Departments and employees
People holds your team: every employee, the departments they belong to and who reports to whom. Select anyone to see what they’re doing, change how they work or talk to them.
On this page
People’s four views#
| View | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Roster | A card per employee: role, status, department, what they are doing (“Last: …”, “Next: …”), and this month’s spend against their own limit. Filter by department chip, Find someone, or show Archived. A card’s menu has Edit, Set up with Chat, Assign task and Archive employee. |
| Departments | A table of departments with their members, open tasks and This month · monthly limit, plus Edit, Archive, Show its people, Hire into it and Work. |
| Org chart | You at the top, the department leads under you, and each lead’s reports under them. |
| Skills | The procedures your employees follow. See Skills. |
Departments#
New department asks for a name and What this department does. Write that line with care: Chat reads it when it plans work and picks employees. A department has no page of its own: the rail and search open the Roster filtered to it, and its work is the Work page filtered to it.
A department can have its own monthly spending limit, set in Usage. Its card on the Office floor and its row on Departments show its spend against that limit.
Hiring and editing#
Hire employee opens a sheet: name and role, department and manager, model, skills, Instructions (how they work), Responsibilities (what they own), and What {name} can use: None, Read or Read and write for each connected app, plus the built-in Calendar and Make images. Where you see money limits, you can also give them their own Monthly limit and Daily safety cap.
Save draft keeps them as a draft: nothing runs and nothing is spent. Activate hires them; it needs instructions, responsibilities and a model (or Auto). Editing an active employee works the same way: your changes save as a draft “vN”, and they keep working on the live version until you activate it. History in their inspector keeps every version.
Employee states#
| State | Means |
|---|---|
| Draft | Saved but not hired yet; nothing runs and nothing is spent. |
| Idle | Active, with no work right now. You can assign them work. |
| Queued | Has work waiting to start: for a free slot, or for a task it depends on. |
| Working | Running a task. |
| Approval needed | Waits for you to approve an action, or to raise a spending limit. |
| Input needed | Asked you a question, or stopped because it wasn’t making progress and needs your guidance. |
| Paused | Held by your pause of them, the company or the task. |
| Done | Their latest task succeeded. |
| Failed | Their latest task failed or couldn’t start. |
| Archived | Removed from the team; their history is kept. |
An employee can have several tasks at once. Their state shows the first that applies, in this order: approval needed, input needed, working, queued, paused, then how their latest task ended. Each task keeps its own status in their Work tab. Two tags can follow the state: Not making progress and Outside content.
The employee inspector#
Select an employee on the floor, in the list or on People to open their inspector. The header has Edit employee and a menu with Deactivate employee and Archive employee.
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Now | Right now: one line on what they’re doing or waiting for, with the button to act on it (answer, review, resume, assign). Then three tiles: Done today, Spent today (owner and finance admins) and Success rate over 30 days. Then Works in: each app they may use, Read or Read and write, with a dot on one in use now. |
| Chat | A conversation with them; see below. Active employees only. |
| Overview | Department, manager, model, version, skills, instructions, responsibilities and their three latest tasks. |
| Work (N) | Every task they have had, with its status. Select one to open its record. |
| History | Every version of their setup, newest first. |
At the foot: Pause {name} and Assign task. Assign asks for a title and brief, and can start after another task. A manager’s sheet also offers Do it as a team with N reports; see Teams and handoffs. If the brief says when it repeats (“every Monday”), it becomes a routine instead.
Chat with an employee#
The Chat tab works like Chat, with the employee: ask about their work (“What did you find in the October invoices?”) or tell them what to do instead. Enter sends and the reply streams in as it is written. A bar on top says what they are doing now, or which task waits for you.
They answer from their own work and the documents they may read, and each reply shows its sources and what its calls cost. Anything they propose is a card that changes nothing until you confirm it. A standing rule they propose shows at the top with Approve and Reject.
Deactivate or archive#
Deactivate employee turns an active employee back into a draft of the same setup; it is refused while they have unfinished work. Archive employee asks where their direct reports go, then removes them from the team. Their history and work are kept. Archiving a department asks where its employees go in the same way.
If your company has more active employees than its plan includes, for example after moving to Free, People says so. Nothing running stops, but you can’t activate anyone else until you deactivate enough people.
Questions#
Does an employee cost anything while idle?
No. Employees only call a model when they have work, and when you chat with them.
What does a manager do?
Their reports show under them on the org chart, and they can take a task as a team: plan it, hand out parts and review the results. A manager has no extra access.
Will editing someone change the task they’re on?
No. A running task keeps the version it started with. The new version applies from their next task once you activate it.
Who sees what an employee spent today?
The Spent today tile in their inspector shows to the owner and finance admins only.