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What Can a Connected AI Assistant Do in ABM Service?

A connected AI assistant works in ABM Service as the person who connected it: it can look up calls, customers and engineers for them and, if they allowed it, log and change calls, schedule engineers and attach files under their name. The system administrator allows assistants for the whole company on the AI assistants screen (menu, then Administration); each person decides what their own assistant may do when they connect it.

Who does a connected AI assistant act as in ABM Service?​

A connected assistant acts under the name of the ABM user who connected it. A call it logs is logged by that person, a change it makes is made by that person, and a file it attaches is added by that person, exactly as if they had done it on their own screens. The AI assistants screen says it in one line: It acts as them and sees what they see.

ABM Service has no permissions for office staff: every ABM user who signs in to your company can do the same things on the Home, Customers, Calls and Scheduler screens. A connected assistant can do less than its person, not more. It works only through a short list of tasks (looking things up, logging and changing calls, scheduling an engineer, attaching files), and it never reaches the Administration screens, even when the person who connected it is user 1.

Each person decides how far their own assistant goes. On the Connect an assistant page, where they allow it, Read calls, customers and engineers comes with every connection, and Make changes in ABM is a tick that starts ticked. A person who unticks it gets an assistant that can only read. The Connected list on the AI assistants screen shows which kind each one is: reads and makes changes or reads only.

Before each change, the assistant is asked to read it back and wait for the person's go-ahead; the Connect an assistant page tells them that their assistant asks them before each one. ABM Service itself does not ask a second time: once the assistant carries out a change, it is made.

What can a connected assistant look up in ABM Service?​

Every connected assistant, including one that only reads, can look up the following in ABM Service for the person who connected it:

  • Calls by date — the calls listed the way the Calls list lists them, by the date a visit is due or the date the call was logged: today, this week, last month or a range of dates of up to a year. It can narrow them to open, closed or cancelled calls, to one engineer's visits, to one customer, to calls nobody has scheduled yet, or to the calls the person follows up or logged.
  • Calls by words — calls whose reference, Comment, details or resolution contain what the person describes, among the calls logged in the last twelve months unless they say otherwise.
  • One call — its customer and contact, status, call type, visits, the words of its details and resolution, its custom fields and the names of its attached files. Only the first 6,000 characters of the details and of the resolution are given; longer text is marked as cut, and the rest is read in ABM Service.
  • Customers — customer accounts found by name, code, address, phone number or postcode, leaving out inactive ones, and one customer: addresses, phone and email, its notes (the first 6,000 characters of each), whether it is on hold, its place on the map, its contacts, its custom fields, and the engineers who have been on site in the last twelve months.
  • The lists your company uses — its call statuses, its call types and its active engineers.

ABM Service gives the assistant a link with every call and customer, which opens it in ABM Service, so the person can click straight through to the screen.

Some things are never given to an assistant: a customer's balances, bank details and direct debit details, and the contents of attached files. A call's details are given as words; the assistant is told how many pictures they hold but does not see them.

What changes can a connected assistant make?​

A connected assistant can change things in ABM Service only when the person left Make changes in ABM ticked when they connected it. It can then:

  • Log a new call — exactly as the call screen logs one: logged now, by the person, with the call type's own job group, charge and follow-up person, and at the status chosen under Calls assistants log start as on the AI assistants screen (Open when none was chosen). It needs a customer, a call type, a one-line Comment and a Contact name, and refuses an inactive account, just as the call screen does.
  • Change an existing call — its status, its Comment, the contact, reference, purchase order (PO) number and custom fields, and add text at the end of its details or its resolution. It never removes anything from the details or the resolution.
  • Schedule an engineer — book an engineer's visit on a call, with the start, how long it takes and notes for the engineer, the same booking Schedule engineer makes. If the engineer already has something at that time, the assistant is told and can tell the person; the booking is not refused, because the office sometimes books over a clash on purpose.
  • Attach a file — to a customer or a call, up to 50 megabytes (MB), or use a saved email (an Outlook message file or an .eml file) as a new call's details or add it to an existing call's details, with the original email attached to the call. This needs an assistant that can run commands on the person's own computer: it is given a one-time address, which works for ten minutes and one file, and sends the file there directly.

An assistant whose person unticked Make changes in ABM is refused every one of these, and is told why.

What can a connected assistant never do in ABM Service?​

There are things a connected assistant cannot do in ABM Service, whatever it is asked and whoever connected it:

  • Delete anything — no call, visit, customer, contact or file.
  • Change a customer — it can read a customer's account, but not edit it, and it cannot add a customer or a contact.
  • Move or remove a visit — it can book a new visit with Schedule engineer's booking, but cannot move, resize or remove one already on the Scheduler.
  • Rewrite a call's details or resolution — it adds to the end of them, never edits or deletes what is already there.
  • See money or bank details — balances, bank details and direct debit details are never given to it.
  • Open attachments — it sees the names of a call's files, not their contents.
  • Use the Administration screens — no assistant can change a setting, a sign-in or the database, user 1's included.
  • Act for somebody else — it is always the person who connected it.

Anything an assistant cannot do is still done by a person on ABM Service's own screens.

How does an assistant suggest which engineer to schedule?​

When a person asks a connected assistant which engineer should do a job, ABM Service gives the assistant the facts and the assistant makes the suggestion, saying why. ABM Service gives up to ten active engineers unless the assistant asks for more, at most fifty: first those who have been to this customer most, then those with the most free time, then by name. It does not score them; the assistant chooses.

For the call in question, the assistant is given, for each of those engineers:

  • Their notes — what your company wrote about that engineer on the AI context screen's Engineers tab, such as skills, areas and certificates.
  • This customer — how many visits they made to this customer in the last twelve months, and when last.
  • Their free time — for each weekday in the days asked about (five weekdays by default, up to fourteen, starting today or on a later day the person names), the gaps between 08:00 and 18:00 long enough for the job, and which customers they are already booked at that day.

It is also given what the AI context screen says about the call's type and about the customer. So the better your company's notes on the AI context screen, the better the assistant's suggestions.

The assistant books nothing while suggesting. It schedules an engineer only when the person agrees, and only if the person allowed it to make changes.

How can the office tell what was done through an assistant?​

Work done through a connected assistant in ABM Service carries the person's name, as if they had done it themselves, with a few marks that show an assistant was involved:

  • A new call starts at the status chosen under Calls assistants log start as on the AI assistants screen. Choose a status of its own, such as "AI draft", and the office can find every such call with the Call Status filter on the Calls list and review it.
  • Text added to a call's details or resolution is headed Added by, the person's name, through an AI assistant, and the date and time.
  • A file attached through an assistant carries the comment Added through an AI assistant.

Nothing else marks a call an assistant logged: it is numbered and logged by the person like any other call, and the AI assistants screen does not list the calls each assistant logged. That is why the status choice matters if the office wants to review them.