The assistant — ask by typing or talking

Filling in a form is the slowest way to tell the product something it could work out from a sentence. So you write the sentence instead.

Open it from any page

Press Ask the assistant — bottom right of any console page. From the keyboard, Ctrl+K (⌘K on a Mac) opens Find: type what you want and choose Ask the assistant at the bottom of the list, and your words go into the assistant’s box. The box opens ready to type: “Record 22 miles for the Henderson job.” “Start a proposal for Jim Bob for a sink repair.” “What’s John Smith’s number?” “What did I make last quarter?”

That last one is a different kind of question — it is answered from your own reports, in the same box — see Ask about your own business.

Or say it. Press Say it instead and talk, and what you said is written into the same box. Which suits you depends on where you are: at a desk, typing is usually faster than talking to a computer; with wet hands and a van to load, it is not close.

Not sure what to say? An empty box offers a few things your business could ask for, and picking one drops it into the box so you can change the names and numbers to yours. They come from what the assistant can actually do on your plan, with the tools you have on and the role you hold, so nothing suggested is something you cannot run.

How it works

Whatever is in the box — typed, spoken, or picked from a suggestion and edited — you press Work it out, and it decides which action you meant, finds the records your words named, and fills in the form.

Two tabs above the box. Ask is this page: record something, start something, look something up — or ask how the business did, which it answers from your own reports and is covered on Ask about your own business. You do not choose between those; it works out which you meant from what you said, and a question about the business can never change a record. Help asks these help pages how something is done — type a question and it comes back with a short answer, and the parts of the help it was written from underneath, up to five, each one a link.

Finding the help costs nothing; the short answer over it is one step. The searching is ours and is never charged. Writing the answer spends against your monthly allowance like anything else the assistant works out — and if it cannot be written, for any reason at all, you still get the parts of the help that answer your question. There is no version of this where the links go missing.

Help leaves out tools your business has not got. The help for a tool that is off is not offered — and if that is the only thing your question was about, it says so, names the tool and why it is off (not added, the plan that includes it, paused for your business, or another tool it needs first), and links Why can’t I see {tool}? to its card on the Tools page. So you know it is a tool you could add rather than a gap in the help — see Find out why you cannot see a tool.

Ask what a business like yours uses, and Help answers from your trade’s kit. What tools does a business like mine use?, what do electricians use? — the answer is the kit for your trade, or the one you named: the tools you do not have yet, each a link to its card, and the ones you do in a line. It is the same list the Tools page suggests from, it is never written by the model, and it costs nothing. See Start from a kit for your trade.

Help answers for the plan you are on. Where something it finds needs a plan above yours, the answer names the capability and the plan it needs and stops there, rather than walking you through a screen you do not have. The link to the page stays, so you can read what it does before deciding whether you want it. And the screen you asked from settles it when two parts of the help fit equally well — ask how do I export it while looking at Mileage and you get the mileage export — without ever stopping you asking about something else from wherever you happen to be.

If you spoke it, the words land in the box first. They are written down where you can read them, so a name it misheard is a keystroke to fix rather than a reason to say the whole thing again. Correcting costs nothing: only working it out is charged after that.

For anything that writes, it shows you the filled-in form and waits. Nothing is saved because you said it. You look at what it understood, correct it if it got something wrong, and press Do it yourself.

No date said means today — your today. “Three hours on the Henderson job” is logged on the day you said it, as your own device reckons it, and “yesterday” means the day before that — even late in the evening, and even if you confirm the form just after midnight.

Changing something that already exists shows what it holds now. Rename a kind of work — “Rename Repair to Repairs and service calls” — and each field on the form says what is there now above what you said, so you can see what you are replacing. If somebody changed it on screen after the form appeared, pressing Do it writes nothing and says so; ask again to see it as it is now.

Say several things at once, or wrap up a job. One sentence that means several steps — a new customer, their job and a visit; what happened at a job and what comes next — lays out a form for each step, saved together. Asked from a job, a client or a visit, this job means that one. See Say it once.

Nothing you say is wasted

If it cannot work out an action from what you said, the words still go somewhere: onto a job as a note, or copied out for you to paste. And if what you typed was really a how do I question, Ask Help instead moves it to the Help tab with the words still in the box — nothing is sent until you press Work it out there.

That is a deliberate rule. An assistant that answers sorry, I didn’t understand and throws away thirty seconds of a person describing a leak is an assistant nobody uses twice.

