Ask Otto about your data

Otto answers questions about your district's own schoolOS data: devices, tickets, tasks, people, parts, check-ins and more. Ask in plain words, like "Which devices are missing?", and it answers with the number, a table of the records, and links to open them in schoolOS. It only reads, and it only uses what you can already see.

Otto's name is otto. The otto logo is on the button that opens Otto and at the top of its panel.

Open Otto#

• Select Otto in the top bar, on any page.
• Or press ⌘I on a Mac, Ctrl+I on Windows or a Chromebook. Press it again, or Esc, to close.
• On a phone, select Otto in the bar at the bottom of the screen.
• In the Help Center, type a question in the search box and select Ask Otto.

Otto opens as a panel on the right, over the page you're on, so you can ask about what's in front of you. Select the expand button at the top to make the panel wider, which helps with wide tables.

The Otto name at the top of the panel is a menu: New chat, Chats (every earlier chat, searchable, grouped by when you last used it), Help Center, and, for people who manage Otto, Suggested prompts.

You need a role with Use Otto, and your account needs Otto turned on. If you don't see Otto in the top bar, ask your schoolOS admin.

Start from a suggestion#

Before you type anything, Otto shows a short Suggested list: what's worth a look in your own data right now, with a count, like "3 devices marked missing, lost or stolen". Select one and Otto answers it straight away. What Otto suggests before you ask explains how these are picked.

Quick actions#

Under the suggestions are five quick actions: Summarize, Find, Report, Automate and How do I. Select one to see a few ready-made options in place of the suggestions. You only see options for pages you can open, so someone without tickets gets no ticket options.

Selecting an option puts a complete question in the message box, with the cursor at the end. Press Enter to ask it as it is, or change it first: swap "last week" for "this month", or add "at Lincoln Elementary". Nothing is sent until you press Enter.

Under How do I, the options open the Help Center article with the steps, in a new tab, because a how-to is best answered by the written guide.

You can also type a how-to ("How do I import users?"). When your district has published an article that covers it, Otto answers from that first (see Answers from your district's articles). Otherwise it answers with the schoolOS Help Center article that covers it, and a link to the page where you do it when you can open that page. It only offers articles you can read, and when no article fits, it says what it knows without linking anywhere.

Answers from your district's articles#

Your district writes its own articles in Admin › Help Center › Articles: how to report a broken Chromebook, the cell phone policy, who to call about the copier. When you ask Otto a how-to or a policy question, it searches those articles too, and answers from the ones that cover it:

• Only articles you can read. Otto uses the same rules as your district's help center: published articles meant for you (Staff, your school role, Everyone signed in) and the Public ones. A draft, an archived article, or one written for another group is never used or shown. Two people can ask the same question and get different answers, each from what they're allowed to read.
• The answer comes from the article. Otto writes a short answer from what the article says, and doesn't add to it. If the article doesn't answer your question, it says so.
• It says where the answer came from. The answer ends with From your district's article and the article's title. Under it, a card shows the article with its category and reading time. Select Read the full article to read it over the chat, or Open in new tab to open it in your district's help center. Press Esc or the X to go back to the chat.
• schoolOS Help is named separately. schoolOS's own Help Center explains how schoolOS works, for every district. When it also has an article on your how-to, the answer says "schoolOS Help also covers this in …" and links it under Actions, so you always know which is your district's way and which is schoolOS's.
• When none of your district's articles covers a school question, Otto says so and points you to schoolAgent, which also answers from your district's other knowledge sources.

This needs your account to have the Knowledge Base, which comes with schoolHelpdesk or schoolAgent. Without it, Otto answers school policy and procedure questions by pointing you to schoolAgent.

For example, a new teacher asks "How do I report a broken Chromebook?" and gets the three steps from the district's Report a broken Chromebook article, with the article's card under the answer.

