Work with Percy: Expand, Review Plans and Rate Answers

Percy, the assistant in the Ask Percy panel on the web and in the staff app, works with your own permissions and never changes anything without you. This guide covers the tools around the chat: the expanded workspace, your chat history, the steps Percy takes, plans, and what you can do with each answer.

Expand Percy into a workspace (web)Copy a link to this section

Open Ask Percy (⌘J on a Mac, Ctrl+J on Windows) and press Expand (the two arrows) at the top of the panel, or press ⌘+Shift+E / Ctrl+Shift+E. The panel grows to fill the page beside the menu; press Collapse or the same keys to shrink it back. Your choice is remembered in that browser.

Expanded, the panel has three columns:

• Your chats on the left.
• The chat in the middle.
• Workspace on the right (on a wide screen): the plan Percy is working on with every change, the tables it answered with, the clients, services, tickets and appointments it named, and the pictures you sent.

On a phone the panel always fills the screen.

Find, rename and pin your chatsCopy a link to this section

On the web, your chats are the left column of the expanded panel, or press Conversations (the clock) at the top of the panel. In the staff app, tap Conversations to open them in a sheet.

• Search Chats finds a chat by its name.
• Open a chat's menu (…) to Rename it, Pin it to the top of the list (or Unpin it), or Delete it. Deleting asks first and removes its messages for good.
• Pinned chats are listed first, under Pinned.

Follow what Percy is doingCopy a link to this section

While Percy works you see a checklist of its steps (each report, lookup or change it makes) with how long it has been working. Press Stop under it, or the stop button beside the message box, to end the answer.

Once it answers, the steps fold into one line such as Worked for 40s, 12 steps. Press it to see them again. If a step changed something, failed or is waiting for you, the list stays open.

Review a plan before you approve itCopy a link to this section

When Percy prepares several changes, it shows a plan card with its status, its mode and the number of changes:

• Review Changes opens every change, grouped by the kind of record, with each field Before and After. While the plan waits, untick a change to leave it out.
• Approve All runs the plan. A delete, a refund or charge, or a message to clients still asks for its own Confirm.
• While it runs, a progress bar shows how many changes are made, and Stop pauses it between changes.
• Undo (for the person who approved it) asks first, then prepares a plan that puts back what the run changed. Nothing changes until you approve that plan too.

In the expanded panel, Review Changes takes you to the plan in the Workspace column.

Rate, copy, edit or regenerateCopy a link to this section

Under each answer:

• Copy copies the answer.
• Good Answer and Bad Answer (the thumbs) rate it. A thumbs down asks what went wrong; the reason is optional. Press the same thumb again to take the rating back.
• Regenerate, on the last answer, asks your last question again for a new answer.

Under your last message, Edit puts it back in the message box. Change it and send it: it replaces your message and the answer after it. Cancel Edit keeps the chat as it was. You cannot edit or regenerate while an answer is still being written, or when the answer has a plan; finish or drop the plan first.

Open the records Percy namesCopy a link to this section

When Percy names a client, service, ticket or appointment it looked up, the name is a link, and a card under the answer opens it: the client, ticket or appointment opens as it does anywhere in Perceny, and a service opens in its editor.

Type less: suggestions, commands and mentionsCopy a link to this section

• A new chat offers questions to start with, picked for your role and, on the web, for the page you opened Percy on. After an answer, Percy often suggests what to ask next; press one to send it.
• Type / at the start of the message box for commands:
  • /schedule followed by what to do and when sets up a scheduled job (Percy shows it for your Confirm). On its own it opens Schedules.
  • /remember followed by a fact saves it to your memory. On its own it opens Memory.
  • /mode followed by Plan, Ask or Auto switches the mode. On its own it opens the mode picker.
  • /new starts a new chat.
• On the web, type @ and a few letters to pick a client, service or staff member by name.
• You can keep typing while Percy answers: your messages wait in line (the message box says how many) and are sent one after another. Remove one before it goes out with its ×.
• Scrolled up to read? Scroll to Latest takes you back to the newest message.