Appearance
Approvals and permissions
Pencel does the reading, sorting and drafting on its own. Before it sends a message, posts, changes a record in another service or moves money, it shows you exactly what it's about to do and waits for your answer, unless you've chosen to let that action run without asking. This page explains how that works and how to adjust it.
What happens without asking
- Reading. Searching your inbox, looking up invoices, reading a document or a web page.
- Browsing an allowed website. With the Playwright connection, reading a page, searching and clicking on the websites you listed. See Browser automation.
- Working inside Pencel. Drafting a reply, writing a brief into the room, saving a result, adding a card to the wall.
Nothing here reaches another person or changes another service, so Pencel doesn't stop to ask.
What an approval looks like
In a room, the approval appears in the conversation as a card. The room's row and the Team item in the sidebar get a badge. The card names the action and the account it will use, and shows the details in plain terms: the recipient and message, or the vendor and amount. View raw request shows the exact data that will be sent.
On Home, requests from your rooms also appear among your decisions, with Approve and Reject.
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| The action button, such as Approve request, Approve & submit or Create vendor | Go ahead exactly as shown, this once. |
| Reject | Don't do it. Nothing is sent or changed. |
| Edit fields | Change a detail, such as a date or amount, then approve the edited version. |
| Always Allow | Approve now and stop asking about this kind of action. In a room, it covers only that room, that action and that account. Outside a room, it covers that action in every chat and workflow. |
| Approve All or Trust tools for this run | Approve the rest of this piece of work's requests, except the ones that always ask. It ends when the work does. |
When an approval is for changes to a document, spreadsheet or slide deck, the card lists each change and the button is Apply. When you edit a document with AI help, each change shows its before and after with Accept and Reject.
What always asks, every time
Always Allow isn't offered for these, so you confirm each one.
Everywhere in Pencel:
- QuickBooks changes: importing an expense, creating a vendor or attaching a receipt note. You see the amount, payee and accounts.
- A browser click that looks final, such as Submit, Send, Pay, Register or Delete, even on an allowed website. Pencel also asks before typing into anything but a search box and before uploading a file. Anything on a website you haven't allowed asks every time, and the card lets you add the website to your list. When you're away, such as in a scheduled room run, it is skipped instead.
- Sending a saved sign-in to a new website. If a task wants to send one of your saved sign-ins somewhere it has never been sent, Pencel asks Send a credential to a new destination? with Send it and Don't send.
In a room, also:
- Anything that moves money.
- Deleting or overwriting something in another service, and any action Pencel can't classify.
An approval for money applies only to exactly what you saw. If any detail changes, Pencel asks again.
Outside rooms, you can switch prompts off
In chats on Home and in workflows, Always Allow on a connection's action, or setting that connection's Manage Tools ▸ Auto-Approval to All tools, lets those actions run without asking. That includes deletions, such as removing a calendar event. Only QuickBooks changes and sending a saved sign-in to a new website still ask. Choose All tools only for connections you fully trust.
What's never allowed
- Unattended work can't email anyone but you. When a scheduled workflow runs without you there, it won't send email to another person. It keeps the draft and reports that the message wasn't sent, so you can send it yourself.
- Bids and inbox replies stay in your hands. RFP Operations never submits a bid, and the inbox room sends a reply only when you press Send email and confirm. See Review and approve work.
Standing approvals: see them and take them back
Every Always Allow you give is listed somewhere you can review it:
| Where you allowed it | Where to see and revoke it |
|---|---|
| In a room | Click the room's name, go to Advanced ▸ Tools & accounts, find the action marked Always allowed and click Revoke. |
| A connection, in chat on Home or in a workflow | Settings ▸ Connections ▸ Installed, the card's ⋯ menu, Manage Tools. Actions that run without asking are marked auto. |
| A built-in Pencel action, outside a room | Settings ▸ General ▸ Always-allowed built-in tools. Click the × on an action to revoke it. |
Revoking takes effect on the next action. Nothing already done is undone.
In a room's Tools & accounts list, each action shows what it does (Reads, Makes changes, Sends, Moves money and so on) and how the room treats it: No approval needed, Asks first, Always allowed, Asks every time or Off in Connections.
Set limits on a connection
In Manage Tools for a connection you can:
- Switch an action off. The room lists it as Off in Connections, and no room, chat or workflow can use it.
- Choose what runs without asking in chats and workflows. Under Auto-Approval, pick None, All tools or Custom. None is the safest: everything that could change something asks first. Rooms ignore this setting and keep their own approvals.
On the same ⋯ menu, Enable Simulation makes Pencel skip anything that would change that service and report what it would have done. It's a safe way to try something new. See Connect your accounts.
Questions are different from approvals
Sometimes a room needs information rather than permission, such as which account to use or what counts as urgent. If you don't answer a simple question within a few minutes, the room goes ahead with the option it recommended and tells you what it picked, so work doesn't stall while you're away.
Approvals never do that. They wait for you.
The record of what happened
- Settings ▸ Activity Log keeps a tamper-evident record of approvals, deletions, permission denials and use of your saved sign-ins, and exports it as a folder you can hand to an auditor. See Data handling.
- Each connection's Audit Log, on its ⋯ menu, shows when it was installed, connected, disconnected or revoked, and its Manage Tools ▸ Activity tab lists recent actions.
- Each job's run log, in Studio ▸ Jobs, shows every step a workflow took and what it cost. See Check on scheduled work.
- A room's Activity tab shows what's running, what needs you and past work.