Creating and managing rulesets

Who can use this: Tech admin, Business admin

Available on: Gong Engage

Rulesets are groups of rules applied to flows that allow you to manage flow behavior. Instead of configuring individual flow settings, set the behavior once and apply it across multiple flows at scale.

How to create a ruleset

1. Click Create ruleset

2. Give your ruleset a name and description 

3. Configure each rule within the ruleset. There are several categories of rules available within rulesets:

   • Flow exclusivity. Controls whether this flow is exclusive, meaning a person can’t be added to other flows at the same time. Whether or not this rule is configurable depends on your company’s Flow settings for flow exclusivity

   • Outbound emails. Set opt-out settings. Choose whether or not to display an opt-out footer for all emails in the flow. Whether or not this rule is configurable depends on your company’s Email settings for displaying opt-out footers.

   • Response handling. Controls what happens when someone replies, books a meeting, calls back, or their email bounces. When someone replies with an out of office message, the flow step is delayed and the flow will remain paused until the return date, ensuring follow-ups resume only after the contact is expected to be back.

     If Gong can't detect a date of return, the flow will not be paused. It will continue as originally scheduled, even if the only replies are repeated automated OOO messages.
     Customizable response handling triggers and actions include:

     • Replies via email → Pause the flow, stop the flow, continue the flow, or remove all account contacts from all flows and optionally create a response to-do
       

     • Meeting booked → Pause the flow, stop the flow, continue the flow, or remove all account contacts from all flows and optionally create a meeting booked to-do

   • CRM change. Automate how people are handled in a flow when key information changes in your CRM to ensure that your flows always reflect the most current information.

     • For example:

       • When a lead is disqualified, remove them from all active flows.

       • When an opportunity is marked as Closed Lost, remove all associated contacts from their flows.

       • When an account churns, remove all contacts associated with that account from all flows.

   • Flow status change. Automatically keep lead status in your CRM in sync with what’s happening in the flow. Every time a flow status is updated in Gong, the corresponding lead status in your CRM updates automatically. Supported for Salesforce, HubSpot, and Dynamics365.

     • For example:

       • When flow status changes to In progress, update lead status to Working.

         When flow status changes to Finished, update lead status to Closed-not converted.

     • Learn more about flow statuses in your CRM

4. Click Save. Your ruleset is now ready to be applied to flows.

Remove all account contacts from all flows

For CRM change or Response handling rules, you have the option to remove all contacts associated with an account from all flows. For teams executing multi-threaded, account-based outreach where you’re contacting multiple people at the same company simultaneously, this action stops outreach once one contact engages. It ensures that once someone in an account replies, all other contacts at that same account are removed from every active flow automatically. This action is best for prospecting or account-based outreach, not internal or existing customer flows where multiple people might legitimately need to be messaged in parallel.

By selecting the action Remove all account contacts from all flows, Gong finds all other contacts associated with the same account and removes them from any flows, even if those flows are different or owned by different team members.

This action only applies to contacts, not leads, because leads don’t have an account entity. If a lead triggers the rule, it won’t remove other contacts.

Since this impacts all flows for an account, ensure your team is aware of the behavior so no outreach gets removed unexpectedly. You must have permission to create and manage flow rulesets to enable this action.  

How to create a CRM change rule

Create rules that define flow behavior when key information changes in your CRM. For example, stop a flow when an account churns.

1. Select a ruleset or create a new one.

2. In the CRM change section, click + Add rule.
   

3. Define the trigger that will start the rule. You can create triggers based on updates to a Lead, Contact, Account, or Opportunity.

   Note:

   When you use an opportunity trigger, it only applies to people in flows that are linked to that opportunity. Gong can’t determine whether a flow is relevant to an opportunity unless it’s explicitly linked.

4. Set the conditions for the trigger. You can define which specific values will trigger the action. For example, for the Status field, you might select the values Closed-Converted and Working-Contacted. You can select multiple values.
   

5. Choose the action to take when the conditions are met. The available action is Remove contact/lead from the flow.
   

6. Click Apply.

How to configure the email bounce rule

Configure the email bounce rule to define what happens when an email sent from a flow bounces. This helps your teams keep sales tasks moving without adding manual work for reps.

When a bounce is detected by Gong, you can control:

• What happens to the person in the flow

• Whether or not a to-do is created for the rep assigned to the flow

To create an email bounce rule:

1. Select a ruleset or create a new one.

2. In the Response handling section, go to the rule that begins with When an email bounces

3. In the first dropdown, choose one option:
   

   • Pause the flow: The person is paused in the current flow. This is the default behavior.

   • Remove them from the flow: The person is removed from the current flow.

   • Move to an email-free flow: The person is removed from the current flow and starts another flow that has no email steps. When you choose this option, select a destination flow. Only email-free flows are available to select.

4. In the second dropdown, choose whether to create a to-do:
   

   • Create an email bounced to-do: A to-do is created for the flow assignee. This is the default behavior.

   • Don’t create an email bounced to-do: No to-do is created.

Things to note:

• Email bounce rules are not retroactive. If you edit the rule, the new configuration only applies to bounces that occur after the change has been saved. It will not apply to people who have already been paused or had a to-do created under the old rule.

• All bounce types (hard and soft bounce) trigger the rule.

• If the destination flow is deleted or the person cannot start the flow for any reason, the person’s current flow will be paused and an email bounced to-do is created for the flow assignee.

How to edit a ruleset

1. Click > Edit next to the ruleset you want to edit

2. Make your changes and click Save

When you make a change to a ruleset, that change is instantly applied to all flows where the ruleset is being used.

How to manage your company’s rulesets

On the Rulesets page, see each ruleset’s name, description, how many flows it’s currently applied to, who created it, and who last modified it.

Use the search to find a ruleset by name, description, or the name of the team member who created or modified it.

Sort the list of rulesets by clicking ↑ or ↓ in the column header you want to sort by.

How to set a ruleset as default

• Click > Set as default

There is always one default ruleset. Whichever ruleset is set as the default is automatically applied to new flows when they’re created. The ruleset for individual flows can be changed later by anyone who has permission to edit the flow.

How to apply a ruleset to flows

Apply a ruleset to multiple flows from the Rulesets page. You can also manage a specific flow’s ruleset from the flow’s settings.

Apply a ruleset to multiple flows

1. Click > Apply ruleset to flows.

2. Select the flows you want to apply the ruleset to.

3. Click Next.

4. Click Apply.

Once applied, you can always change a flow’s ruleset if needed.

Manage a specific flow’s ruleset

1. Click Change ruleset.

2. Select the ruleset you want to use and click Select.

3. Click Save for the changes to take effect.

You can view the ruleset details from the flow settings, but you cannot edit them directly from here. Once applied, you can always change a flow’s ruleset if needed.