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Triage six emails into reply, forward or archive

  • For Operations and supply chain
  • You practice Setting limits and rules
  • Time about 5 minutes
  • Level Beginner

About this exercise

Output a table with the header "Email | Action | Owner" and six rows E1 to E6. Action is Reply now (from a customer with an unresolved problem), Forward (billing questions go to Finance, sales enquiries go to Sales) or Archive (newsletters, auto-replies and resolved threads). Owner is You, Finance, Sales or None. Plain text, under 60 words, nothing else.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Replying to the thank-you. The AI replies to E6 because it's from a customer. Try: Say: "Resolved threads are archived."
  • Replying to the billing question. The AI answers E2 instead of forwarding. Try: Say: "Billing questions go to Finance."
  • No table. The AI writes prose. Try: Give the header and say nothing else.
  • Getting markdown back. AI adds bold and headings by default, which show up as stray symbols where this is pasted. Try: Say "plain text, no bold, no headings, no asterisks".
  • Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting and usually runs long, so a vague "keep it short" lands well over the limit. Try: Cap each part instead of the total, for example "each line under 15 words".

What a strong prompt includes

  • Gives the header
  • Defines the three actions
  • Names the owners
  • Asks for plain text
  • Sets a length limit

Practice this now ↑

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