Which should I choose?#

| Quick action | What it gives you | Choose it when | For example | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Summarize | A count or a breakdown of a whole area. | You want the big picture before the details. | "How many devices are in each status?" | | Find | The records themselves, as a table you can open. | You need to act on specific devices, tickets or people. | "Which open tickets are assigned to me?" | | Report | A breakdown by one or two things, ready to open as a report. | You want a chart for a meeting or a dashboard. | "Show device models by school." | | How do I | The Help Center article with the steps. | You want to learn how to do something in schoolOS. | "How do I import people?" |

None of them is required. You can always type your own question in the box, which says Ask Otto anything....

Ask good questions#

Otto understands everyday words. A good question says what you want, and, if it matters, where and when:

• What: devices, Chromebooks, open tickets, overdue tasks, spares, parts, repairs.
• Where: a school, a room, a team or a department, as your account names it.
• When: today, last week, this month, this year, or dates.
• How to break it down: "by school", "by status", "by month".
• More than one: list them, as in "tickets that are open and in progress". A ticket has one status, so Otto reads "and" between statuses as either one.

You can combine conditions in one question, such as device type, status, location, assignment and a custom field. Otto keeps those conditions together. If a condition cannot be understood or supported, it asks for clarification instead of silently leaving it out. A result with no matches still respects the conditions you requested.

For paired alternatives, you can ask for "Available projectors or Active laptops at CHS." Otto keeps each status with its device type, and View as list keeps the same combination.

You can combine exclusions too: "Show assigned devices at AHS, excluding Retired devices or devices assigned to a particular person." Otto excludes both groups. "Neither unassigned nor Retired" asks for assigned devices whose status is not Retired. For a numeric custom field, "equals zero" means the value 0; a blank value is different.

You can also name multiple device types under one shared condition, such as "Show Chromebooks and laptops at AHS, but only if they are Active." Otto includes both types and applies the location and status to each.

"Show assets only if status is Active" lists matching devices. "Show statuses only" lists the available status definitions.

Ask to include each device's assignee when you want that column in the results. Devices without an assignee stay in the list unless you also ask for assigned devices only.

The words “assets,” “devices,” and “equipment” refer to all matching items. Name a category, such as Chromebook, when you want to filter by asset type.

Name a manufacturer and a device type together, such as “Show Lenovo Chromebooks,” to include every matching model. Otto narrows to one model only when you ask for that model.

For device dates, you can name consecutive months: "Show devices created in June, July and August this year." This covers June 1 through August 31, including the whole last day. Otto keeps creation and purchase dates separate and does not include unrequested months between separated periods.

For repair counts, "by device type" groups repairs by the affected devices' types, such as Chromebook or laptop. "By repair type" groups them by the work performed, such as a screen replacement. "What device model breaks the most?" groups recorded repairs by device model, with the highest repair count first. This counts repair records; it is not a failure rate per device.

If a name could mean more than one thing, like two schools that both start with "Lincoln", Otto asks which you meant and shows the choices as buttons. When schoolOS platform staff list devices across accounts using an exact location name, Otto includes matching devices at locations with that name across their accessible accounts. Selecting an account or a specific location ID narrows that scope. For your current account, supported name variations such as “Technology” and “Technologies” can resolve to the same account without changing your access. A variation that exactly names another account is not treated as your current account.

You can also speak your question. Select the microphone, talk, and your words appear in the box. Otto never sends what it heard until you press Enter. The microphone doesn't show in browsers that can't turn speech into text, like Firefox.

Examples by area#

What you can ask depends on your account's products and your role. These are all questions Otto is tested on:

| Area | Try asking | | --- | --- | | Tickets and work orders | "How many open tickets are there by topic this month?" · "Show ticket #1234" · "Which tickets are breaching SLA?" · "Which tech has resolved the fewest tickets?" · "Open tickets older than 7 days" · "What's the oldest open ticket?" · "Which tickets are past due?" · "Tickets for SCH-019192" · "What ticket statuses do we have?" · "Average resolution time by priority" | | Devices | "How many devices do we have at each location?" · "Which devices are missing?" · "Show devices older than 5 years" · "Device models at each school" | | Check-in and check-out | "How many devices were checked out last week?" · "Which devices are checked out to Jane Doe?" · "Which spares have been out for more than 14 days?" | | Repairs and fines | "How many repairs are still open?" · "What are the most common repair types?" · "What's the outstanding fines total?" | | People | "How many users do we have by role?" · "Which teachers are at Lincoln Elementary?" · "Show students without assigned devices" | | Parts | "Which parts are low on stock?" · "Show parts by manufacturer" · "What's the value of the parts we have on hand?" | | Tasks | "Show my tasks" · "Overdue tasks by team" | | Funding and value | "What is the total value of our devices?" · "Which devices need replacement next year?" · "How much funding is remaining?" |