What it will and will not do

Five rules shape the whole thing, and they are worth knowing because they explain its limits:

• It never sees an identifier. It hears “Charlie” and the server does the searching. It cannot name a record by its internal id, so it cannot act on one by accident.
• It never writes. It proposes an action; a separate step, triggered by you, carries it out.
• Nothing is saved without you seeing it.
• The catalog is small and curated. It can do a specific list of things, and it will tell you when what you asked for is not on that list rather than doing something approximate.
• It never produces a figure. Where an answer has numbers in it — a balance, a margin, what a quarter brought in — they were computed by the same report or record you could have opened yourself.

Nothing that sends, charges or deletes is available to it. Those stay actions a person takes deliberately, on a screen.

Of your settings, it can reach two lists and nothing else — and only for a role that can change How the business works, by default the owner and managers, the same people who change them on screen:

• Your kinds of work. Add a job type or rename one, or change what it covers — “Add a job type called drain cleaning.” Its target margin, checklists and measurements stay on Organization → Job types.
• The services customers can book. Add one with how long it takes, its price, who does it and the kind of work — “Add a bookable service, drain cleaning, 90 minutes, $189, Sam does it” — or change any of those: “Make water heater replacement $1,350”, “Jordan does sump pumps now too.” Naming a person adds them, or takes them off — “Sam doesn’t do gutter cleaning any more” — and never replaces everybody else who does it. It never makes up a price: one you did not say is left empty on a new service and kept as it is on a change. When online booking is on, the form says customers can book it, or see the change, the moment you press Do it — there is no draft. Requiring the diagnostic fee to book, archiving a service and the order customers see them in stay on Tools → Online Booking → Bookable services.

A name you already use stops the form rather than making a second copy, and says how to change the one you have instead. One you archived is named as archived, with where to restore it, and is left as it is.

It knows the week ahead, too. “What’s on the schedule today?”, “What’s Jake doing tomorrow?”, “What does next week look like?” — each visit’s time, client, job, address and who is on it, for everyone or for one person. “Which proposals are still out?”, “Has Harriet opened her proposal?” — every one sent and still waiting on an answer, longest-waiting first, with when it went and whether the client has opened it. What each is worth is said only if your role includes Prices and costs. With Leads on, “What leads do I have?”, “What came in from Thumbtack?” — the open leads, new or contacted, with where each came from and how long ago. Each answer opens the record it names.

It answers for your sales tax as well, if your role includes Reports: “How much sales tax do I owe?”, “What did I collect for Allegheny County last quarter?” — the tax billed, collected, recorded paid and still owed, for every place or one, from the sales tax report. With no period named it means this quarter, and it says which.

With Inventory on, it also knows your stock: “How many 16x25 filters are on Sam’s van?”, “What parts were used on the Smith job?”, “What needs restocking?” — and, on a card you confirm, “Two ball valves used on the Henderson job, from the shop” or “I need six PEX elbows for my van.” A part that could be two of yours is a question naming both. Counts, moves and adjustments stay on the place’s page.

With Purchasing on, anyone whose role includes Spending — the owner, managers and bookkeepers — can order by asking: “Order ten 16x25 filters from Front Range” drafts an order — in the supplier’s own packs, for the shop or for the job you name, from the part’s preferred supplier when you name none — for you to check and send from the order. The assistant never sends one. It also answers “What is on order for the Smith job?” and “Did the Front Range order come in?” — and, when only some of it did, what is still to come and when.

With Projects on, it reads a job’s plan: “What’s left on the Smith job?”, “Who’s on next at Smith?” — each stage not done yet, with its tasks and hours still to do, and the next visit booked from today with who is on it. Hours and people only, never money, and only for a role that sees the schedule.

If you brought in your old system’s history, it looks that up too: “When did we last do Harriet’s furnace before the switch?”, “Look up old invoice 1041” — the rows for a client, a kind, a period or a few words, newest first. Every answer starts by saying it is from your old system and not counted in SMG Tools’ figures, and it is always answered on its own: a question about how the business is doing never has an old row folded into it. It shows the kinds your role sees of your own work, and amounts only with Prices and costs.

What it costs

The assistant needs Professional, because working out what you meant spends against your monthly AI allowance. It is for the people who run the business, so it also needs a role that includes The assistant — the owner, managers and the Bookkeeper, Estimator and Dispatcher roles have it; a field worker and a crew lead do not, and see no Ask the assistant button and no shortcut.

Typing costs one step; speaking costs two. Working out what a sentence means is charged either way. Speaking adds the cost of writing your words down first — which is charged when you press Done, so speaking and then closing the panel without working it out still uses a little. A question about how the business did adds a step when it writes a paragraph over the figures — see what asking about the business costs.

The remaining allowance is shown before you use it, and asking spends it whether or not you keep what comes back. Reading the suggestions costs nothing at all: nothing has been worked out yet.