Tasks¶
A task is something you hand to Donkit once and it carries out by itself at the time you set: a reminder, or a question it asks you on a schedule. Donkit writes to you first, so you don't have to open a chat and ask. A reminder or a question costs no credits.
You create and change tasks by talking to your main assistant. The Tasks page shows everything that is on and lets you pause or stop it. If your installation's administrator has switched tasks off, there is no Tasks item in the menu and the assistant tells you that tasks are off. A task screen opened from an old link then says so and has no buttons.
What you can hand over¶
There are two kinds of task:
- Reminder. At the set time Donkit writes the text you gave it and doesn't wait for an answer. "Remind me on Thursday at 9: airport transfer and the visa photo."
- Question. At the set time Donkit asks a question you worded in advance, with two to five answer buttons, and records your answer. "Every evening at 21:00 ask me whether I trained today."
Tasks are personal:
- You can create one only in your own chat with the main assistant, or in a voice conversation with it, and only for yourself. Chats with your other agents and team chats can't create tasks, and a task can't be set for another person.
- You can have up to 50 tasks that are on or paused, counted across all your accounts. A task that has finished or been stopped doesn't count.
- A task belongs to the account of the chat where you created it. The Tasks page shows the tasks of the account you are in.
Creating a task¶
Say what you want, in your own words. Donkit sets the task up at once, without asking you to confirm, and shows a card in the chat:
| Row | What it says |
|---|---|
| When | The schedule in words, with its time zone: "Daily at 21:00 (Moscow)". |
| What | "I'll remind you: “…”" or "I'll ask: “…”". |
| Buttons | For a question: each answer and what pressing it does. |
| Cost | "Free." For a question: "Question free. Answering in words is a normal reply." |
Under the rows, one line says how the message will reach you: as a push to your phone, by email, or in the chat.
Cancel on the card removes the task at once. It is on the card shown when the task is created, and stays there for as long as the task exists. When you change a task, the new card has no Cancel; to undo the change, ask Donkit to change it back.
To change or end a task, say so in the chat, the same way: "move it to 22:00", "pause it until Monday", "send this one to my email", "stop the training question", "delete the training question". Ask "what tasks do I have?" and Donkit lists them, with any question still waiting for your answer. The Tasks page has no edit forms and no Delete button; changing and deleting go through the chat. Deleting a task removes its log of messages and answers too. The chat it wrote in stays, as an ordinary chat; the task's messages there lose their buttons and their "Why am I seeing this" line.
Schedules and time zones¶
A task runs once or repeats. Describe the schedule in words: "on weekdays at 9", "on the first of every month", "every day until November 30". The card and the list show it back in plain words. A repeat can't be more frequent than once every 5 minutes. A repeating task can have an end date; after it the task moves to the Done group, tagged Finished, without a message.
The time zone is stored with the task:
- Donkit takes the time zone of the device you created the task on, or the one you name: "at 9 Berlin time".
- If your device doesn't report a time zone, Donkit uses the one of your most recent chat. If there is none, it asks which time zone to use and doesn't guess.
- The zone is written in the card and the list: "Daily at 21:00 (Moscow)".
- The task doesn't follow you on a trip. It keeps the clock of its own time zone until you change it: "move it to 21:00 Berlin time".
If Donkit was unavailable at the set time and is back the same day (in the task's time zone), the message arrives once, late. After a longer break you get only the latest missed message, not all of them.
Questions and buttons¶
Each answer button has an action, which Donkit picks from the list below when it creates the question. You can see the actions on the card and on the task screen: "Yes → record · No → ask again in 2 hours". A button with no action chosen only records the answer.
| Action | What pressing the button does |
|---|---|
| Record | Saves your answer. Every button does this. |
| Reply | Also writes a prepared text in the chat. |
| Ask again in | Asks the same question once more after the time you set, for example in 2 hours. Your regular schedule doesn't move, and the extra question isn't counted as an unanswered one. |
| Pause | Pauses the task, for a number of days or until you resume it. |
| Stop | Stops the task. |
On the web, pressing a button records the answer and costs nothing. The pressed button stays marked and the others become unavailable. Pressing again does nothing.