"Count assets for each location" gives a count for each accessible location; "each location" is a breakdown, not a person or one location name.

A note on funding: Otto counts funding through the devices each source paid for, so a grant that no device names yet is left out of "How much funding is remaining?". Insights › Funding Burndown shows every source.

Examples:

• A middle school tech assigned to one building asks "Which spares have been out for more than 14 days?" on Friday afternoon and gets the four spares at their school, each with who has it, so they can call those families before the weekend.
• A district technology director preparing for a board meeting asks "How many devices do we have by manufacturer?", then opens the answer as a report and saves it to the Insights dashboard.

What an answer looks like#

• The answer in words first, with the number.

• A table when there are records or a breakdown. In the panel it shows up to 10 rows and usually 2 or 3 columns that fit your question. For a specific device's whereabouts, it shows the recorded Location beside Status; a device marked Missing is not confirmation of its current physical location. People show with their picture, as they do on the lists; a device assigned to a room shows a door; "Unassigned" shows a dashed circle with a crossed-out person. Select Expand to see it wide. For most lists, the wide view pages through every matching record and lets you pick more columns with Columns; your choice is remembered for next time. For an unfiltered locations answer, Expand opens the Locations table and loads up to 50 accessible locations at a time. Select Load more to append the next page until the full list is shown. The chat preview stays at 10 rows. If an answer's search cannot be reproduced exactly by the Locations page, its expanded table keeps the answer's rows instead of loading a broader list. For asset status, manufacturer, model, and role permission lists, Expand loads the same accessible catalog in pages. schoolOS staff can also expand sign-up requests this way; the selected request status stays applied on every page. Select Load more to see the remaining entries. The chat preview stays short; there is no need to ask Otto for the remaining rows.

• An Actions button with what you can do next. Pages to open come first, then, below a line, things to do with the answer. Depending on the answer:

  • View as list opens the same records on their page (Assets, Tickets, People …), with the same filters, so you can sort, filter and change them there.
  • View as report opens the answer in the report builder, with a chart already picked. The line under it names the chart, like "Report builder · Bar chart".
  • A single device, ticket or person opens its own page.
  • Export to CSV saves the answer as a spreadsheet. For devices, it starts the Assets export: it runs in the background and the file is emailed to you. For tickets, people, tasks, fines, check-ins and parts, it downloads every matching record, not only the rows the answer shows, with the columns you picked under Expand. For a breakdown, like tickets by assignee, it downloads the table as you see it. You only get it for records you can open on their own page.
  • Copy table copies the table with its headings, so it pastes as a table into a spreadsheet, an email or a doc. In the Expand view it copies the rows loaded there, with the columns you picked. People copy as their names, and nobody as "Unassigned".
  • Audit these devices starts a new audit of exactly the devices in the answer. You confirm it on the audit page.

• Next steps, as smaller buttons, when something is missing for a full answer: for example, devices with no purchase price when you asked about value, with a link to where you'd fix it.

Otto doesn't draw charts inside the chat. For a chart, select View as report.

If a list has more groups than fit, the answer says so. Ask "show the rest" to see the next ones.

Opening a page from an answer keeps Otto open beside it, on the same chat. On a phone, where Otto fills the screen, it steps aside so you can see the page: tap Otto to come back to the same chat.

