Platform assistant

This chapter is for knowledge editors and platform admins. The platform assistant sits on Sources. It watches a country collection from the files you add through to texts in the knowledge base, suggests the next step, and answers questions about the screen you are on. Nothing is changed until you confirm. Customer members and customer admins do not see it.

Use it together with Country packages and Sources and the watch inbox. Those chapters define the screens. This chapter says how the assistant talks about them, and how the count beside Sources works.

Where you see it

Assistant is a panel on every Sources screen: the source list, the watch inbox, a draft, the package list, the wizard, the coverage board, batches, the review queue, manual download, one publication, the source router, registry exports, and registry watch. The panel names the page it is using, in plain words, such as the release, this website, or this publication. Clear that name when you want to talk about the wider page behind it, for example the release behind a single publication.

Each person has their own conversation for each of those pages. Leave and come back, and that conversation is still there. A colleague on the same publication has a separate conversation. Suggestions are shared. The count beside Sources is not.

Suggestion cues

A cue is the signal that the assistant has found something to do, before you have asked. You do not get an email for it. A finished batch can still mail you, as Batches describes. The cue itself is only on the screen.

The count refreshes about once a minute while you keep this browser tab open, and once more when you come back to the tab. A tab you have switched away from does not keep checking. The assistant looks at changed rows about every five minutes, and about once an hour it clears suggestions whose problem has already gone away.

The first time a problem is seen, everyone with access to Sources gets an unseen cue. Later checks do not add a second card for the same unchanged problem. They only note that it is still there.

Open a suggestion

1. Choose Sources, or open Assistant on the page you are already on.
2. Read the cards for this page. A card from another publication stays on that publication’s panel.
3. Opening the panel marks this page’s suggestions as seen for you. Your count drops. The cards stay.

Seen is not the same as done. The card is still waiting for Confirm or Dismiss. Closing the panel does not decide it.

What a card says

Each card is one suggestion. It names the source, website, or event it is about, with that item’s id and name, then the step, what will happen if you confirm, and how to undo it. A batch card gives two counts: agreement events, and statutes. It names the websites in the order the run will visit them, the national publisher first, and a rough duration. A router change lists the previous values, so a later change can put them back. A website check says that recording the result does not by itself pause the website.

A question you type does not confirm or dismiss a card. If the answer recommends something else, that is a second card. The first one stays until you confirm it, dismiss it, or it expires after a day unused.

When a cue goes away by itself

When the problem is gone, the next check marks the suggestion resolved. The card leaves the panel and the count drops for everyone, including people who never opened it. That happens when a file that was missing is now stored, a website check passes, a draft is decided, or a text reaches the knowledge base. You do not have to dismiss a card the work has already finished.

A check that is interrupted continues from the last row it finished. A repeated check does not mint a second unread card for a suggestion that is already open.

Ask a question

On an empty conversation you can type, or use one of the starters on that page. The starters are fixed. They are: What should I run next? Which websites are blocked? Why is this publication stuck? What is registered but not in the knowledge base?

The answer is ordinary text, plus any cards. Under it, a single line can say what it looked at, such as how many websites, without dumping the raw lists. It may look those lists up several times before it answers. One question stops after six lookups. A follow-up you type is a new question, with its own six lookups. Confirm and Dismiss do not use a lookup.

The answer uses the rows as they are now, not the snapshot from your previous question. It remembers the recent replies on this page, up to the last eight questions and their answers. Older replies stay in the panel for you to scroll, and drop out of what the next answer can recall. It does not keep the full lists from those earlier lookups. Ask again if you need the current list.

You can ask what a screen is for. The coverage board, the source router, batches, the review queue, manual download, the supply page, and drafts are in scope. Live counts still come from the collection, not from this manual.

Follow-up questions

Stay in the same panel to continue. “Now only the paused websites” looks the websites up again. “What about that statute count?” uses the fresh plan, not a remembered total. Moving to another publication, website, or wizard run opens that page’s own conversation and does not carry this one along. Clear the name at the top of the panel to continue on the parent page, such as the release behind one publication.

You can ask it to explain or compare the suggested step. You cannot talk it into a fetch or a batch the suggestion has already ruled out. If the question is whether the search found the right document, use the review queue. If the question is whether the copied text may be cited, use the draft. Approve on the draft is refused while that package row is still on the review queue. The assistant will explain the flag and link you there.

What it suggests

Suggestions are grouped so a large release does not become one cue per row. You get one card for the next batch, one card per website that needs a check or a developer, and single-row cards only where one publication needs its own step. At most twenty new single-row cards are added for one release on one pass. The batch card carries the rest as a count.

