Skip to content

Approve a tool

Some tools do something you cannot undo: sending a mail, changing a customer's record, submitting a form. With such a tool an assistant can ask for approval first. It shows exactly what it is about to do with the tool and waits until someone says yes or no. This page is for you as a member: what you see in a chat when the assistant asks you, and how you review someone else's request under Approvals.

Whoever manages the assistant decides per tool whether it asks for approval and who decides: the person using the assistant, or a group of your organisation (Have tools approved).

In a chat: "May I do this?"

When you decide yourself, a card May I do this? appears in the conversation, with which assistant wants to use which tool underneath. The card shows what the tool receives as a readable list; Show as the tool receives it shows the data exactly as it goes to the tool. At the bottom it says until when the question waits.

  1. Read what the tool will do.
  2. Choose Yes to let the tool do its work. The card becomes one line, Approved with the tool, and the assistant carries on. Its answer appears in parts, not word by word.
  3. Or choose No. You can then write why under Why not? (optional); that goes only to the assistant, so it knows what to do differently. Choose No, don't, or Back if you change your mind. A rejected tool does nothing.

You need not answer straight away. You can keep writing in the conversation; the question stays open and you answer later. When the assistant wants to use two tools at once, you get two cards, each with its own Yes and No. When you come back later, you see what was decided and then the assistant's answer.

If you do not answer in time, the card says Nobody approved this within the waiting time. The assistant is told and goes on without the tool. If OS says Your answer did not arrive, try again; the question is still open.

In a chat: a group decides

When a group decides, the card says Waiting for approval by and the group's name. You see no buttons: whoever makes the request does not decide on it, even when they are in that group. You need not stay. As soon as someone in the group decides you get a notification, and the assistant's answer appears in the conversation. The card then says who decided and when, without a reason: a reason someone gave when rejecting is read only by the assistant.

Chats where the assistant does not ask

In a chat you share with several people, 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 a tool that asks for approval at all. A chat in a project that only you use does wait.

When you use a tool yourself, in the AI Toolbox, or through an AI app you connected to a group of the toolbox, OS never asks for approval: the question belongs to the tool in an assistant, not to the tool itself.

Approvals

When you decide on other people's requests, Approvals is in the menu, right under Cockpit, with the number of requests waiting for your decision. You see it when you are in a group that decides on a tool, when you answer the waits of a virtual employee that asks for approval, or when you may change an assistant where a member decides what website visitors ask. Otherwise you do not see it.

The page has two tabs. Waiting shows the requests waiting now, oldest first, with the tool, where the request comes from, who asked, when, and until when it waits. A request that expires within a day is shown in orange. Decided, last 30 days shows what was decided in the last 30 days and by whom. From picks one assistant or virtual employee.

To review a request:

  1. Choose the request. A panel opens with who asked, when, until when it waits and who decides.
  2. Read under What the tool will do what the tool receives, and with Show as the tool receives it exactly as it goes to the tool.
  3. Write a Reason (optional) if you want. With a rejection it goes only to the assistant or virtual employee; nobody else reads it.
  4. Choose Approve or Reject. The request leaves the list and the number in the menu goes down.

What you see is the request, not the conversation it came from. Your decision is recorded in your name. The first decision counts: when a colleague decided while you were looking, OS says Already approved by or Already rejected by with the name, and your decision was not sent.

A request that is for you is in the list too, marked Your request and without buttons: someone else in the group decides on it. Someone watching your organisation as a supporter reads everything you read and never decides.

A virtual employee's request is under Approvals and also on its run in the Cockpit, for whoever answers that run (Answer a run that waits). What you decide in one place shows in the other.

How long a request waits

Each request waits as long as the assistant's manager set: between 1 hour and 30 days, 7 days if they chose nothing. Halfway, whoever decides gets one reminder. If nobody decides in time, the request expires: the assistant or virtual employee is told nobody approved it and goes on without the tool.

Notifications

  • A request waits for your approval: to everyone who decides on the request, except the person it is for. The notification takes you to Approvals.
  • A request still waits for approval: the reminder halfway, to the same people.
  • Your request was approved or Your request was rejected: to you, when someone else decided on your request. The notification takes you to the conversation.
  • Your request expired: to you, when nobody decided in time, also when you could have answered it yourself in the chat.

A question you answer yourself gives no notification while it waits: the card is in the conversation. A notification or mail never names what the tool receives and never a reason. Whether you also get them by mail, you choose in your notification settings.

Via the API

  • GET /api/v1/organisations/{id}/approvals gives a page of requests you may decide or that are for you, with state waiting or decided (the last 30 days), from for one assistant or virtual employee, and cursor for the next page.
  • GET …/approvals/count counts the waiting requests you may decide (waiting), and answers 403 when you decide on nothing.
  • GET …/approvals/{approval_id} gives one request with arguments, what the tool receives.
  • POST …/approvals/{approval_id}/decision decides, with approve (true or false) and optionally reason. 403 means it is not yours to decide, 409 that someone else decided first.