Only the newest question of a task takes a button press. Once a newer question from the same task arrives in the chat (the next scheduled one, a repeat asked after Ask again in, or "Is “…” still needed?"), the buttons of the older question turn grey and stop working: press the buttons of the newest one. If a page was open from before and you press an older button there, nothing is recorded, and Donkit says there is a newer question to answer.
Answering in words instead of pressing a button ("yes, I trained") is an ordinary reply: Donkit records the answer itself, and the reply uses credits like any other message. See Plans & credits.
Three questions in a row without an answer. Donkit then asks once, "Is “…” still needed?", with Continue and Stop, and pauses the task. Any answer resets the count. To turn this off, switch off Pause a task after 3 unanswered questions in Account → Profile → Notifications, under Tasks; the switch applies to all your accounts (see What Donkit writes on its own). The task then keeps asking without a pause.
Where messages arrive¶
- A one-time reminder arrives in the chat where you asked for it. If you deleted that chat before the time came, it arrives in a new chat named like the task.
- A repeating task and a question get a chat of their own, named like the task. It sits in your chat history, and a push opens it. When you rename the task, the chat takes the new name too, unless you have renamed the chat yourself. If you delete that chat, the next message creates it again.
Under every task message, a line says why you are seeing it: "Why am I seeing this: you asked for this on October 21 · free · Stop". Stop is the link described in Stopping by link.
A task message never lands in the middle of Donkit's answer. If Donkit is answering in that chat at the set time, the message appears as soon as the answer ends.
During a voice call. If you are talking to Donkit by voice in that chat, the message waits only until Donkit finishes what it is saying, then appears in the chat. Donkit also tells you about it aloud, in its own words: "By the way, you asked me to remind you: it's time to leave for the airport." If the message is a question, Donkit asks it, and you can answer by voice; Donkit records the answer. Each message is said once. What Donkit says is part of the call and uses credits like the rest of it.
Delivery channels¶
A task message always appears in the chat. By default (Automatically) it also reaches you like this:
- If you use the Donkit app, as a push to your phone. It arrives even while the chat is open in your browser. Its title is the assistant's name and the task's name, "Max · Training"; until you give the assistant a name, the product name stands in front. Task pushes follow the When an answer is ready switch in the app's Settings → Notifications, which each of your devices keeps for itself: a device with it off gets no task pushes, and the others still do. Only when no device takes the push does the message go by email instead, or only to the chat on an installation without email.
- If you don't use the app, as an email with the message, a link to the chat and the Stop link.
- On an installation without push and email, only in the chat.
The push or the email goes out at the set time, even if the message itself still waits in the chat because Donkit is answering there. If you open the chat from the push straight away, the message appears once Donkit finishes answering there. If a newer message of the same task comes before the waiting one reaches the chat, the newer one takes its place in the chat, while the push or email of the waiting one has already gone out.
Each task has its own channel. Say "send this one by email" or "only in the chat" and the card's last line changes. If the channel you chose isn't available (email on an installation without email, a push when you have no app), the message goes the next way along push, email, chat, and the card tells you how it will really arrive.
The Tasks page¶
Open Tasks in the left menu, above Chats. The page also works in a browser on a phone or a tablet: on a narrow screen, a row's next time and buttons move under the task's name, so nothing needs scrolling sideways. Its tasks are grouped:
- In progress. Each row shows the name, a line "schedule → what" such as "Daily at 21:00 (Moscow) → asks: “Did you train today?”", and the next time. Pause and Stop are in the row. A paused task stays in this group, tagged Paused with the date it waits until, and shows Resume in place of Pause.
- Done. Tasks that have Finished (a one-time task that has fired, or one that passed its end date) and tasks you Stopped. The group shows the 20 most recent ones.
- Agent schedules. The schedules you set on the workflows of your agents that are ready to run, for reference. Each has Open workflow; you change them there, as described in Workflows.
Empty groups aren't shown. With no tasks yet, the page invites you to tell Donkit what to watch or do.
