As organizations continue to scale out digital customer service, the need for reliable automation grows. Timeout rules for automatic actions help teams maintain service-level agreements (SLAs), optimize representative workflows, and deliver consistent experiences across messaging channels. This update outlines recent enhancements, technical details, and the practical impact of timeout rules in the Copliot Service admin center.

How do you use timeout rules to automate actions?

A key use case for timeout rules is automating a “heartbeat timer” scenario.

A customer starts a chat with support via Microsoft Teams. After the representative responds, the customer stops replying. The standard process is to send a couple of messages about their inactivity and, after a period of no response, close the chat. Previously, this workflow was manual, but with timeout rules, you can now set up these actions automatically.

Timeout rules in action:

• The service representative is the last person to send a message and is now waiting for the customer to respond.
• If the customer doesn’t respond within 10 minutes, a timeout rule automatically sends a reminder message to the customer:

“Hi, just checking in—do you still need assistance?”

• If there’s still no response after another 5 minutes (15 minutes total), another notification message is sent:

“Since you have not responded in 15 minutes, we will close the chat.”

• Finally, another timeout rule closes the conversation, freeing the representative to help others.

Impact

• The representative’s queue stays manageable.
• The customer receives timely nudges, improving engagement.
• The business maintains its SLA for response times.

What are the newest updates for timeout rules?

We released timeout rules for automatic actions in April 2025 for general availability and have since made several enhancements and released additional features.

Expanded channel support

Timeout rules now support all major messaging channels, including persistent chat, SMS, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, Line, Messenger, WeChat, Apple Messages for Business, and live chat. Voice channels remain unsupported currently.

Moving active conversations to the waiting state

Timeout rules now support automatically moving active conversations to a waiting state on asynchronous and persistent chat channels. This helps manage idle chats efficiently. Representatives can restart the conversation later from their inbox, and thus focus on more urgent active requests.

New trigger event and fast-follow enhancement for representative non-response time (RNRT)

A new trigger event calculates how long it’s been since the representative last responded, indicating how long a customer has been waiting. If the representative is inactive for a configured period, the system can send an automatic action.

A logic update refines how RNRT is calculated:

• On initial contact, RNRT measures the time from representative assignment to first response.
• Once a conversation is underway, RNRT tracks the duration since the last customer’s message.

This ensures more accurate measurement of representative responsiveness, especially during handoffs and initial engagement.

Automatic actions

Timeout rules can trigger several automatic actions:

• Close conversation: Ends idle conversations, freeing representative capacity.
• Send a message: Sends a message to the customer as a representative or to a representative as a system message to prompt action.
• Active to Waiting: Moves active chats to a waiting state for asynchronous channels.
• Release conversation back to queue (coming soon): Enables reassignment for faster resolution.

Messages can be customized per channel and language, with fallback options for unsupported configurations.

Impact and value

Timeout rules deliver measurable benefits:

• Operational efficiency: Automated closure and reassignment reduce queue congestion and representative workload.
• Improved SLA compliance: Timely actions help maintain response standards across all supported channels.
• Consistent customer experience: Automated reminders and state transitions keep conversations active and relevant.

Looking ahead

Additional configuration options and actions are coming soon, including release to queue and customer service representative override, which will allow representatives to turn rules on or off, so they don’t automatically run when not needed. These should be available to the public in January 2026.

Learn more

Timeout rules for automatic actions represent a significant step forward in service automation, offering technical flexibility and operational impact. By leveraging these rules, organizations can streamline workflows, improve SLA adherence, and deliver reliable customer experiences at scale.

For more details, read the documentation: Configure time-out rules | Microsoft Learn

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In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, customer service teams need speed and consistency to meet rising expectations. Copilot-powered email template recommendations deliver both by instantly suggesting the right template for every interaction helping agents respond faster with consistency to maintain brand trust. 

What are Copilot-powered email template recommendations? 

Copilot-powered email template recommendations is an AI-powered feature in Dynamics 365 Customer Service that transforms the way customer service representatives (CSRs) draft emails. Instead of manually searching through a library of templates, Copilot intelligently suggests the most relevant template based on email content, context, and thread intent. This capability ensures faster responses, improved accuracy, and consistent communication across customer interactions. 

The feature works seamlessly within the email editor. Representatives can either: 

• Use inline prompts in the Email Assist card. 

• Let Copilot automatically match the prompt with stored templates and insert the most appropriate one. 

If no suitable template is found, Copilot falls back to its standard drafting capabilities, ensuring uninterrupted workflow.

Real-world impact 

The introduction of Copilot-powered email template recommendations significantly reduces administrative friction and accelerates case resolution. Here’s how it impacts organizations: 

• Time savings: CSRs no longer waste time searching for templates manually. Copilot’s contextual recommendations cut down response times dramatically. 

• Consistency: By leveraging preapproved templates, businesses maintain brand tone and compliance across all customer communications. 

