Elf approvals
Your elf reads freely, but it asks before it acts on your behalf. Before it sends an email, posts a message or changes a record in one of your apps, it stops and asks you. You decide whether it may go ahead this once, always, or not at all, and you can set rules so it never asks about things you are happy to let it do.
How an elf asks
Section titled “How an elf asks”When the elf wants to do something that needs your approval, a card appears in its chat: your elf’s name, what it wants to do, and Allow it? For an email or a post, the card lays out who it goes to, the subject and the text, so you can check it before it is sent.
Choose one:
- Allow once lets it do this one action.
- Always allow lets it do the same action, to the same recipient or place, without asking again in this task or chat.
- Deny stops it from taking the action.
Only the card’s buttons decide. Typing “yes” in the chat does not approve an action.
The card stays in the chat after you choose, without its buttons, and your choice shows below it as your own message, so the chat keeps a record of what was asked and decided. When you select Always allow, other requests waiting for the same action are covered by that answer, and the elf notes that under each of them.
A request you do not answer in time expires. The elf says so in the chat: nothing was done, and it may ask again on its next run. If you try to answer an expired card, it says This request has expired.
Where approvals reach you
Section titled “Where approvals reach you”Approval cards appear in the elf’s chat, or in the chat of the task that raised them, labelled with the task and subtask.
If the elf is working in the background, the request also appears in your Chats as an urgent chat with the same card, so a scheduled run does not sit waiting while you are elsewhere. Answer it there or in the elf’s chat: it is answered once, wherever you answer it. See Give an elf a task.
Approve a whole task at once
Section titled “Approve a whole task at once”A task that runs every day should not ask you every day. When the elf sets up a task, it asks two things:
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Should I check with you before I do anything in this task, like sending or changing things? Answer No, go ahead to let the task act without asking, or Yes, before anything is sent or changed to keep checking. You can also type something narrower, such as “only before emailing customers”.
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After a sample run, in which it sends and changes nothing, it lists every action the task will take on one card. Select Approve for this task to allow them for every run, or Ask me each time.
What you chose is shown on the task’s Aim screen under Asks your approval. To change it, tell the task in the box at the bottom of its screen.
Review what you always allow
Section titled “Review what you always allow”Open the elf, select Settings, then Always allowed. Each entry is one action, to one recipient or place, in one task or chat. Select Revoke to take it back, and the elf asks you again next time.
Guardrails
Section titled “Guardrails”Guardrails are standing rules for what your elf does on its own, what it asks you first and what it leaves to you. Set them when you create the elf, or later in Settings → Guardrails.
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Select Add rule.
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Describe the action, for example Send an email or post a message.
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Choose what the elf should do when it applies:
Choice What the elf does Take action without asking Goes ahead on its own. Take action when you say so Only when you asked for it in the chat. Ask before taking action Asks in the chat and waits for your yes. Hand off to you Never does it, and tells you what to do instead. -
Save the rule, then save the guardrails.
The suggestions on the step, such as Spend money or buy something: hand off to you, are a good place to start.
Calls and other people
Section titled “Calls and other people”- Calls. If your elf may ask a pixie to phone someone, you approve each call before it is dialled. See Pixies.
- Your workspace. An owner or admin can require approval before a new elf, or a change to one, takes effect. Until they decide, the elf cannot run. See Approvals.