FlowBot assistant

Every project has FlowBot — an assistant that already knows the project's tasks, dates, documents and photos. Ask her questions in normal language instead of digging through tabs.

What to ask

• "What's blocking the schedule?"
• "Summarize this week's invoices."
• "Which tasks are still in progress?"
• "What's the rate for concrete in the BOQ?"
• "How much retention are we holding?"
• "What should I focus on next?"

She can also explain how to use BuildFlow itself — ask things like "how do I import a schedule?" or "how do retention releases work?" and she answers from this help guide, with a link to the right page so you can read more.

FlowBot answers from the project's own data — the board, timeline, documents and media records.

FlowBot also reads the details inside your documents — like a contract's retention amount, a permit's expiry date, or the action items from a meeting's minutes — so you can just ask, instead of opening the file to find them.

Once a priced bill of quantities has been imported, FlowBot can also answer questions about it — a rate, a quantity, a particular line item — drawing only on the real imported figures (never a made-up number). She reads the BOQ only for people with full access to the project.

Ask her to do things

Besides answering, FlowBot can make changes for you — just say what you want in plain words:

• Assign / reassign — "Assign the 3D Visuals task to me", "Assign everything under Schematic Design to Kasun", "Move all of Nimal's tasks to Kasun".
• Move a task to a column — "Move 3D Visuals to Done", "move everything under Schematic Design to In progress".
• Set a due date — "Set 3D Visuals due next Friday", "push all of Nimal's tasks to the end of the month".
• Comment on a task — "Comment on 3D Visuals: waiting on client sign-off".
• Create a task — "Add a task 'Order tiles' under Construction, assigned to Kasun".

She never changes anything on her own. She shows you exactly what she's about to do — which tasks, and what changes — and waits for you to press Confirm. Nothing happens until you do, and you can press Cancel instead. She can only change what you're allowed to change; if something's off-limits she leaves it as it was and tells you. Every change she makes is recorded, and tasks she creates carry a note showing they came from FlowBot.

Using her

1. Open the project and choose FlowBot.
2. Type your question or request (or tap one of the suggestions) and send. Answers appear bit by bit as they're written; a request shows a confirm card first.
3. Not sure what to try? The suggestions use your project's own tasks — things like assigning or moving a real task — and they stay handy above the message box as the conversation goes on.

You don't have to leave what you're doing, either — anywhere inside a project there's a small FlowBot button in the bottom corner. Tap it to slide open a chat beside your work, ask or request something, and close it again without losing your place.

Adding FlowBot to an email thread

A lot of project conversation still happens over email — with a client, a consultant, a contractor. You don't have to copy it into BuildFlow by hand: just add flowbot@buildflow.lk to the conversation (CC, BCC, or a reply-all), the same way you'd add any other person to an email.

She won't jump into the conversation. Instead, she'll send you a short email of her own, separate from the thread, letting you know she's now following it. If it isn't obvious which project the conversation belongs to, she'll ask you in My Tasks instead of guessing — pick the right one from a short list and she's off.

From then on, anything worth acting on in that conversation — a decision, a request, something to follow up — shows up as a suggestion in My Tasks, for the project's owner to look over and approve. Nothing happens automatically: she never replies inside the email thread itself, and she never changes anything in your project without someone approving it first.

Suggestions in My Tasks are grouped by project and then by conversation, so a busy thread doesn't turn into a wall of separate cards — each conversation gets its own group with an Approve all button, and a project with more than one active conversation gets an Approve-all for the whole project too. Prefer to look them over one at a time instead? Every suggestion still has its own Approve and Dismiss.

Signatures, logos and other decoration that ride along in almost every email — the little company banner under someone's name, for instance — are recognised and left out automatically. Only attachments someone actually meant to send end up in your project.

Your workspace's owner decides how attachments from email are handled for the whole workspace — added automatically, held for someone to approve first, or skipped altogether. See Settings → FlowBot email.