The Network DMs workflow enables your AI agent to send and respond to direct messages from students in the CollegeVine network. When a student reaches out via the CV network, the agent receives it as an email event, queries your knowledge base, and generates a tailored reply.

Setting up your network DMs workflow

Open the network DMs workflow

In the left sidebar, click Workflows under your agent.
Find and open your Network DMs Workflow. Its status will show as Draft, Live, or Archived.

📌 Don't see a Network DMs Workflow? Contact your CollegeVine Success Manager. They will create one and configure it for your agent.

Configure the workflow fields

From the Workflow page, click Edit in the top right corner to open the Configure workflow form. Review and complete the following fields:

Basic settings

Workflow name — Give the workflow a clear name (e.g., "Network DMs").
Metaprompt — Select the prompt template for this workflow. For Network DMs, this is typically V1W: Email Replies. Click View to preview the template.
LLM Model — Select the AI model. Network DMs workflows typically use Anthropic Claude Opus 4.6 for higher-quality response generation.
Email generation prompt — Select the template that controls how your agent structures and phrases its replies. Click + Add to assign a template (e.g., trellis-workflow-v2-marketing-email-reply). This field shapes the format and tone of every outgoing response.
Additional instructions — Add custom instructions that define your agent's identity for this workflow. Click + Add to create an entry. Instructions are passed as JSON and can set the agent's name, tone, and specific guidance. For example: {"who_you_are": {"name": "Ivy", "tone": "Professional", "additional_instructions": "Be chill"}}. Contact your Success Manager to update these.
Agent persona — Defines the personality and communication style your agent uses on this workflow. Pre-set by your CollegeVine team, but can be adjusted on request.

Audience

Who should I be engaging with? — Select the constituent group this workflow applies to.
Auto shutoff date — Optionally set a date when the workflow automatically deactivates.

Inbound communication channels

For Network DMs, inbound channels (Email, SMS, Phone, etc.) are typically left as None. This workflow is driven by the Email received trigger event, which fires when a student sends a DM through the CollegeVine network.

Actions

Under Add any actions I will need to use, confirm the following are added (your CollegeVine team will typically set these up):

email_constituent — sends the generated reply back to the constituent
knowledge_base — queries your institution's knowledge base to retrieve relevant information before responding

Trigger events

Under Trigger events, confirm the following is added:

Email received — fires when an inbound network DM arrives (forwarded as an email event), triggering the agent to generate and send a response

Set the workflow to live

Click Save, then click Launch (or change the status from Draft to Live).
Confirm the status shows Live in the Workflows list.

💡 Use the test harness to simulate a DM interaction before going live. From the Workflow page, click Test, select or generate a test constituent, and click Start simulation.

How it works

When a network DM is received, the agent follows this flow:

A student sends a DM through the CollegeVine network, which arrives as an Email received event.
The agent queries your knowledge base to retrieve relevant information.
If the question is answerable, the agent generates a response using the retrieved information and the email generation prompt.
If the question is not answerable, the agent sends a pre-configured default response.
The reply is delivered back to the student via email_constituent.

Network DMs guide