The next batch

• No sample yet — Locate and fetch, five agreement events per website, no review rows forced in. Websites are ordered with the national publisher first, then the busiest sites, current texts before history, newest first. The card lists every statute that would be collected. Five per website does not limit statutes.
• Sample already reviewed — the same kind of run, without the five-per-website cap. The statute count is still separate.
• A website failed its self-test, or has never passed one — fix or test that website before a locate that would include it. Its publications are already left out of the plan. The card says so.
• Rows that could not be reached, and are due for another try — Retry unreachable, for those rows only. This is not a substitute for the first locate.
• Publisher-of-record or register files older than 30 days — a re-check of the stored files. It does not search for a new address.
• Another batch already covers these events — Pause, Resume, or Cancel that batch, or wait. A second run is not offered.

Force review states is never the suggestion it opens with. It mentions that option only if you asked to include rows that need review or rows that failed, and the plan contains neither secondary holds nor publisher-firewall rows. A plan that contains either of those is not a batch you can confirm from the assistant, even though the batch form itself can be forced.

Websites

• The self-test failed and the website is paused — locate and re-check drop this website’s publications. Test it again after the instruction card is corrected. Recording a test result does not pause the website. A later locate, or the weekly check, pauses an active website when the test failed.
• The self-test is older than 90 days — the coverage board already calls this overdue. The assistant asks you to run the test.
• The wizard marked the website Needs a developer — hand over the fixture bundle from When a host needs a developer. The assistant does not write the instructions.
• The website is manual — open Manual download. A locate batch will not collect it.
• The website only answers inside its own country — manual download. Retry unreachable is not offered.
• A new website the package names and the router does not know yet — the wizard step Set up hosts. The assistant points there. It does not invent a fetch.

If you tell it what to change on an instruction card, it can propose that change for you to confirm: whether the website is active, how it is fetched, the pause between visits, whether a confirmed find may skip review, the connection style, whether the site is limited by country, the search address, the issue-index address, an extra certificate, and other names for the same site. The pattern that turns a gazette reference into a file address, and the pattern that finds the PDF on the page, stay on the Source router. The assistant can show what the wizard inferred. It cannot write those two patterns from the panel.

One publication or statute

• Publisher firewall — the download was refused and the file was not kept, so no watched page was opened. Do not retry and do not force a batch. Save the PDF yourself and upload it, as Reasons describes.
• Registered, and the file was not kept — one more download of the address already accepted, or upload on the supply page. It does not search for a different address, and it does not copy the watched page again.
• The file is stored and there is no draft yet — the stored copy is used. The website is not visited again.
• A draft is waiting — open the draft. Approve or reject it on that page. Approve is refused while the package row is still on the review queue. The assistant will not approve it.
• The text is waiting to enter the knowledge base, and the check is still trying or hit a temporary fault — wait. The card shows the error and how many tries have been used. It will not start a second copy while one is still queued.
• The check failed in a way that will not succeed on the same file — the card explains the error. A new version of the document, or a correction of the setup, is required. The same run is not queued again.
• The text is already in the knowledge base — the card names it and stops. It does not locate it again.
• The site did not answer, and the website is not limited to its own country — Retry unreachable when that row is due. The card mentions the connection or the certificate when the attempt log points there.
• The search finished and found nothing — read the attempt log. The next human step is the review decision or a registry export. The same locate is not run again until the website instructions or the export change.
• Found somewhere other than the stated address, several candidates, a weak match, a file that does not match, a whole issue, a web page where a PDF was expected, or an institutional publisher — open the review queue. Accept, Reject, and Confirm not found stay on that screen.
• Secondary hold — the only link is not an official publisher. It is never fetched. No batch is offered, including one with Force review states.

While you are still bringing the release in

• The wizard says the country, a language, or a document type is missing from the platform — it quotes the exact gap. A platform admin adds that in a release of the app. The assistant will not import, plan, or collect until that is done.
• The wizard cannot tell which sheet a file is — it names the file and the choices. You pick the sheet in the wizard. The assistant does not guess.

What it leaves to you

• Approving or rejecting a draft, on the draft page.
• Accept, Reject, and Confirm not found, on the review queue.
• Uploading a PDF.
• Teaching a website the wizard could not read. That is a developer, with the fixture bundle.
• Adding a country, a language, or a document type the platform does not know yet.
• Turning Advisory on or off for customers, and choosing who may be staff. Those are platform admin duties, and they are not buttons in this panel.

The assistant can still explain why a row is on the review queue, and it can link the draft. The decision stays on that screen.

When you do not see it

If Sources has no count and no Assistant panel, the assistant is not turned on in this workspace. Packages, the watch inbox, and drafts work without it. Ask a platform admin if you expected the panel.

If answers are turned off, the count and the cards remain. The cards use the short reason written for that problem. A question in the panel says the assistant is turned off, and it does not look anything up. Turning answers back on is a platform-team step. It is separate from a customer organization reaching its monthly Advisory limit.

If you have asked many questions in the hour, the panel asks you to wait and says when you can send again. About thirty questions an hour is the limit for one person. Looking at a card you already have does not count as a question.