Decide the categories first
Pick three to five categories you will actually act on. A typical set is "needs a decision", "routine reply", "waiting on someone else", and "archive". Categories that nobody acts on are the same as no categories.
Write one sentence per category that says what belongs there and what does not. This sentence is what you will hand to AI, and it is also what you will edit when the sorting goes wrong.
Draft before you sort
A draft is cheaper than a decision. For routine categories, ask AI to draft a reply that you can send, edit, or throw away. Keep the draft short and keep the original message attached.
Do not auto-send at the start. Send after you have read a few drafts and corrected the rules, and only for categories where a wrong reply is cheap to fix.
Flag what needs you
Every triage workflow needs an explicit "stop" rule: a sender, a keyword, a contract, a payment, or anything you name. When one of those appears, the message waits even if the category looks routine.
The flag is not a failure. It is the part that makes the workflow trustworthy, because it keeps the expensive mistakes with the person who can judge them.
Keep the record
Log each pass: what arrived, how it was sorted, what was drafted, and what waited. The log is how you find the rule that misclassified something, and it is the difference between a workflow and a habit.
Review the log once a week for the first month. Most improvements come from two or three messages that were sorted the same wrong way.
Where this breaks
Triage breaks when the rules are vague, when the same sender is both routine and urgent, and when the mailbox is mixed with three unrelated jobs. Split the mailbox by job before you split it by category.
It also breaks when nobody owns the rules. Name one person who edits them and one review time per week.
How to run it on Sigla
Use one workspace for one class of mail. Connect the mailbox through the flow the app shows, then ask AI to sort new messages into your categories and draft the routine replies. Add a scheduled task for the repeat, and use run now before you enable it.
For the mailbox mechanics, read how to build an AI email workflow. For invoice-shaped mail, continue with extract invoices from email.
FAQ
How is email triage different from an inbox rule?
A filter moves a message. Triage classifies it, drafts a response, and keeps a record. The record is what lets you improve the rules instead of arguing with them.
Can AI reply without me reading it?
It can draft, and it can send if you allow it. Start with drafts, correct the rules, then allow sending only for categories where a mistake is cheap.
What should always be flagged?
Payments, contracts, legal notices, a named sender, and anything you would not want sent without reading. Write that list down before the first run.
Next step
Pick one class of mail, write four categories, and run one pass in draft-only mode.