Open a task to see its screen:
- the name and state (Watching, Paused, Stopped or Finished), and a summary such as "Asked 12 times · 10 answers · 0 credits" (for a reminder: "Reminded 12 times · 0 credits");
- What: the reminder text, or the question with its buttons and their actions;
- When: the schedule in words and the next time;
- Delivered by: the channel;
- Activity: every message that was sent, with your answer next to it (the button's label, your own words in quotes, or "No answer"), and the task's history: "Created in chat", what was changed in the chat, such as "Changed: time, buttons" (the time, end date, text, buttons, channel or title), and paused, resumed, stopped, "Stopped by link", "Paused after 3 unanswered questions".
The screen's buttons are Edit in chat, which opens the chat the task lives in so you can change it in words, and Pause or Resume and Stop. A stopped task offers Turn back on, which works while you have fewer than 50 tasks that are on or paused.
When you lose access to an account, for example you are removed from an organization or the organization is deleted, the tasks of that account stop. Donkit tells you which ones by push or email, if the task's channel allows one: the push goes to the devices that have When an answer is ready on, and the email follows when none does. A task set to Only in the chat gets no notice, and neither does any task on an installation with neither push nor email. When you delete your own account, all your tasks are deleted with it.
Stopping by link¶
Every task message carries a Stop link: under the message in the chat, and in the email. It opens a page that works without signing in. The page shows the task's name, its schedule and the question or reminder text in quotes, then Stop and the line "Free. Nothing changes until you press the button."
After you press Stop, the page says what was stopped: "Stopped “Training”: 12 questions, 0 credits spent."
- The link stops only the task it came from, works for as long as the task exists, and pressing it again changes nothing. If the task has been deleted, or you no longer have access to the account it belongs to, the page says the task no longer exists and the link stops nothing.
- A finished task has nothing to stop: the page says it has already finished. The exception is a one-time question whose "ask again" is still to come: the page offers Stop, and pressing it cancels that repeat.
- A link can only stop a task. Turn back on on that page takes you to sign in and then to the task's screen; only you, from your own account, can turn a task back on.
Naming the assistant¶
Tell Donkit what to call itself: "Call yourself Max." It answers "OK, I'm Max" and keeps the name for you. A name can be up to 30 characters long. Say "call yourself as before" to return to the product name.
You see the name:
- in Donkit's replies in all your chats with it;
- next to the chat title in the web chat header, on a phone-width browser too;
- in the title of a task push ("Max · Training") and in the subject of a task email.
The product name stays in the left menu, as the sender of emails and in the labels of the native mobile apps. The name belongs to your main assistant only; your other agents keep their own.
What Donkit writes on its own¶
Apart from the service messages you already know (credits, failed workflow runs, a finished build) and your agents' own workflow runs, Donkit writes to you first in only two cases: a schedule you set has come, or one of the short fixed notices below. All of them are free.
| Notice | Can you turn it off? |
|---|---|
| "The reply in chat ‹name› was cut off. What it managed is saved" | Not in the app. You can turn the notification off on your device. |
| "Task ‹name› stopped: ‹reason›. ‹What to do›". For example, you no longer have access to the account the task belongs to; that notice goes by push (to devices with When an answer is ready on) or by email, only when the task's channel allows one. | Not in the app. You can turn the notification off on your device. |
| "Is task ‹name› still needed?", after three unanswered questions in a row | Yes: Pause a task after 3 unanswered questions in Account → Profile → Notifications, under Tasks, a switch of your own that applies to all your accounts. Off, the task keeps asking without a pause. |
The dot for a new message¶
A chat with a message you haven't opened shows a dot: in the chat list in the left menu, in the full list that Show more opens, and on the task's row and screen on the Tasks page. Open the chat and the dot disappears everywhere. It works for all your personal chats, not only task chats, and it is the signal that matters most for a task whose channel is Only in the chat.
Phone apps¶
On the web, a question shows its buttons. The Donkit apps for phones show task messages as plain text: a question ends with a hint such as "Reply: Yes / No", and the "Why am I seeing this" line carries the Stop link. There are no buttons; answer in words, which is an ordinary paid reply, or stop the task with the link or by saying so. The Tasks page opens in the browser of your phone.