What it does
The ✨ AI Helper button sits at the bottom right of every section of an event, for the event's owner and its managers. Type a question in your own words, such as How do I make the doubles play before the singles each day?, and it answers from this manual and from the event you have open: its competitions, its type and what is already set up.
An answer is either numbered steps or a short explanation. Each step names the section it happens in, with a Go to button that opens that section, and a Manual ↗ link to the part of this manual it comes from.
Following the steps
The steps stay docked beside the page, on the right on a computer and as a sheet at the bottom on a phone, while you move between sections. Each step has a tick box. Closing the panel leaves a pill at the bottom right showing how many steps are ticked, for example ✨ AI Helper · 2 of 5 done, and tapping it reopens the panel. The conversation is kept for each event in this browser, so leaving the page or reloading it does not lose it.
A follow-up question can refer to the previous answer, for example what about the plate?.
Checking your schedule
A question about the schedule, such as Are there any clashes in my schedule? or Is anyone playing too many games in a row?, is answered from the event's placed games as they stand. It is treated as one when it is asked on Order of Play, Block schedule or Knockout schedule, or when its wording is about the schedule (clashes, rest, lawns, lunch, games in a row, the same time). The helper runs the planner's own checks and explains what they find, naming the people, days and times:
- someone in two games at once
- more than two games on one lawn at once
- more games in a row than Max games in a row
- a turnaround shorter than Min rest between
- no break inside a rolling lunch window
- a knockout match running at the same time as another competition's games or matches when the two competitions share players, as the knockout schedule board flags
It also has a day-by-day picture of the schedule (games per day per competition, first and last starts, each competition's shortest turnaround), so questions such as When do the doubles finish each day? are answered from the event itself. The checks see games that have a time; an event in play-order mode without times, or one whose schedule has not been generated, has nothing for them to check.
When it doesn't know
The helper only answers from this manual. When the manual does not cover a question, or the tool cannot do what was asked, it says so instead of guessing. Ask the Croquet Tools team sends the question, the answer and the event's name to the Croquet Tools team, and the reply comes by email. The same button sits under every answer as Didn't help? Ask the Croquet Tools team.
Limits
Each person can ask 25 questions in any 24 hours. After that the helper says the limit has been reached, and Ask the Croquet Tools team still works.
Questions and answers are kept so the manual can be improved where people get stuck.