Which should I choose?#

| Action | What it does | Choose it when | | --- | --- | --- | | View as list | Opens the records on their own page, filtered to this answer. | You want to work on them: reassign tickets, change a status, check each device. | | View as report | Opens the report builder with this data and a chart. | You want a chart to show someone, or to keep on a dashboard. | | Export to CSV | Saves the records, or the breakdown, as a spreadsheet. Devices are emailed to you; everything else downloads. | You need to share the list outside schoolOS, like with a vendor or a business office. | | Copy table | Copies the table so it pastes as a table. | You want the numbers in an email, a doc or a sheet you already have. | | Audit these devices | Starts a new audit of exactly these devices. | You want someone to go and confirm they're really where schoolOS says. |

Requests Otto can fully resolve run directly against the records you can access. This includes supported combinations of status, type, location, assignment, dates, exclusions and custom fields, plus follow-ups that keep or refine those conditions. Longer questions and multiple filters do not by themselves require AI interpretation. When wording or a catalog match remains unclear, Otto interprets the full request before asking you to clarify a genuine ambiguity. Every answer reads current records and checks your access again.

Simple catalog requests such as “Show models,” “List manufacturers,” “Show asset statuses,” and “Show asset types” also run directly. Expand an asset type, status, manufacturer, or model table to load more rows; the expanded table offers Load more until all accessible rows appear. Include the module when a catalog name is shared: “Show statuses” asks for clarification unless the conversation already identifies assets. “Show Student permissions” and “Show Guardian permissions” use the same direct path as permissions for a uniquely named custom role. Access follows the roles you can view in your account.

Ask “Show roles” or “Show schoolOS roles” to list available schoolOS permission roles. “Show school roles” lists school role definitions, with each role's people count and whether it is built in. With schoolOS platform access, these role lists cover all accessible accounts and label account-specific entries; name an account to narrow the list. “Show permissions” lists permissions assigned to your current role; name a role to check its permissions. To list people, ask for users with a role, such as “Show users with the Guardian role.”

With schoolOS platform access, asset catalog questions without an account name cover accessible accounts and label account-specific entries. Name one account to limit the list of statuses, models, manufacturers, types or fields to that account and shared defaults.

For platform-wide device questions, a location name shared by several accounts includes matching locations across those accounts. Name an account when you want only its location and devices.

Simple asset lookups also run directly: “Find asset tag ACT0009,” “Show me asset named Front Office Printer,” or “Find device by serial number ABC123.” Without an identity label, such as “Find asset ACT0009,” Otto checks accessible records to distinguish a tag, serial number, or name before choosing this path. It uses AI interpretation when that reference is unresolved or ambiguous. Adding supported conditions keeps those conditions on the direct query; unresolved conditions need interpretation or clarification.

You can combine conditions in everyday language, including custom field names and values. For example: “Show active Chromebooks at North Campus where custom field Project\Department is Science.” Keep identifiers and custom values as they appear in schoolOS. If a field name or condition is ambiguous, Otto asks you to clarify before running the query. Naming the manufacturer, manufacturers, or model field selects that field even if the value appears in both catalogs. For alternatives with different conditions, ask for both groups together: “At CHS, list Available projectors and Active laptops.” Otto keeps each type paired with its own status and applies CHS to both groups. A named asset location question, such as “Where is asset ACT0009 located?”, reads the live asset record. You can also name equipment directly: “Show active projectors at North Campus location” asks for devices, with Active, Projector, and North Campus as filters. The word “location” does not turn it into a location-directory request. This applies with both account and global platform access; your access still determines which records are included. An asset has one current status, so “Active or In Repair” combines two statuses, while “both Active and In Repair” needs clarification rather than silently becoming an “or” query. Otto also keeps a named location and equipment type in the query before returning an asset count or list.

With global platform access, an asset request can use an exact account name without the word “account.” Otto checks that name before selecting the account. If it also names a location, Otto asks which you mean; say “at North Campus location” to make the location explicit. Both “show asset at North Campus” and “show assets at North Campus” apply a place filter. To search for a device whose name includes a place phrase, use “asset named” followed by its name.

