What this article helps with: Setting up Lia Respond from scratch, in the order that works. Six steps, roughly an hour of real work, most of it writing down things you already know about your firm.
Who this is for: The firm admin doing the setup. Steps 1 to 3 and 5 need Admin; enabling Lia on a case by hand needs the Enroll Cases permission (Admins have it).
When not to use this article: If Lia is not switched on for your firm yet, there is nothing to configure. Start with Getting started with Lia: access and permissions. If you just enabled Lia from the Lia page and chose your cases, you have already done step 4 — start at step 1 and skip 4. If you want to know what Lia does before you set her up, read What is Lia? first.
There is also a guided version of this inside the product. The Lia Respond card in Agent Settings has a Start walkthrough button (it reads Walkthrough · 3 of 7 while you are part-way, and Restart walkthrough when done). It takes about two minutes on the real screens. The small Setup guide link under the rows opens this article. This article is the same sequence in writing, for reading ahead, catching up after dismissing the tour, or handing to whoever actually does the work.
Why the order matters
Setup goes wrong in one predictable way: the visible half gets done, everyone feels finished, and no client ever hears from Lia. It happens because two different things both look like "turning it on": giving your team access, and telling Lia which cases to work. Access without enrollment does nothing at all.
So the sequence below deliberately ends with enrollment, and deliberately puts one real client in front of automation. Do it in this order and you will not be surprised by what Lia sends.
Step 1: Tell Lia about your firm
Agent Settings → Context. This is the highest-value hour in the whole setup, so do not rush it.
Two fields matter. The Instructions that shape every answer box changes how Lia behaves: your terminology, your business hours, your preferences. Write it the way you would brief a new hire on their first day. About your firm is reference material Lia quotes when a client asks about the firm; paste your website address and press Read website so you are not starting from a blank box. Leave Pull case context from your case management system on so she can answer from case details.
Each card shows Unsaved changes until you save; leaving the page asks Save your changes?.
Detail: Agent Settings → Context.
Step 2: Decide when Lia should stop and fetch a human
Agent Settings → Escalation rules. Each rule is one sentence: what triggers it, how urgent it is, and who deals with it. Assigning to the case owner keeps escalations with the person who knows the client; assigning to a role suits work anyone on that team could pick up.
The shipped defaults are a reasonable starting point, and there is a Restore defaults link if you experiment and want them back.
One thing worth understanding now rather than later: Lia escalates when she cannot answer something confidently. A firm with thin Context and few FAQs gets a stream of escalations for questions the team would have answered in a line. That is Lia being careful, not Lia being broken, and the fix is more context rather than fewer rules.
Detail: Agent Settings → Escalations and Escalations and drafts.
Step 3: Decide who can enable Lia by hand, and who owns the case
Agent Settings → Auto Enable Settings and Permissions. Two things live at the bottom of this page. Manually Enable Permissions is the User Permissions table: switch Lia on for everyone who should be able to turn Lia on for a case themselves. Start with one or two people for the pilot; you can widen it later. Default Case Owner decides who owns a client's case once Lia is enabled on it — set it once and every future enrollment routes escalations correctly on its own.
This is the step firms most often think finishes the job. It does not. It decides who can enable Lia, not which cases are enabled. That is step 4 and step 5.
Step 4: Put one real client on Lia, by hand
Lia → Clients → Enroll. Pick a client, pick the case, set the case owner, and enroll.
Do this before you automate anything. One client, watched for a few days, tells you more about your Context and escalation rules than any amount of configuration review. If something in Lia's tone or answers is wrong, you would much rather find out on one case than on two hundred.
If you would rather not involve a real client yet, enable Lia on a case whose contact is your own mobile number and text her yourself — you will see exactly what a client sees.
Step 5: Turn on Auto Enable
Flip the Auto Enable switch in the header of the Lia Respond card. Lia asks Turn on Auto Enable for existing cases too? — choose Only new cases to start with what comes in from now on, or Enable for existing and new cases (N) to bring the open ones on as well (see Enabling Lia on your existing cases). Then open Auto Enable Settings and Permissions if you want it narrower than everything: User Auto Enable Settings (All users, or Select users) and Phase Auto Enable Settings (All phases, or Select phases).
Two traps: Select users with nobody selected, or Select phases with no phase on, enrolls nothing — the row on the card shows a warning icon that says which.
Step 6: What to add once it is running
Lia Respond answers what clients ask. Two Advanced Skills go further and reach out on their own. These are separately enabled, so they are a conversation with your account team rather than a switch you flip:
Care Coordination: appointment reminders, post-treatment follow-up, and check-ins while a client is treating.
Provider Liaison: emailing provider offices for attendance, bills, and records, so the medical file builds itself.
Scheduled Report is on the Lia Respond card too: a daily or weekly summary of what Lia did on each case, which your team can read in the product or receive by email.
The habit worth keeping from week one, whether or not you add a skill: when an escalation arrives that a written FAQ would have covered, add the FAQ then and there. FAQs are what Lia answers from, and every one you add is a question your team stops answering by hand. You author them against a phase, but Lia draws on every FAQ across the case's project type.
If nothing seems to be happening
Work down this list before opening a ticket. Almost every "Lia is not working" report is one of the first three.
Is Auto Enable on? The switch in the Lia Respond card header, step 5.
Is a user or phase selection empty? Auto Enable Settings and Permissions → the two collapsible sections; the card row's warning icon names it.
Did you mean to enable by hand? With Auto Enable off, Lia waits until someone turns her on for a case — the card says so under the title.
Does the client have a phone number, and has your firm got an outbound number configured? Enrollment and textability are different things, and a client can be enrolled and unreachable.
Did the client opt out? STOP opts the client out at the carrier, so texts stop being delivered to them. Only the client can reverse it by texting back in, and re-enrolling them does not.
For anything else, see Troubleshooting and FAQs: Lia.
Where to go next
What is Lia?: the overview of Lia and how the pieces fit together.
Lia Respond: answering your clients' inbound questions: exactly what it answers, and what it never answers.
Guardrails: what Lia will and will not do: the limits Lia operates under, including contact hours and opt-outs.
Chat with Lia: the staff-facing drawer, for your team rather than your clients.
Conclusion
Six steps, and the order is the point: context and rules first, then people, then one client by hand, then automation. If you have questions, chat with our support team or email [email protected].