Connect by JBRH Open Connect

How-to guides

Every page under this hub is a single job done end to end. Each one names the screen, gives the steps with the result you should see after each, then says how to prove the change took effect and what to do when it did not. If you want the concepts instead of the tasks, the section pages for autonomy, memory, email and phone are the better starting point.

Status
Available What this means
Audience
both
In the app
#/home, #/needs-you, #/autonomy
Last verified
Product version
6.3.2

How these guides are built#

A guide here is not a tour of a screen. It starts from something you want to be true — nothing is being sent, one customer gets slower and more careful handling, the CSV opens cleanly in a spreadsheet — and finishes when that is true and you can see that it is.

  • Numbered steps with a visible result. Each step says what changes on screen or in the record, so you can stop at the point where reality and the page disagree instead of finishing blind.
  • A verification step, always. A guide that ends at the last click is half written. The proof is usually a record you can open: a decision log entry, a call review, a memory row, a follow-up with a reason on it.
  • The failure modes. Most of these tasks have two or three ways to look finished and not be. Those are written down beside the happy path rather than left for the troubleshooting section.

Start here if something is going wrong right now#

SituationGuide
Connect is doing something you want stopped this secondStop Connect immediately
A cold sequence is still running and should not beStop an outreach sequence
One person should never be contacted againBlock someone
Connect said something wrong and you want it not to recurCorrect something Connect got wrong
A reply has been written and has not gone outFind out why a reply was held

Setting Connect up the way your business works#

The configuration guides fall into four groups. Written output — tone, length, signature, and which control owns each. Spoken output — the Voice Lab, the difference between a setting that reaches the engine and a direction that only asks the model, and how a change is proved by a test call rather than by ear. Routing and reach — a second mailbox, a second number, business hours per line, sending certain mail to a person instead. And the record side — importing contacts, exporting data, merging duplicates, sharing one record with a colleague.

Two of these deserve reading before the rest, because they change what every other guide means for you. Decide what Connect may do explains the four autonomy modes and the four scopes they resolve at, narrowest first — which is the mechanism behind giving one customer different treatment from everybody else. Memory in Connect explains the four tiers a correction can live at, and why the tier you choose decides whether the correction holds for one thread or for good.

Habits rather than tasks#

A few pages here are recurring work rather than one-off setup: preparing for a busy period, auditing a decision after the fact, testing a change before you trust it, reviewing a call properly, reviewing the suppression list. They repay being done on a schedule. The weekly review in the getting-started section names the ones worth doing every week.

Everything on this hub applies to both audiences over the same implementation. Where a customer workspace sees a different screen name for the same thing — people rather than relationships, knowledge sources rather than the knowledge bank — the guide says so at the point it matters. A plan's allowance can make a step fail for a customer that succeeds for the operator; that difference is commercial and the guide names it where it applies.

Everything in this section#

39 pages, each with its own status and the date it was last checked against the running system.

