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Have tools approved

Some tools do something you cannot undo: sending a mail to a customer, changing a record in the CRM, paying an invoice, submitting a form. When you switch Needs approval on for such a tool, someone sees exactly what the assistant is about to do with the tool before every call, and says yes or no. Only after a yes does it happen. This page is for whoever sets up assistants and virtual employees.

You set it per assistant, on the tool as that assistant uses it. Another assistant using the same tool asks nothing unless you switch it on there too. In the AI Toolbox the tool itself never needs approval: whoever uses a tool there directly, through OS's API, or through an AI app connected to a group of the toolbox, is never asked anything.

Who decides

  • The person using it. The person in the conversation confirms it themselves, in the chat, with May I do this?. This keeps the assistant from doing something they did not mean.
  • A group. A member of one of your organisation's groups decides, under Approvals. The first decision counts. Whoever makes the request never decides on it, even when they are in that group: so two people always look at it.

Administrators do not decide because they are administrators; only the person using the assistant or a member of the chosen group decides. A supporter watching never decides. Whoever decides sees the request, not the conversation it came from. What it looks like for members is in Approve a tool.

On an assistant

You need the right to change the assistant. Whoever may only see the assistant reads what is set and cannot change it.

  1. Open the assistant's settings and choose the Tools tab.
  2. At the bottom of each active tool's card it says No approval needed. Choose Set up; the section folds open on the card.
  3. Switch Needs approval on.
  4. Under Who approves, choose The person using it (the default) or A group, and then the group.
  5. Fill in Waits at most, in hours or days: between 1 hour and 30 days, 7 days by default.
  6. Choose Save.

The card then shows Needs approval with who decides and the waiting time, for example by Finance · at most 7 days. Change adjusts it or switches it off again.

An assistant has at most 64 tools that ask for approval. When that is reached, the card says so and you first switch one off on another tool. If saving fails, what you filled in stays and you choose Save again; until it succeeds, the tool stays as it was.

How long a call waits

A call waits at most the time you choose under Waits at most. Halfway, whoever decides gets one reminder. If no decision comes in time, the assistant is told nobody approved it and goes on without the tool. A member the request was for gets a notification of it.

Chats where the assistant does not use the tool

Under each tool that asks for approval there is a line about chats. In a chat several people share, such as a shared chat in a project, and in a chat with an image in it, the assistant cannot wait for an answer. There it does not use the tool. A chat with one person, in a project too, does wait.

When the line says Not in chats, your organisation does not let chats wait for an answer, and the assistant uses the tool in no chat at all; virtual employees do use it. Your operator sets this; ask them.

When another assistant uses this assistant as a tool, it works without the tools that ask for approval, and the assistant that called it is told which they are. In an evaluation it does not use them either.

On a virtual employee

A virtual employee asks for approval on every tool where its assistant does, and you can switch it on for more tools on it, never fewer. You need the right to change the virtual employee (Virtual employees).

  1. Open the virtual employee. Under Human approval is Tools that always ask for approval.
  2. From the assistant shows the tools the assistant already has approved, with who decides and the waiting time. You change those on the assistant, with Change them on the assistant.
  3. Under Only for and the virtual employee's name, choose Add a tool. Choose one of the assistant's tools that does not ask for approval yet.
  4. Under Who approves, choose This employee's people, whoever answers its runs in the Cockpit today, or A group. Fill in Waits at most and choose Add.
  5. Choose Save at the bottom of the form.

Human approval and these tools are two different things. With Human approval the assistant itself decides, following your words, when it asks. A tool that asks for approval always asks, on every call, whatever the instruction says.

A change on the assistant holds for its virtual employees from their next run. If no decision comes in time, the run goes on without the tool. Together the assistant and the virtual employee hold at most 64 tools that ask for approval.

On your website

When the assistant is on your website, you choose who decides when a visitor has a tool used that The person using it approves. You need the right to change the assistant.

  1. Open the assistant's settings and choose the On your website tab.
  2. Those tools are listed under Tools that ask for approval. Choose:
    • Visitors confirm themselves (the default). The visitor sees Is this what you want? in the chat, with what the tool will do as a readable list, and chooses Yes or No. Afterwards it says You confirmed this or Not done. If they do not confirm in time, it says You did not confirm this in time.
    • A member of the organisation decides. The visitor sees Your request is with and your organisation's name, and later the outcome in the same chat. The request goes to Approvals, to whoever may change the assistant. No notification is sent for it: look under Approvals yourself, where the number in the menu counts it.
  3. Choose Save.

Tools a group approves always stay with that group, for visitors too; the group gets a notification. A visitor never gets a notification. When the assistant has no tools the person using it confirms, there is only a pointer to the Tools tab. In a chat with an image in it, the assistant on your website does not use a tool that asks for approval either.

What is recorded

Every change to what asks for approval is in the audit trail as a change of the assistant or the virtual employee. Every request is recorded with who decided on it and when, or that it expired. OS itself keeps neither what the tool received nor the reason for a rejection. Nobody reads that reason: it goes only to the assistant.

Via the API

  • PATCH /api/v1/organisations/{id}/assistants/{agent_id} with tool_approvals: per tool name, approver (person or group), group_id for a group, and timeout_seconds (3600 to 2592000, 604800 by default). It replaces the whole set; a save without tool_approvals keeps it. GET …/assistants/{agent_id}/settings returns the set, and approval_in_chats: whether your organisation lets chats wait for an answer.
  • PATCH …/virtual-employees/{employee_id} with tool_approvals sets a virtual employee's own tools; GET …/assistants/{agent_id}/virtual-employee-approvals returns the assistant's and the tools the virtual employee can add.
  • PUT …/assistants/{agent_id}/embed with approved_by: visitor or member.
  • 422 means a tool the assistant does not use, a group your organisation does not have, a waiting time outside 1 hour to 30 days, more than 64 tools, or, on a virtual employee, a tool the assistant already has approved.