How to approve, refuse or undo a suggested change

When you ask the Agent to make a task, change a purchase order, record a decision or post in a channel, it does not make the change itself. It answers with a review card that shows the exact change, and nothing changes until a person approves it. See What is the Agent? for the Agent itself.

Most approved changes can be undone afterwards, from the Agent's Updates view.

Before you start

Changes need the Brain module switched on in Settings › Modules, per How to switch parts of Tideswell on and off. Your workspace also needs Agent approvals switched on, which Tideswell does for you. Without either, the Agent answers questions and prepares nothing.

If the Agent says exact agent approvals are not enabled for this workspace, contact Tideswell.

Asking for a change needs the Ask the Brain to suggest a change row on Settings › Permissions. Seeing the suggestions waiting in your workspace needs the See what the Brain has noticed row. Members have both by default; see How to set who can do what.

What can the Agent prepare?

Ask for the change in plain words in the Agent panel, the same way you ask a question (How to ask the Agent a question). Or press + › Actions for the list of what it can do for you, grouped by area. It can prepare:

• Tasks and projects: a new task, a change to one task, the same change to several tasks at once, a note on a task, or a new project.
• Records: a new supplier or a new record in one of your own Objects, or changes across many of them.
• Purchase orders: a new draft with its vendor and products, new quantities, new dates, or a request for its approval.
• Documents: a new document, a new name for one, or one paragraph rewritten.
• A decision, with what was decided, why, what was rejected and what it affects.
• A chat message: a post in one channel you can post in.

Purchase order changes are offered to people who can see purchase orders, and decisions to people who can see decisions. Your workspace may use its own word for tasks, purchase orders or suppliers; Settings › Terminology shows both.

What does a review card show?

The card sits under the Agent's answer. Its heading says what will change, and a status line under it starts Ready for review.

• Target, the record or records it changes, with a count.
• Exact changes: each field, with Before and After side by side.
• Consequences: anything else the change will set off.
• Cannot approve, in red, when something stops it, with the reason.

The card also says when the review expires. A review that runs out reads Review expired, and Refresh review prepares it again from what the records hold now.

How do you approve one?

Read Exact changes and Consequences, then press Approve these changes. The change is made under your name, exactly as if you had made it by hand.

The status moves to In progress and then Completed, and Open result takes you to what changed. When only some of it could be made, the status reads Partly completed and the card lists what was skipped.

A few changes ask for a bigger screen. On a phone, they read "This action requires review on a larger screen."

Can you change it before you approve?

Yes. Change the boxes under Edit proposed fields, such as a task's due date or the words of a message. The card then reads "Your edits invalidate this review. Refresh the changes before approving."

Press Refresh review to see the exact changes again with your edits, then approve.

How do you turn one down?

Press Reject. Cancel review closes the review without approving it.

A suggestion waiting in Updates has Refuse… instead. Write why in the box, then press Refuse it, so the person who asked knows what to change. Refusing someone else's suggestion needs the Dismiss or turn down the Brain's suggestions row, which leads and admins have by default.

Do some requests run without a review?

Three requests you type yourself, worded exactly like these, run once you send them:

• Create a project called Spring launch, optionally followed by in department Marketing.
• Create a document called Lab dip notes.
• Replace paragraph 3 in document "Lab dip notes" with "The mill confirmed the dye lot."

The card shows its progress while it works, and Refresh status checks on it. Any other wording, a skill, or a message with files attached gets a review card as usual.

What can a drafted message say, and where can it go?

A drafted message is plain text, up to 4,000 characters, and it cannot @mention or ping anyone. It goes into one channel you can post in, under your name. When the channel does not fit, nothing is sent and the card says why.

A draft is yours alone. Nobody else sees it under Waiting on a decision, and nobody else is told it exists, until you approve it.

Who can approve a suggestion?

Anyone who holds every permission the change itself needs. They are the same rows that let you make that change by hand: Create tasks for a new task, Edit purchase orders and the buying calendar for a purchase order, Record decisions for a decision.

When you cannot approve it, the card reads "Waiting for someone who can make this change to approve it." The people who can are told, so you do not need to chase them.

A drafted chat message is the exception. Only the person who asked for it can send it.

How do the people who can approve find out?

A line reading "suggested a change for you to approve" lands in their Work › Inbox, and clicking it opens the suggestion in the Agent panel. A task suggestion goes to the person it is assigned to and the leads of its team.

They also get a push notification, "A suggested change is waiting for you". Each person can turn that off under User menu › Account settings › What buzzes you › Suggestions, and the suggestion still waits in their Inbox. See How to turn on notifications.

Where do waiting suggestions collect?

In the Agent panel under History › Updates, in the section Waiting on a decision. Every suggestion you are allowed to see waits there, with Approve, Refuse… and Details.

Details shows a preview of exactly what will change. After Approve, the card reads Done. with Open it and Undo.

When nothing is waiting, the section reads "Nothing is waiting." The rest of the Updates view is covered in How to read your updates and the daily brief.

Do suggestions show on the record they are about?

Yes. A purchase order, a supplier, a task and a record of one of your own Objects each show a Suggested changes section while something waits about it.

Each card there has Review in Agent, which opens the full card in the panel. When more are waiting than fit, the section ends with "More are waiting about this record. See them all."

How do you undo a change?

Open History › Updates in the Agent panel and find the change under Changes made from suggestions. Each row there says who applied it and when.

Undo shows only to people allowed to take that change back, which usually means holding the permissions the change itself needed. The person who approved a new task, a note or a decision can always undo it, and a decision can be undone only by them.

Make sure before you confirm an Undo, because there is no redo. If somebody has edited the same thing since, Undo puts back what it can and leaves their edit alone. The row then reads Partly undone.

Where else do suggestions come from?

While the Agent in chat is switched on, a late purchase order can bring a suggested task to call the supplier about it. Its header reads Suggested by the watcher, and it waits in Waiting on a decision like any other. See How to add the Agent to chat and How to find late orders and plan revisions.

The Agent can also bring a suggestion to your Agent Inbox, where Review here opens it, per How to work through your Agent Inbox.

Why did the Agent say it cannot suggest a change?

Because the conversation has read a private channel or a call's notes. Start a new chat and ask again, so a suggestion never carries a private conversation to people outside it.