• Improved customer experience: Faster, accurate responses lead to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

• Operational efficiency: Integration with Line of Business (LOB) rules ensures that templates align with specific product lines or service categories, making responses more relevant 

Key features and capabilities 

• Custom prompt support: Representatives can enter custom prompts in the Inline Email Assist, and Copilot matches these prompts with templates and generates contextualized drafts.

  

• Representatives see the name of the selected email template. They can select a different email template if they want.

  

• Copilot template recommendations: Copilot analyzes email content, case details, and intent to suggest the best-fit template. Recommendations appear directly in the email editor for quick access. 

  

• Fallback drafting: If no template matches, Copilot creates a draft using its generative capabilities. 

• Integration with knowledge sources: Optional toggle to include knowledge base content for richer responses. 

• LOB-based template selection: Tag templates to specific business lines, ensuring relevance for specialized cases. 

• Visual Indicators: Copilot-generated content is clearly marked, allowing agents to review and edit before sending. 

Learn more   

To learn more, read the documentation: Use Copilot-powered email template recommendations | Microsoft Learn

The post Enhance productivity with Copilot-recommended email templates appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We are thrilled to announce that the Customer Feedback Survey Agent, powered by Microsoft Copilot Studio in Dynamics 365 Contact Center, is now generally available for the chat channel. 

Building on the capabilities offered in the public preview, you can now configure an enhanced and optimized survey runtime experience designed for better performance and usability on the chat channel. This enhancement introduces seamless integration with live chat workflows, ensuring the entire feedback process remains within the same chat window—eliminating the need to redirect users and creating a more streamlined survey experience for customers. 

With survey agents, you can:

• Gather customer feedback and configure contextual actions depending on the feedback.
• Unify and centralize the process of configuring surveys across digital messaging, voice, and custom channels.
• Use predefined templates to create surveys.
• Allow supervisors to view and review feedback to develop actionable insights.

Learn more  

To learn more about enabling and using the Customer Feedback Survey Agent Powered by Microsoft Copilot Studio, read the documentation and the public preview blog post.  

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What’s one of the most persistent challenges in customer service? The last mile. 

A resolution might be proposed, but what happens next often falls into a gray zone. Agents are waiting for a response, customers are going silent, SLAs are creeping past their due dates. It’s inefficient, inconsistent, and frequently unnoticed until metrics start to dip. 

With the latest release, Customer Management Agent (CMA) addresses this decisively. CMA now handles follow-up and case closure in a fully autonomous way, delivering consistency, compliance, and operational clarity at scale. 

From resolution to closure, without the gaps 

Once a resolution is proposed, either manually or autonomously, CMA initiates a structured follow-up process: 

• Confirmation outreach: CMA automatically checks in with the customer to validate if the issue has been resolved. 

• SLA-aware reminders: Follow-ups are timed according to defined SLA policies and escalation thresholds. 

• Closure logic: If the customer confirms resolution, or remains unresponsive beyond the configured threshold, the case is closed automatically, with full traceability. 

This not only reduces the manual workload, it ensures timely and consistent case closure. 

Sentiment-savvy and context-aware 

Case Management Agent doesn’t just check for a response, it interprets it.  

For instance:

• A “Thanks, this worked!” leads to confident closure. 

• A “Still not working” escalates the case and re-engages resolution workflows. 

• Ambiguous replies or no response? CMA applies retry logic and closure rules to make informed, policy-aligned decisions. 

The agent operates with human-like judgment—at scale, with precision. 

Controlled autonomy, by design 

Autonomy doesn’t mean giving up control. With CMA, administrators have granular configuration options to tailor automation to their organization’s structure, policies, and customer expectations. 

Admins can configure: 

• Automation level: Fully autonomous (no human intervention), semi-autonomous (human oversight included) 

• Field mappings and related entities for AI-based updates 

• Follow-up and closure email templates 

• Number, timing, and frequency of follow-ups 

• Business rules for closure, including SLA thresholds and exception handling 

This ensures autonomy serves the business, not the other way around. 

Why this changes the game for your team 

Autonomous follow-up and closure goes beyond efficiency: 

• Reduces time and effort spent managing post-resolution tasks 

• Ensures consistent, policy-compliant closure processes 

• Minimizes operational overhead by eliminating unnecessary manual steps 

The road ahead 

As organizations scale and customer expectations continue to rise, intelligent closure will become standard, not optional. CMA delivers this capability in a way that’s flexible, reliable, and easy to govern. 

Because in modern customer service, a resolved case isn’t truly complete until it’s closed, intentionally and intelligently. 

Learn more  

Watch a quick video introduction.  

To learn more, read the documentation:   

• Set up Case Management Agent for case follow-up and closure | Microsoft Learn 

• Use autonomous follow-up and closure of cases | Microsoft Learn 

The post Let it close itself: Smart, autonomous case closure is here appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.