A context board gathers what a piece of work draws on (the offer and its dates, a competitor's page, last year's flyer, a picture of the window, what the team said in a voice note, the brand voice from Memory) and has the assistant write from it: a post, an email to the regulars, the key points, the next steps. Open Boards and choose Context Boards. Boards is switched on under Admin, Modules, and it is there for each login whose Boards switch is on.
Making a board
- Choose New board.
- Name it ("Spring promotion"), and if you like, say in a line what it is for.
- Choose Make the board.
A new board is yours alone, and it starts with one ask: the card where a question is put to the assistant. An empty board offers Add a Note, Add a Link, Add a File and Dictate; after that, everything goes on it from Add.
What goes on a board
- A note: anything typed.
- A link to a page: paste the address, and the page is read once, as it is now, into its words. A page that builds itself in the browser may have no words to read; its card says so, and why. When the business has the pay-as-you-go tools on, the link's card offers Read it with the pay-as-you-go tools, which opens pages the free reader cannot; it is paid from the business's wallet, and past the business's limits it waits for a sign-off under Settings, Approvals.
- A link to a video on YouTube or TikTok: paste its address as for a page. Its title and who posted it are read free, and its card says that is all that was read. When the business has the pay-as-you-go tools on, the card offers Read what is said in it, which reads the video's subtitles (its maker's own, or the platform's automatic ones), paid and signed off the same way; a video with no subtitles is read by its title and description, and its card says so.
- A file or a picture: a PDF or a picture is read once by the assistant; a text, Markdown or CSV file is read as it is. Five megabytes at most. You can also drop files onto the board.
- A voice note: press the microphone and say it. The words are tidied, and you read them through before they go on the board.
- Something from Memory: a note, a card, a sheet or a mind map the business already keeps. It is read from Memory each time an ask runs, as whoever asks may see it, so a note changed since is read as it is now. A sheet of clients is not offered, and clients' records are not put on boards.
- A box to group things: a titled frame. Drag cards into it; an ask reads a box as one section, under its name.
- Another ask: a second question over a different part of the board (six at most).
A card that could not be read says why, in a sentence, and is left out of what is asked; open it and choose Read it again once the page or the file is right.
Asking
A line from a card or a box to an ask says the ask reads it. While a board has one ask, everything you add to the board (not into a box) is linked to it at once. To draw a line yourself, drag from the dot on a card's edge to the ask; or open the card and tick the ask under Read by. To take a line away, tap it and choose Take this line away, or untick the ask on the card.
In the ask, type the question, or choose Start from… for one of the questions offered (Sum it up, Key points, Write a post, Write an email, Next steps, Make a mind map) and change its words as you like. Before it runs, the ask says how many things it reads and how much of the assistant's room that takes; See what it reads lists each one, how much of it is read, and why anything is left out. Each thing is read once, a box's things together; when they do not all fit, the shortest are read whole and the longest share what room is left alike.
Choose Ask. The answer comes back on the board beside the ask, and it can be linked to the next ask: write the post from the first ask's key points, say.
An answer
Open an answer to read it whole, with the question and what it read. From there:
- Copy it;
- Make it a mind map, kept to you until you share it, with a link back to the board;
- Keep as a note in Memory, as a fact, a how-to or the log;
- Keep as a card on one of Memory's cards boards.
An answer is never kept more widely than its board: an answer on a board kept to you goes into Memory once the board is shared, an answer on an owners' board is kept for the owners, and a card (which the whole team reads) comes only from a board the whole team sees. More, Every answer on this board lists them all.
Who sees a board
Under More:
- Share it with the team: everyone whose login includes Boards sees it and can add to it;
- Keep it for the owners: the owners see it (an owner's choice);
- Keep it to yourself: back to you alone.
A board is never shown more widely than its strictest source: put an owners-only note, sheet or map on it and it becomes the owners'; put a mind map kept to you on it and it stays yours. The board says so under its name. Whoever made the board, or an owner, says who sees it. A star (More, Star this board) is yours alone, and Starred lists the boards you starred.
Arranging, two people at once, and a phone
Drag cards to arrange them, drag a box by its head (its cards come with it) and size it from its corner; the arrow keys move the card picked. Arranging is kept as you leave it. Words are different: a note, an answer or a card's notes for the assistant are changed against the copy you opened, so if someone changed it after you opened it, your change is not saved over theirs, and you are told who.
List shows the same board as a list: its boxes with what is in them, then each ask with its answers under it. On a phone, a board is always its list.
A note for the assistant, on any card, is read with that card: "use the dates from this one; the prices here are last year's".
Health information
A business that keeps health information sends nothing from its boards to the assistant: asks do not run, files and pictures are kept but not read, voice notes are tidied by the app itself, and the assistant in the chat does not read boards. Notes, links and the rest can still be gathered and grouped.
The assistant and the API
Ask the assistant in the chat about one of your boards ("what is on our spring board?") and it reads the board as you may see it, and answers from it; it does not change boards. The business decides under Settings, Approvals what an AI does at once: making a board, adding to it, drawing lines and asking run at once, while renaming, sharing, archiving, changing and taking things off ask a person first. Programs reach boards through the API's Boards part (/boards, /boards/{id}/items, /boards/{id}/ask), as the person who made the key may see them.
Best practices
- Name a board for the work it serves ("Spring promotion"), not for what is on it.
- Use a box for each part of the work (Instagram ideas, the offer, what the competition does), and link the boxes, rather than every card, to an ask.
- Put the brand voice from Memory on boards the team writes from, so every answer sounds like the business.
- Add a note for the assistant on a card that needs one ("the prices here are last year's") instead of explaining it in every question.
- Keep an answer worth keeping in Memory, where the writing tools and the assistant find it again.