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A macro is a saved reply. You write it once, give it a name, and from then on any agent can drop it into a ticket with two clicks, edit it if the situation calls for it, and send. Macros suit the answers your team repeats: a refund policy, a request for an order number, a “we’re looking into it” holding reply, a closing line. The text is plain, so it reads the same whether it lands in an email thread or a chat. Macros are shared. Every macro belongs to one AI agent and is visible to everyone who works its Helpdesk. There are no private macros. A workspace with two AI agents keeps a separate list for each.

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Inserting a macro

Open a ticket and click the Macros button in the reply composer toolbar. It has a lightning-bolt icon and sits next to the AI compose button.
1

Pick a macro

The list is alphabetical. Once you have five or more macros a Search macros… box appears at the top so you can type part of a name instead of scrolling.
2

Read it over

The text lands at your cursor. If the line you are on already has text, the macro starts on a new line beneath it. Anything you have already typed stays put.
3

Edit and send

A macro is ordinary text once inserted. Trim it, add a sentence, or send it as is.
On an agent with Shopify connected, the list holds in a loading state for a moment while the order is fetched. That is on purpose: inserting early would render the order variables blank. Macros work in both the reply and the internal note composer. If your cursor is inside a bulleted list or a code block, the inserted text takes on that block’s formatting. If you can manage macros, the bottom of the picker also offers Add macro, which opens the create dialog without leaving the ticket. Handy when you have just typed a reply you know you will need again.

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Variables

A macro can carry placeholders that fill in from the ticket at the moment you insert it. Write {{customer.first_name}} and the agent sees Hi Dana, instead of a blank to fill. Variables resolve when the macro is inserted, using the ticket you have open and the account you are signed in with. Two agents inserting the same macro get different signatures. In the variable picker these are grouped under Customer, Human agent, and Ticket.

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Shopify variables

If the AI agent has a Shopify store connected, macros can also pull in the customer’s order. Two more groups appear in the picker, Shopify order and Shopify customer, and both read from the most recent order Chatbase can match to the person who opened the ticket. That makes a shipping-update macro a one-click reply instead of a trip to the Shopify admin:
Shopify order covers the order itself. Shopify customer covers the account the order was placed under, which is not always the person emailing you. Province and country arrive as Shopify’s codes, so expect CA rather than California and US rather than United States. Write the surrounding sentence to suit: “ships to {{shopify.last_order.city}}, {{shopify.last_order.province}}” reads fine, “the great state of {{shopify.last_order.province}}” does not.
Tracking fields come from the first fulfillment on the order that carries any tracking at all. A split shipment with two parcels gives you one tracking number, not both. For those, paste the second from the Shopify Orders panel in the ticket sidebar.
With no Shopify store connected, both groups are hidden and the picker shows a Connect Shopify link instead. The link appears when what you are typing would have matched a Shopify variable, so searching tracking on an unconnected agent tells you where to go rather than returning nothing.

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Fallbacks

Not every ticket has a customer name, and not every customer has an order. Add a fallback after a | and it is used whenever the variable is empty:
You can chain variables. The first one with a value wins, and a plain word at the end is the last resort:
Set a fallback on every variable that might be blank, and treat every Shopify variable as one that might be. A variable with no value and no fallback stays in the reply as literal text, {{shopify.last_order.number}} and all. That is deliberate: it is loud enough that you catch it before sending, rather than quietly shipping “your order has shipped”. Read the inserted text before you hit send.
Keep fallbacks generic. there and your order read fine in every ticket. A fallback like valued customer sounds like a form letter the moment it appears.

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Managing macros

Macros live on Settings → Helpdesk → Macros. The page lists every macro by name with a preview of its reply, a Search macros… box, and a Create macro button. Each row has an Edit and Delete action behind its menu.

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Creating a macro

1

Click Create macro

The New macro dialog opens.
2

Name it

The name is how agents find the macro in the composer, so make it the thing they would search for: Refund policy, not Reply 12. Names are unique within the AI agent, ignoring case.
3

Write the reply

Type the text as you want it to land. Type {{ anywhere to open the variable list, or click Add variable above the field. The Add variable popover has an If missing, use box, so you can set the fallback and pick the variable in one step.
4

Click Create macro

The macro appears in every agent’s composer straight away.
If you type a placeholder that does not match a variable, say {{customer.phone}}, the dialog warns you that it will be inserted as text. Nothing stops you saving it, so read the warning.

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Editing a macro

Pick Edit on the row. Changes take effect for the next insertion. Replies already sent keep the old wording.

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Deleting a macro

Pick Delete on the row and confirm. The macro is removed for everyone on the AI agent, and there is no undo. Tickets where it was already used are unaffected, since the text was pasted in at insertion time.

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Who can do what

Owners can manage macros. For everyone else it is a separate permission, granted per role alongside the other Helpdesk permissions. Most support agents only need to insert. Keep the manage permission with the few people who decide how your replies should sound.

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Good to know

  • Macros are part of the Helpdesk, so they need a plan that includes it.
  • Each AI agent can hold up to 300 macros. At the cap, Create macro greys out and tells you why when you hover it.
  • Names can run to 200 characters. A reply can run to 20,000.
  • Chatbase stores replies as plain text. Bold, links, and other formatting from the editor do not survive the save.
  • The variable list covers customer, agent, ticket, and Shopify fields. Anything else inside {{ }} stays as typed.