With global platform access, a complete new custom-field question uses your current workspace rather than silently retaining an account from an earlier answer. Name the account or say “in the same account” when you want to keep that account's scope. “Those assets” continues the previous result scope. An account selected in your workspace and your access restrictions still apply.

An asset's location and its assignee's location are different filters. “Assets at North Campus” uses the asset location; “assets assigned to users at North Campus” uses the users' location. Follow-up questions such as “Of those, which are assigned?” refine an answer while keeping its other conditions. For example, you can say “Same type and status, but at CHS” or “Switch to laptops at the same school and status”; Otto uses the latest verified asset answer for the conditions you explicitly keep. To remove an ownership restriction while switching types, say “Switch to laptops. Keep AHS and Active, but remove the ownership filter.” If a referenced condition is not available in the latest answer, Otto asks instead of searching a broader set. A complete new question starts with its own filters, even when it asks about the same kind of record. For example, asking for tickets by status after asking for tickets by priority does not keep the earlier priority filter. Your current workspace still applies.

For a room filter, include its location: “Show devices in room B11 at Administration Office.” Otto resolves the room within that location, so rooms with the same name at other locations are not included. If the location or room is ambiguous, Otto asks you to clarify.

With global platform access, task questions can filter across accounts by team or department: “Show tasks for team IT Service Desk” or “Show tasks in department Facilities.” Matching names across accounts are combined; the department and team conditions still apply together. A name that cannot be resolved produces a clarification instead of an unfiltered answer. Private teams and tasks keep their access restrictions.

Ask “Show tasks linked with tickets” to list tasks that have a ticket link, or “Show tasks without a ticket” for tasks with no ticket link. You can combine this with task status, team and department filters, or ask for a count. Your task access and linked-ticket privacy rules still apply.

Workflow lists and run summaries can also cover the organizations whose workflows you can read. Each row names its organization. Ask “Show disabled workflows” to include only rules that are turned off. A named workflow can be described without first selecting an account when it matches one accessible rule; repeated names require the organization. People with view-only platform access can read these answers, while creating or editing a workflow still requires workflow management access and a specific organization.

With global platform access, “Show tickets,” “Show tasks,” and “Show workflows” cover accessible accounts. Ticket, task, and workflow rows identify their account. Name an account in the request to limit the answer to it. For example, “Show tickets in Axis Cyber Technologies,” “Show tasks of Axis Cyber Technologies,” and “Show workflows of Axis Cyber Technologies” select that account. An account name does not become a department filter; add a department separately when you need one.

For tickets, “no open tasks” includes tickets with no tasks and tickets whose tasks are all finished. “No tasks” means no linked tasks at all. You can combine either condition with an account name; Otto applies both conditions to the same tickets.

You can name an organization directly in ticket, task and workflow questions, such as “Show tickets created in Example School District” or “Show workflows in Example School District.” With global platform access, this limits the answer to that organization without requiring you to select a department first. Ticket and task questions cover its accessible departments when no department is specified. Add a department or team to narrow the result; a creation date remains a separate filter. An organization name that cannot be resolved is not silently replaced with an all-organization workflow list.

Ask for devices and their assigned users to show the assignee beside every matching device, including unassigned devices. To restrict the results instead, ask for devices assigned to someone or unassigned devices. Alternate wording for a location is used only when it resolves to one accessible location; if several match, Otto asks you to choose.

For expired-warranty requests, Otto uses the recorded warranty expiration date before today. Assets with no warranty date are not counted as expired. Minor spelling mistakes in an unquoted warranty field can be recognized; an unresolved condition goes to interpretation rather than being silently dropped from an asset list.

You can filter by an available asset type or status even when no devices use it yet. Otto reports no matching assets in your scope. If the name is unavailable or ambiguous, it asks you to check the name or choose a definition.

For a multi-select custom field, “contains” an option means that option is selected. A device still matches when other options are selected too. This matches the option itself, not part of another option's name.

