The Cinode Chat Agent is an AI colleague that lives in Slack or Microsoft Teams. You talk to it in plain language, the way you would message a co-worker, and it answers with live data from your Cinode account. It can also make a limited set of changes for you and tell you when something needs attention.
In the chat tool it introduces itself as "the Cinode assistant". This article explains what the Chat Agent is, where it works and who can use what. Each feature has its own article, linked below.
What the Chat Agent does
The Chat Agent does four things. Each one has a dedicated article with examples and limits.
Answers questions about your Cinode data. Ask about your bookings, profile, tasks, absences, teams, availability, projects, customers and contacts. It replies with a short summary and links back to Cinode. See Chat Agent: What you can ask and do.
Makes changes for you. It can create and update tasks, notes and meetings, edit your own profile, and book your own absences. It always works under your own Cinode permissions.
Sends alerts. Ask for a digest or a live ping, such as expiring roles, new roles, birthdays or low utilisation, and it posts it in your conversation. There are 26 alert types. See Chat Agent: Alert types and Chat Agent: Create and manage alerts.
Reminds you and reaches out. It sets one-off reminders, tells you when a task is assigned to you or overdue, and sends occasional tips about your own profile and roles. You can pause any of these. See Chat Agent: Reminders and proactive messages.
Where the Chat Agent works
The Chat Agent works in direct messages, in channels and in group chats. You reach it in two ways:
Direct message. Message it privately. It always answers.
@mention in a channel or group chat. Mention it to pull it into a conversation your team can see. It then follows that thread, so you can ask follow-up questions without mentioning it again.
In a thread it has joined, it stays quiet when a message is off-topic, only emojis, or clearly aimed at other people. In such a thread it also never changes data unless your message answers its own last reply. To be sure it acts, mention it again.
The Chat Agent runs on Slack or on Microsoft Teams. A Cinode company uses one of the two, not both at the same time. The table below shows the differences between the two platforms.
Feature | Slack | Microsoft Teams |
Where you find it | The Agents and AI Apps view and the app's Home tab | Personal chat, group chats and team channels |
Manage your alerts | Ask the agent, use the Home tab, or type | Ask the agent. There is no slash command |
Suggested prompts | Shown in the assistant view | Shortcuts such as My bookings, My profile, My tasks, My time off and Team availability |
While it works | A "working" status | A placeholder message that turns into the answer |
Who can use what
The Chat Agent matches your chat account to a Cinode user by email address. What you can see and do depends on your Cinode permission level and the teams and customers you manage. In short:
Every active Cinode user can ask about their own bookings, profile, tasks, absences and utilisation, look up colleagues in a basic directory, and set up personal alerts and reminders.
Team managers can also see availability, absences, bench and certifications for the teams they manage, and search people by skill and roles within those teams.
Customer managers can also look up the customers they manage, with their projects, contacts and tasks.
Company managers can see company-wide data and use role matching and company-wide alerts.
A user without an active Cinode account that has the same email address as the chat account gets no answers at all. See Chat: Troubleshooting.
Secure and private by design
The Chat Agent can see real staffing and customer data, so security is checked on every answer:
You are only ever you. It identifies you from your verified Slack or Teams account, never from text in a message. Nobody can ask it to "act as" someone else.
Scoped to your permissions. If you cannot see something in Cinode, the Chat Agent will not show it to you. Sharing a channel does not widen anyone's access.
Sensitive fields are withheld. Date of birth, phone number, home address and employment dates are never returned, and utilisation answers never include revenue. The birthday and anniversary alerts show only the day and month, or the number of years of service.
Guardrails. It declines requests unrelated to Cinode and ignores attempts to override its instructions.
For the full Microsoft Teams permission review, see Chat Agent for Microsoft Teams: permissions and security.
Set up the Chat Agent
An administrator sets up the Chat Agent once in Cinode Flows. After that, anyone with a matching Cinode user can use it. The steps for Slack and Microsoft Teams are in Chat Agent: Admin setup.
Frequently asked questions
Which languages does the Chat Agent speak?
The Chat Agent speaks English and Swedish. If you have set a language for yourself, it always replies in that language. Otherwise it replies in the language of your latest message, and falls back to the language on your Cinode user when your message has no clear language. To change it, say for example "reply to me in Swedish".
Can we use Slack and Teams at the same time?
No. A Cinode company runs the Chat Agent on one chat platform. Running both would mix up the alert subscriptions.
Does it cover candidates and subcontractors?
No. The Chat Agent does not read, change or match candidates (recruitment) or subcontractors. It also cannot open attachments, send email, post in another channel on your behalf or export a CV as a PDF.
Who can see my questions and its answers?
Answers appear in the conversation where you asked. In a channel, everyone in the channel sees the answer, so ask in a direct message when the topic is private. Each answer is based only on the data you are allowed to see.