Opening the Assistant
The Assistant opens over whatever screen you are on, from a launcher that is present on every route in the app. It arrives already knowing which workspace you are in, which page you have open and which record that page is showing — and that last claim is checked against the database before any answer leans on it.
Opening it#
Click the launcher. It sits over the app rather than inside one screen, so it is reachable from Conversations, Sales, Phone, the Data grid and everywhere else.
Result The panel opens with the tab you last used, its conversation and its scroll position exactly where you left them.
Type what you want in ordinary words. You do not need a command syntax and there is nothing to memorise.
Result The status line above the conversation moves from Understanding… through the work to Done · N steps.
Read the answer, or the proposed action if you asked for something that would change a record.
Result Nothing has been written yet in the second case. A proposal is a draft of an action, not the action.
Closing the panel does not end anything. The conversation belongs to the tab, not to the panel being visible, so reopening it later continues where you were rather than starting a fresh thread you have to re-explain yourself to.
What it knows before you type#
- Your workspace
- Resolved from your session, the same way every screen resolves it. The Assistant cannot see another workspace's records because the isolation is below it, not inside it.
- The route you are on
- The hash route —
#/inbox,#/pipeline,#/callsand the rest — so that 'summarise this' has a subject. - The record on screen
- If the page is showing one person, company, deal, thread or call, that record is offered as context.
- Your own identity
- Who is asking, so an action it runs is attributed to you in the decision log rather than to nobody.
None of that is taken on trust. The screen context handed to the model is verified against the database first: a record id that does not resolve, or resolves into a different workspace, is dropped rather than described. Screen awareness explains the check and what an answer looks like when the context was rejected.
The shape of the panel#
One header, 38px tall, carrying browser-style tabs and nothing else. Below it a single scroller that Chat, Needs You, Standing instructions, Memory and Files all draw into. On a screen at least 600px wide those five sit in a sidebar; narrower than that they move into the More menu, because a sidebar on a phone leaves no room for the conversation it is meant to support.
There is one status line rather than a row of stage pills. It reads Understanding…, then the work, then Done · N steps, with a compact Stop beside it and the step details folded away until you open them. Five separate pills lighting up in sequence told you the same thing while making the panel feel busier than the work it was doing.
When the launcher is not where you expect#
The usual reason is that something is on top of it rather than that it is missing — a stack of notifications, or a panel remembered at a size that covers the corner. Both look identical to a feature that has not loaded, and both are fixed by clearing what is over it rather than by reloading.
A defect of this kind is invisible in the source and obvious in a browser, which is why it is worth checking the screen before assuming a fault. The Assistant is not on screen walks through it in order.
Questions#
Is there a keyboard way in?
The panel and its controls are reachable by keyboard once open. Connect's documentation does not record a global shortcut that opens it, so this page does not claim one; use the launcher, which is on every route.
Does opening it cost anything?
Opening the panel is not work. Cost begins when the model runs, and a question answered from read-only tools is the cheapest thing it does. A customer workspace's use counts against the plan's allowance; the operator's workspace has no plan and no gate.
Can I have it open on two screens at once?
Two browser tabs each get their own panel, and both are working in the same workspace against the same records. Assistant tabs inside one panel are the better way to keep two lines of work apart, because each one keeps its own record and draft rather than sharing yours.