Otto recognizes the current ticket statuses, priorities, topics, custom fields and teams you can access, plus task statuses and departments. People who manage workflows can ask about enabled or disabled workflows by name, or filter by the event that starts them: "Show workflows that run when a ticket is created." If two definitions share a name, specify the department or clarify which one you mean. Answers still check your current access and read the latest records.

Answers follow who you are#

Otto answers as you. It uses the same rules as the rest of schoolOS, so it never shows you something you couldn't open yourself:

• Your role. If your role can't see fines, Otto can't answer about fines for you.
• Your schools. Someone assigned to one school gets that school's numbers. A district admin gets the district's. Two people can ask the same question and get different, correct answers.
• Your account's products. If your district doesn't have schoolHelpdesk, there's nothing to ask about tickets, and the ticket options don't show.

A schoolOS platform admin can ask "Show tickets" or "How many tickets are there?" without selecting an organization. Otto covers the tickets they can access across organizations, with the same private-ticket rules as the Tickets page. Selecting an organization or impersonating a person limits the answer to that scope.

So when an answer seems low, check whose view it is. "12 open tickets" from a building tech means 12 at their building.

Departments#

When your account has departments, like IT and Facilities, Otto answers about the workspace you're in, the department the navigation shows:

• A question that names no department covers your current workspace, and says so: "In IT." Switch workspaces in the navigation and the next question follows.
• Name another department and that answer covers it instead. Use its name ("Facilities"), or what it calls its tickets ("work orders"), as your account set them up. Say "all departments" for every department you work in: "Across IT and Facilities: IT 31, Facilities 17."
• Under the answer, All · IT · Facilities asks the same question again across every department or in another one, with a single tap.
• Your workspace comes first. A department you name or tap covers that one answer. The next question that names none is back in your workspace, so name the department again, or tap its chip, to stay there.
• If you work in one department, every answer covers it, and Otto doesn't bring departments up.
• On pages outside any workspace, like your profile, the chat remembers the department you named or picked. Follow-up questions stay in it, shown as Answering in Facilities above the message box. Select the X there, or All under an answer, to go back to every department.
• When you ask to create or assign something, Otto points to the page for it in your workspace.

Otto never goes beyond the departments you work in. Ask about one you're not in and it says you don't have access.

Which answers follow the workspace#

Every count, list or breakdown of work a department owns covers your workspace, the same records its own pages show:

• Tickets and work orders, including SLA, priority, topic and status questions.
• Tasks.
• Assets and inventory: counts by type, status, school, room, model or manufacturer, missing and aging devices, warranties, assignments and spares. In Facilities that's its inventory. Built-in IT and Facilities also cover the assets of their kind that aren't filed in any department, as their asset lists do.
• Parts and their stock.
• Check-ins and check-outs, repairs and device audits, for the devices in the workspace.
• Reports Otto runs for you. View as report opens them in that department's Insights.
• The suggestions on Otto's start screen are counted in your workspace too, so a suggestion's number matches the answer you get. See What Otto suggests.

Across all departments, assets cover the ones your role reaches in the departments you work in, plus any not filed in a department. When those departments include Facilities and another one, that's devices and inventory together.

These don't change with the workspace, because they're about one thing you named or about your whole account:

• Looking up one record, like "ticket 1042", "asset tag A-100" or "parts in this laptop". Otto finds it in any department you work in.
• Your own things, like "my devices" or "my profile".
• People, schools, rooms, fines, imports and exports, MDM devices and syncs, and your account's lists of types, statuses, models and fields.
• Workflows. They're managed for the whole account in Admin.
• A saved report. It runs as it was saved.

Draft a workflow#

Type /workflow and what should happen: "/workflow when a ticket has waited two days without an update, notify its assignee". Otto writes the rule from your account's own fields and actions, shows it in plain English, and offers Open in the workflow editor. It opens there turned off and unsaved, so you review each step and press Save yourself; nothing runs before that. Automate under the quick actions holds ready-made examples. Only people who can manage workflows get a draft; see Workflows.