PageWhat it covers
Add a second mailboxA workspace can hold several mailboxes, each with its own role, signature, autonomy and health. What to set, and what changes about replies.
Add a second phone numberClaim a second business line: the carrier side, the channel route, the purpose that decides its voice, and the checks that prove it actually rings.
Ask Connect about a customerGet an answer about one customer that is worth acting on: the question to ask first, the four follow-ups that add most, and how to tell an answer from a guess.
Attach a document to a dealPut a quote, a specification or a signed order on an opportunity so that Connect can answer from it, and so the next version does not overwrite the last.
Block someoneA block is one directive stored against the person, tagged per channel, so it holds on email, WhatsApp, SMS and phone and in future conversations.
Change how Connect sounds on the phoneThe Voice Lab splits settings that reach the engine from directions that only ask the model. How to change one, and prove it with a test call.
Change how Connect writesTone, length and signature are owned by three different controls in Connect. Which one to change, in what order, and how to see the effect.
Check a phone number before you go liveProve a phone number end to end before you publish it, one segment at a time, using only a handset you already hold and the records each test leaves behind.
Check what Connect knows about a personRead everything Connect holds about one person, tier by tier, work out which tier is driving behaviour, and correct it so the change actually sticks.
Clean up duplicate recordsTwo records for one human split their history in half. Finding the pairs, merging safely, and the four things to check on the survivor afterwards.
Correct something Connect got wrongFour places a correction can live in Connect — this message, this thread, this person, or the whole business — and how to pick the right one.
Export your dataExporting from the Connect data grid: which sheets, what CSV carries, and why an exported cell can look escaped when it starts with an equals sign.
Find out why a reply was heldWork backwards from a reply that has not gone out to the exact setting that stopped it, in the order the holds are actually evaluated.
Find out why Connect did somethingTrace an action back to the rule that produced it: what the decision log records, how to read it, and why refusals appear there as decisions too.
Give Connect a document to answer fromKnowledge or attachment: which one a document belongs in, how to load it so answers are grounded in it, and the retrieval test that proves it took.
Give one customer special treatmentGive one account slower, more careful handling without changing anything for everybody else: contact-scope autonomy, memory and guidance used together.
Hand a conversation to a colleagueMove a conversation to somebody else without losing the context: what transfers by itself, what you have to write down, and what the customer notices.
Import contactsBringing a contact list into Connect: preparing the file, mapping columns, what identity resolution does with each row, and where bad rows end up.
Make sure a promise is keptFind every commitment a customer is waiting on, check each has something behind it that will actually fire, and close the ones that no longer mean anything.
Measure whether Connect is workingFive numbers Connect already reports that tell you whether it is earning its place, what each one moves with, and the vanity metrics to ignore.
Prepare for a busy periodFour things to check before a peak: the daily allowance, autonomy on each channel, line hours and capacity, and who is actually working the queue.
Recover something that was removedWhat can be brought back after a deletion, where it is recovered from, and the four things that are genuinely gone — with the reason each one is.
Reduce what Connect costs youWhere Connect's spend actually goes — carried context on voice calls, prompt size, research passes — and the four changes that move the number most.
Report a problem usefullyCapture the eight facts that turn a support question into a fixable one, in the order that finds the answer fastest — and the two nobody thinks to include.
Review a call properlyRead a call in the order that finds the fault: outcome, timings on the wire, review findings, then the transcript — and act on the findings a control can change.
Review your suppression listRead the suppression list properly: where each entry came from, which kinds may be cleared, and why most of a tidy-up is leaving things exactly where they are.
Send certain mail to a person insteadMake certain mail reach a colleague instead of being answered: the rules that do it, how narrow each is, and what the exception looks like.
Serve customers in a second languageServe customers in another language across email, WhatsApp and the phone, and test each channel separately because they fail in different ways.
Set business hoursHours belong to a phone line, not to the workspace. What a caller hears outside them, why the message names no times, and which clock is used.
Set Connect up before you go awayLeave Connect running while you are away: the autonomy decision, business hours, who reads the queue, and the dated commitments that will fire without you.
Share a record with a colleagueWhat a link to a Connect record carries — a location, not access — and the three isolation layers that decide whether the person opening it sees anything.
Stop an outreach sequenceFive ways to stop cold outreach, ranked by how fast each takes effect and how wide it reaches — and which one to use while you work out the rest.
Stop Connect immediatelyThe runtime switch stops new work at once without changing a setting. What halts, what is already in flight, and how to start again cleanly.
Test a change before trusting itSafe ways to try a change on each channel — draft-only on mail, a test call on the phone — and how to read the result without fooling yourself.
Turn off one channel without turning off ConnectSwitch one channel off without stopping the rest: what off actually does, what keeps running behind it, and the three switches people confuse it with.
Update many records at onceChange many rows at once in the Data grid without turning it into a second database: selection, bulk actions, the services underneath, and what gets refused.
Use a different voice for each lineGive each line its own voice: what a profile actually contains, the six-step resolution order behind it, and how to prove which one ran on a call.
Write a discovery brief that finds the right companiesThe four parts of a discovery brief that finds companies worth contacting, with a weak brief rewritten and the reason each change alters the result.
Write a standing instruction that worksWhat separates a standing instruction that changes behaviour from one that reads well and does nothing — plus the three kinds that reliably fail.

Questions#

Do I need to do these in order?

No. Each guide stands alone and names the state it assumes at the top — a connected mailbox, a live phone line, and so on. The getting-started section is the one part of the documentation that is deliberately sequential.

A guide names an action but not the button. Why?

Because a caption that cannot be verified against the running application is a small fabrication that gets copied into a hundred pages. Where the exact wording could not be confirmed, the guide describes the action and the screen it lives on instead, which stays true when a label is reworded.

Is there a guide for the thing I want that is not listed?

The second half of this hub covers a further twenty jobs — a second number, bulk record updates, a second language, holiday setup, measuring whether Connect is working. If the task is really a fault rather than a job, Troubleshooting is organised by symptom.