---
id: ST-3
title: Writing to the assistant
group: Chats
summary: The composer — quick phrases, files, scans and voice, the card-details warning, and what Delivered and Read mean
keywords: [composer, message, send, suggestions, chips, next step, quick phrases, attachments, photos, delivered, read, typing, not delivered]
---

The composer is the rounded box at the bottom of a chat. Your words use its whole width; its buttons sit inside it: a **+** on the left, the microphone and the send button on the right. When what you write runs to more lines, the box grows upwards and the buttons move to a row along its bottom edge. Write as you would to a colleague, then send.

## Suggestions above the composer

One row of buttons can sit above the composer, and it follows one rule:

- **Before your first message**, the streamline's **starters** (*Set up a streamline*, *Open a PO*). A starter either sends at once or fills the composer for you to finish.
- **After it**, the **next steps for where the job stands**, set up by whoever configured the streamline: *Card on the terminal* and *Cash $5,225.88* while a balance is owed, *Submit the sale* once it's paid, *Check approval* while a manager is deciding. They follow the data, not the conversation: when the ticket changes (even from a button, or a manager deciding elsewhere) the row changes with it, and it stays put while nothing has changed.
- Some suggestions **fill the composer** with blanks for you to complete (*Find the customer*, *Counter at…*), some **send** at once, one may **open the scanner**, and some **do the step directly** (*Cash $…*, *Open PO-7781*). Anything that records money, decides or closes still shows its confirmation card first.
- The row **hides** while the assistant is working, while a confirmation card or secure form is waiting for you, and once the job is done; it dims while you type.
- A **personal streamline** can have *Let the model suggest* switched on: when no set-up suggestion applies, the assistant proposes up to three short things you might say next, on your own model key. A tap sends them as your words.
- **One row only.** What doesn't fit is left out rather than wrapped onto a second row.
- **Quick phrases are never there**: they stay in the composer's **+** menu.

## Quick phrases

If the streamline has quick phrases, the button at the left of the composer (a clock with a circular arrow) has **Quick Phrases**. It opens a menu of things people in that department commonly say, grouped by stage of the job (*Customer*, *Items*, *Price*, *Payment*, *Finish* in the demo's Register). New staff learn the job from it.

Picking a phrase does one of three things:

- puts the phrase in the composer for you to finish, with the cursor where your part goes;
- sends it at once (*Submit the sale*);
- or runs a step directly, with no assistant reply needed, and shows *Called directly — no model* in the step's details.

## Files, scans and your voice

The **+** holds **Attach** (photos, files, the camera) and **Scan**, each only where the streamline turns it on; press and hold **Scan** to start in another scan mode. Files and waiting scans show inside the composer, above your words. The microphone sits beside the send button. See Attaching files (ST-6), Scanning barcodes and QR codes (AS-6) and Talking and listening (AS-7).

## The card-details warning

If what you typed looks like a card number or a social security number, the app stops and asks: *This looks like card or ID details*. **Remove it** takes it out. **Send anyway** sends it, for something that only looks like a card number, such as a long product code. Secrets belong in a secure form, never in a chat. See Secure forms and secure views (AS-3).

## After you send

Your message appears at once and the composer clears. A very long message shows a character count as it nears the limit, and cannot be sent past it. Under your latest message:

- **Delivered**: your message has been accepted for the assistant.
- **Read**: the assistant has started on it. Three dots show it is working, with a caption such as *Searching inventory…* while it uses a tool.

Its reply then appears in place of the dots. If your message could not be sent, it shows **Not delivered · Try again** in red. Tap it to send again. Nothing is held back to send later. See Offline (TS-4).