Abilities

Abilities extend Alan's functionality by providing Alan with tools that can access internal or external services. This allows Alan to handle even more complex tasks and provide you with more personalized assistance.

Selection and Usage

To use abilities in a chat, they must first be selected in the chat configuration. In the chat configuration, you can select one or more abilities in the Abilities tab. Click the button at the start of a row to enable or disable an ability. On the right, you see a short description of each ability.

Once an ability is selected, Alan can independently decide whether and, if so, which tools to use to answer a question.

If necessary, you will be asked for approval in the chat history for Alan to use a tool. In this case, check whether sensitive information is being shared with external services.

Usage Approvals

Some tools need to be approved in Alan before they can be used. This is done to protect your data and ensure that you maintain control over which information is shared with external services.

Whether an ability requires automatic or manual approval is indicated in the chat configuration.

Unchanged Default:

Manual Selection:

Usage approvals are set at different levels:

• Product Default: By default, all abilities that do not use external services are automatically approved. All other abilities require manual approval.
• Organization Level: Your organization can adjust the default approval behavior for all members, overriding the product default.
• User Level: You can customize the default approval behavior for yourself, overriding the settings at the organization level.
• Chat Level: For active abilities of a chat, you can adjust the approval behavior in the chat configuration, overriding the default settings at the user level. If an ability is inactive, the approval behavior cannot be adjusted, and the corresponding selection is grayed out.

Note

Administrators of your organization can enforce the approval setting for individual abilities. In this case, individual selection is no longer possible for you.

Sign-In

Some abilities require you to sign in before they can be used. This is to ensure that only authorized users can access certain services or information and allows Alan to access user-specific data.

When an ability is used that requires sign-in, you can only make a request to Alan after you have successfully signed in.

Abilities Included in Alan

Alan comes with a set of abilities that are available by default and can be used without additional configuration. These abilities cover a variety of use cases and provide basic functionalities that are useful for many users.

The available abilities are continuously being expanded. These currently include the following abilities:

• Internet: Allows Alan to access information on the public internet. Alan can search the web, visit websites, and extract relevant information. This ability is useful for using up-to-date information and giving Alan access to additional knowledge.
• File Creation: Allows Alan to create files. This ability can be used to generate content and provide it as a file that can be downloaded and reused. Generated files can be downloaded in the chat history. They are not shared in chat snapshots and are therefore only available to you.
• Random: Allows Alan to generate random values. This ability can be used for various purposes, such as generating random numbers or selecting random items from a list. Otherwise, Alan cannot generate random values.

The included tools of the abilities included in Alan can be found on the detail pages of the respective abilities.

Connected Abilities

Alan allows administrators to connect additional abilities that access external services. These connected abilities enable Alan to access organization-specific data and services, providing even more personalized assistance.

Connected abilities can be recognized in the chat, in the settings, and in the chat configuration by the plug icon.

Note

Abilities connected by your organization also include tools. However, these are only made available to Alan during the generation of responses and therefore do not appear on the detail pages of connected abilities.