Send email to respondents or team members based on conditions	Standard+
update_field	Update form settings (publish status, capacity, deadline)	All plans
webhook	POST data to an external URL	All plans

The webhook action lets you connect to Slack Incoming Webhooks, n8n, or other external services directly from a workflow.

Webhook + CRM Field Mapping

Field mapping requires Standard or above. Verify the CRM authentication, receiver URL and field mapping through the supported server-side integration. Do not copy masked email values from MCP output into a manual address join or recipient list.

The webhook action can be combined with FORMLOVA's field mapping feature.

When an inquiry comes in, send the data to HubSpot via webhook. Map name to firstname, email to email, and company to company.

When a mapping ID is specified, response data is transformed to match the CRM's field structure before being sent.

Why This Matters

Consistent categories can reduce repetitive address selection. Ambiguous enquiries, unmatched values and failed sends still need an owner. Test storage, matching, execution and receipt separately, then review fallback traffic and failures during operation.

Email workflow actions and custom replies count against the relevant plan's outgoing-email allowance; response notifications have separate rules. Check sender, destination, unsubscribe handling and duplicate conditions before enabling sends. See the related routing and automation guides for the wider process.

Related Workflows You Can Use

For the operating version of this guide, start with Inquiry Auto-reply + Escalation. It combines the first response with a route for urgent or high-value submissions, which is the real reason to classify inquiries in the first place.

If ownership is the harder problem, use Inquiry Owner Assignment. For noisy inbound, add Urgent Inquiry Keyword Alert or Sales Pitch Filtering Workflow so the team sees the responses worth acting on first.

Get started free | Setup guide

Disclosure and Verification

This article is part of the FORMLOVA product blog. The author is the developer of FORMLOVA. Product facts, pricing, limits, and comparison claims should be checked against the current FORMLOVA spec, plan definitions, and relevant primary sources before publication or major updates. For privacy, hiring, legal, medical, or financial workflows, follow your organization's policies and specialist review.