Understanding branching conditions (Legacy)

This article includes the following sections:


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Team, Growth, Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus











This article describes functionality that moved into legacy
status on February 2, 2025. On December 31, 2026, this functionality will no longer
be available. For more information, see this announcement.


You can configure the Branch by condition step to evaluate data stored in variables and branch a messaging AI agent conversation
based on that data. This article includes the following sections:


Branch by condition step
basics
Condition
elements
Nested conditions





Branch by condition step basics


When you add a new
Branch by condition
step to your answer flow,
the following settings are included:



Name
that identifies the step on the canvas.

Two default branches
that must be configured before the answer
flow can be published:



If this: If the branch's conditions are met, the
conversation follows the branch's steps

Else: If the conversation doesn't match the
conditions of any other branch, the conversation follows
this branch's steps





Branch by condition can have up to six branches, including the Else branch. The
Else branch is required and cannot be removed from the step. You can add up to
four additional branches, to a maximum of six branches.
To add an additional branch, click
Add branch
and configure the following
settings for each branch:



Name
that describes the condition for the branch. This name
appears as the branch name on the canvas.

Condition
that includes the following elements:



Variable: The data that will be evaluated to see if
the condition is met.

Operator: How the data from the variable and value
are compared. Includes
is,
is not,
contains, and
does not contain.

Value: Value expected for the condition specified by
the operator.


See
Condition
elements
for more information.



You can combine conditions for a branch using the
AND/OR
drop-down. For
example, the following branch checks whether a user is located in Australia or
the United States.

A conversation can only follow one branch. Branches are evaluated in the order
they are included in the step. End users that meet the criteria of more than one
branch will be sent down the first branch with matched criteria, from top to
bottom in the step's configuration panel or left to right on the canvas.
Branches can be reordered by dragging the condition panes on the canvas.




Condition elements

Conditions are comprised of
variables,
operators, and
values.


About variables

A variable is a container for data related to a
conversation, such as a customer's location or membership status. A
variable's data can come from information collected in an Ask for
Details or Make API call step or messaging authentication metadata. In a
condition, a variable's value is compared to a static value. Variables
are added to the condition using a drop-down menu.
For more
information about variable types and creating variables, see Using variables to personalize AI agent answers.



About operators

The operator determines how the variable's data is compared to the
value. Operators are added to a condition using a drop-down menu.
The following operators are available. All operator matching is case-insensitive.






When I’m using the conditional step in bot builder…
Available operators




I want to be able to evaluate data stored as a
number


Operators for Zendesk known use cases for evaluating
numbers:

Equal to or greater than
Equal to or less than
Greater than
Less than
Equal to
Not equal to




I want to be able to evaluate data stored as a
string


Operators for Zendesk known use cases for evaluating
strings:

Is
Is not
Contains
Does not contain
Starts with
Ends with









About values

A value is static data that's compared to a variable.
It represents the expected data for a variable. For example, in a condition that
checks whether a customer's
membership_statusis "platinum",
"platinum" is the value.
The input field used to specify a condition's value varies based on the variable. For the
Authenticated status variable, you specify the condition's value
using a boolean drop-down field. For other variables, you specify the
condition's value using a text input field.
Note: The authenticated status
variable is only available as a branching option if you have created a messaging key for JWT
authentication.

Customer variables collected during an Ask for details step require a corresponding custom
ticket field. For customer variables using a drop-down ticket field, use the
associated tag as the value for a condition. For example, the
membership_statusdrop-down field accepts a "Platinum level"
value with a related "platinum_level" tag. To check whether the customer has a
platinum membership status, use "platinum_level" as the value in the condition.




Nested conditions

A nested condition is a condition that contains two or more conditions inside it. You
can use nested conditions to build complex logic that relies on multiple conditions.
They are especially useful when combining conditions using both
AND
and
OR.
For example, the following branch uses a nested condition to check if the user meets
the following criteria:

The user has a “platinum” membership status AND
The user is located in one of the following countries:

Australia OR
The United States





You can only nest conditions up to three levels deep. Each level, including the top
level, can contain up to six conditions.


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