Ask IBIOS: ask a question and let it do a task for you

How to use Ask IBIOS on the web and the phone: ask about customers, jobs, quotes and orders, confirm the tasks it offers, undo a task within the countdown, and give feedback on an answer.

Where: web and mobile · Who can use it: Everyone who has a login can ask questions. Doing a task from the chat (sending a chase email, marking a customer contacted, creating a task) needs the AI actions right on your account. Your administrator can turn that off for you.

Screens may differ slightly from what you see.

What it is for

Ask IBIOS is the chat for staff. Ask it a question about a customer, a job, a quote or an order, and it answers from IBIOS records and the company's knowledge sources. It can also offer to do a small task for you, such as a chase email or a reminder, after you have read what it will do.

It is a helper. It does not decide for you, and it does not send anything without you pressing the confirm button.

Who can use it

• Questions: everyone with a login.
• Tasks from the chat: you need the AI actions right on your account. If the tasks are missing, your administrator has turned them off for you. The chat will say so.
• Read-only on the phone: if you have turned on Read-only in the phone's menu, the buttons that send, mark or create are hidden. The answers still show. This is set on the phone only. See Sign in and use your home screen on the phone.

How to use it

Ask a question

On the web

1. Open AI Assistant from the menu. The page is at /assistant.
2. Type your question in the box marked Ask about customers, jobs, quotes, or orders…
3. Press Enter, or the send button.

On the phone

1. Open Ask IBIOS from the home screen.
2. Type in the box marked Ask IBIOS...
3. Send it.

Good questions name the thing you mean, for example "What is still owed on the Smith job?" or "What did we quote the Dunlop bathroom?" The more exact the name or reference, the better the answer.

Read the answer

• Check any figure, date or name in an answer against the record before you act on it.
• If the answer is "I can't see it", that does not mean it does not exist. It means the assistant cannot see it from your login. Check the record yourself.
• Give feedback with the Helpful or Not helpful buttons under an answer. Use Flag for review if an answer is wrong or unsafe, so someone can look at it.

Do a task from the chat

1. When Ask IBIOS offers a task, it shows a card with the action in words, for example "Send a chase email to Mrs A".
2. Read the card. For an email, read the draft and edit it if you need to.
3. Press Confirm to do it. Nothing happens before this.
4. The task runs, and a countdown appears with an Undo button.
5. Press Undo before the countdown ends to reverse the task. After the countdown, the task stands.

The tasks available are send a chase email, mark a customer as contacted and create a task.

Start a new conversation

• Web: the list of Conversations on the left, with No conversations yet if you have not asked anything.
• Phone: tap New conversation in the top bar.

Tips

• Read the draft email before you confirm. The chat wrote it; you send it.
• Use Not helpful when an answer is wrong. It helps the next answer.
• If a task you expected is not offered, check the customer record first, then ask again with the customer's full name.

Things to know

• Ask IBIOS sees what your login can see. It does not show you a customer or a job you cannot open.
• Anything an answer says about a customer should be checked against the record before you act on it, especially a price, a date or a bank detail.
• Never give a customer's bank or card details in the chat. Use the payment screens.
• The assistant never claims to be a person.
• Instructions inside an email or a document that the assistant reads are information, not commands. If an answer seems to have been steered by a document, flag it.

Related articles

• Work with a quote
• Find and manage jobs
• Payment chases and the deposit list