Approvals and standing permissions

Requests that need your approval wait for you. Approving one is your decision to send it, so read it first.

What waits for you

• Every message, invitation, event or post that would leave your account.
• Every draft, while the agent is in rehearsal.
• Every post to your web address, always.

Reading and searching never wait. They run if the token allows them.

Approve or decline

You get the email "An agent request is waiting for your approval", with a "Review the request" button. The Agents page also lists it under "Waiting for your approval", with "Review".

The review page shows who asked, what, through which account, and the exact text, with To, Cc and Subject, under a heading that names what it is, such as "The message, exactly as it would be sent" or "The event, exactly as it would be added".

• Press the approve button. Its words say what approving does:
  • "Approve and send" for an email from your Gmail.
  • "Approve and save the draft" for a draft in your Gmail.
  • "Approve (you send it yourself)" for a message in a copy-and-paste inbox.
  • "Approve the draft (you copy it)" for a draft in a copy-and-paste inbox.
  • "Approve and add the event" for an event in your Google Calendar.
  • "Approve the event (you add it yourself)" for an event in a copy-and-paste inbox.
  • "Approve and post" for a post to your web address.
• Or press "Decline". Nothing is done, and the agent is told.

For a copy-and-paste inbox, an approved message or event then appears under "Drafts and events to copy" for you to copy.

Many at once: a batch request

Your intern's agent can ask for many changes in one request, for example this month's invoices in QuickBooks for every regular client, or new prices for a list of Square items. It can do this only for changes in your business systems and for posts to your web address. Messages and events always come one at a time.

You get one email and one line under "Waiting for your approval". The review page shows:

1. A summary, such as "A batch of 38: Change an item's price in Square", with how many items there are.
2. The first five items in full, exactly as each would be made.
3. Every item, each with a tick. All are ticked to begin with. "Show it in full" opens one item. "Tick all" and "Untick all" change them all.

Then:

• Press "Approve all", which also shows how many, to approve every item.
• Or untick the ones you do not want and press "Approve the ticked". The ones you unticked are not done.
• Or press "Decline all". Nothing is done, and the agent is told.

The approved items run one by one. The page then says what happened, for example "Approved: 36 done, 2 failed", and each item shows "Done", "Failed" with the reason the system gave, "Not approved", or "Already done earlier, not repeated".

An item is never done twice. Each item carries the agent's name for it. If the agent sends the same item again, say after a timeout or in a second batch, and you approve it again, it is not repeated: it shows "Already done earlier, not repeated".

If you pause agents while a batch is running, it stops. The page then says how many items have not run yet and shows "Run the remaining items". Resume your agents, then press it. Items that already ran are not run again. If an item shows "Stopped mid-way: check in the system", the run stopped while that item was going through. Look in the system to see whether it happened before you ask for it again.

Everything you have said must never be automated is checked on every item. If one item breaks a rule, the whole batch is refused and never reaches you. The hourly limits count each item.

Requests expire

A request you do not decide on expires after 72 hours. The agent has to ask again.

If agents are paused, you cannot approve until you resume them on the Agents page.

Standing permissions

A standing permission lets one kind of request run without asking you each time, up to a daily number, until a date you choose. Everything still shows in your activity, and anything that touches what you said must never be automated is still refused.

1. On your intern's card, open "Give a standing permission".
2. Choose "What may run without asking".
3. Set "At most this many in any 24 hours" (1 to 50).
4. Choose "For": 7, 30 or 90 days.
5. Press "Give this permission".

Drafts can be let through while the agent rehearses. Messages, invitations and events only once it is live. Posts to your web address never. Reminders for overdue invoices only once it is live, and a batch of them still waits for you when it has a final notice or an amount above your cap: see The invoice chaser.

Each permission is listed under "Standing permissions" with its daily number and end date. "Take it back" ends it: from the next request, it waits for your approval again.

When something ran under a standing permission, you get a daily email listing what ran. See Agent activity, the export and the daily digest.