Turn an answer into a report#

1. Ask a question that counts or breaks something down: "How many open tickets are there by priority?" or "Open tickets by assignee." An answer that covers more than one department, like IT tickets and Facilities work orders, opens as one report of all of them.
2. In the answer, select Actions, then View as report. The report builder opens with the same data.
3. The chart is chosen for the data: one number shows as a metric, a breakdown by one thing (school, assignee) as bars, a trend by month as a line, and anything wider as a table. Change it if you like.
4. Select Save report to put it on one of your dashboards. See Build a report.

The report reads live data, so it stays current after you save it. The answer in the chat doesn't change: it's what was true when you asked.

View as report shows only to people who can open Insights › Reports, and only when the report shows exactly the records in the answer. Without it, use View as list.

Change the report you have open#

On the Report Builder, ask Otto to change the report on screen: "add Pending", "break it down by school", "only last 30 days", "make it a line chart" or "remove the assignee filter". Otto changes it in place and says in one line what it changed, with Undo if you'd rather not keep it. Nothing is saved until you select Save report. See Build a report.

What Otto can't do#

• It can't change anything. It won't close a ticket, move a device or email anyone. It takes you to the page where you can. Exports and audits only start when you choose them. The one exception is the report open in the Report Builder, which it changes on screen for you to save or undo.
• It can't see what you can't. It won't answer about another school's data, or a product your account doesn't have.
• It can't answer everything. If no part of Otto can answer from your data, you get a general answer, not your numbers. Try saying it another way, or check the page directly. Your admins see these questions, so they can ask for them to be supported.
• It can't draw charts in the chat. Use View as report.
• It only knows schoolOS. It doesn't read your email, your SIS or other systems directly, only what's been brought into schoolOS and the articles your district publishes.
• It can be wrong. Check anything important on its page, using View as list, before you act on it.

Privacy#

• Your chats are yours. They're saved in your Chats list so you can pick one up later. You can delete any of them. Otto chats don't appear in the Conversations page admins use for schoolAgent.
• Questions that go wrong are reviewed. When Otto can't answer a question from your data, or something fails, the question goes to the review queue, where people who manage Otto can see it.
• AI helps interpret questions when needed. Common direct requests and eligible repeated interpretations can be answered from current schoolOS records without a planner call. When AI is used, it receives the authorized context needed for that request. It only ever gets what you could already see.
• Be careful what you type. Don't paste passwords or anything you wouldn't put in a ticket.

For admins: what you control#

People with Manage Otto decide how Otto works for the whole account:

| Control | What it does | Choose it when | | --- | --- | --- | | Enable Otto for admins, in Admin › Account › AI Features | Turns Otto on or off for everyone in your account. | Only if your district isn't ready for AI at all. Off, nobody sees Otto. | | Capabilities, in Admin › Otto › AI Capabilities | Turns off one kind of question, like fines, for everyone. | One area's data isn't ready, or shouldn't be in chat. See Choose what Otto can look up. | | Suggested prompts, on the Suggested tab of Admin › Otto › Prompts | Adds up to 8 questions of your own to the start screen. | Your staff ask the same questions every week. See Set Otto's suggested prompts. | | Roles, in Admin › People › Roles | Gives or takes away Use Otto for a role. | Some roles shouldn't use it, like student workers. | | Review queue, on the Review queue tab of Admin › Otto › Prompts | Lists questions Otto couldn't answer well. | You want to know what people need that Otto doesn't do yet. See Review questions Otto couldn't answer well. |

Turning a capability off is usually better than turning Otto off: people keep everything else.

For example, a district with 12 schools rolls Otto out in August. The director leaves every capability on, turns off Fines until the year's fines are imported, and adds "How many Chromebooks are at each school?" as the first suggested prompt, so every building tech sees it on their first day.

Choosing a school#

When a school-specific question needs you to choose a school, the chat can show a searchable school table. Type part of the school name to narrow the list, then select a row to continue your original question. The count shows how many schools match your search. Searching the list does not send another chat message.

Answered choices remain visible in your chat history and cannot be selected again. To ask about a different school, send a new question. The same school picker is available in the website chat widget.