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Ready-made Rooms
A ready-made Room is a room that comes set up for one job. It arrives with the AI teammate who does the work, the routines it runs, the rules it follows and the connections it needs, all set up to work together. Install one, answer a question or two, and it starts working.
New to rooms? Read Team and rooms first.
The four ready-made rooms
| Room | What it does | What you need | How to start |
|---|---|---|---|
| RFP Operations | Finds federal and state and local bids, scores each one against what you sell, and drafts proposals for the ones you pursue. | One sentence about what you sell. No keys: it uses Pencel's shared access to the bid sources. | Home ▸ Find government RFPs |
| Email Chief of Staff | Reads your Gmail, clears the noise and prepares replies for the messages that need you. | A Gmail account. | Home ▸ Handle my inbox |
| QuickBooks Accountant (Beta) | Answers questions from your live books and drafts expenses that you approve one at a time. | A QuickBooks Online company. | Team ▸ Add a teammate |
Every room also needs AI access: credits on a Pencel plan, or your own API key. See Accounts, plans and credits.
Install one from Home
The quickest way in is the What should Pencel find for you? card on Home.
- Choose Find government RFPs, Handle my inbox or Stock watch.
- Answer the one question it asks (what you sell, your Gmail, or your tickers).
- Pencel installs the Room and starts its first piece of work right away.
Each room's page walks through its card in detail. If you skipped the card, go to Settings ▸ General ▸ Getting started and click Restart getting started to bring it back.
Install one from Team
- Click Team in the left sidebar.
- Click the tile of a room you haven't installed yet (it says Use this room), or click Add a teammate and scroll down to the ready-made list.
- Click a row to expand it. You'll see what the Room does, What this installs, and anything needed Before it can run.
- Click Install. For Email Chief of Staff the button reads Use this room.
Each row shows its status on the right: Available, Installed, or a reminder such as 1 to finish setup when a connection or key is still missing. Expand the row to see a Finish setup panel with a Fix link for each missing piece.
RFP Operations is two rows
The list shows one Government RFP Scout card. It covers federal bids and state, local and education bids, and installs RFP Operations into one room.
If you describe a new Room in your own words and a ready-made one already does the job, Pencel suggests it so you don't build the same thing twice.
After you click Install
A confirmation window shows what was added: the teammates, workflows, guidelines and connections. Depending on the Room, it may also:
- Offer to run on a schedule. A Run this every day? prompt with a Run daily button turns on the Room's scheduled routine. You can skip it and turn the schedule on later from the room.
- Name a missing key. If a source needs a key before it can run, the window tells you what to add in Settings ▸ Connections.
Click Open followed by the room name to enter it, or Stay here to keep browsing.
Re-sync
When a room is already installed, its row shows Re-sync instead of Install. Re-sync applies the latest setup from Pencel, such as new data sources and fixes. Installing or re-syncing never creates duplicates.
What installing creates
| Part | What it is |
|---|---|
| A room | A workspace named with a #, like # rfp-ops. It appears on the Team page and under Team in the sidebar, listed by its teammate's name. |
| A teammate | The AI teammate who does the work. See the table below. |
| Routines | Workflows the room runs. Some run when you ask. Scheduled ones stay off until you turn them on. |
| Rules | Guidelines for how the room scores, writes and behaves. You'll find them in room settings under About. |
| Connections | The data sources the Room needs. Ones that need your sign-in, like Gmail and QuickBooks, wait for you to connect them. |
| Room | Handle | Teammate |
|---|---|---|
| RFP Operations | # rfp-ops | Rory finds RFPs, brings you the calls only you can make, and drafts proposals. |
| Email Chief of Staff | # mailroom | Max sorts what needs you and holds drafts for your review. |
| QuickBooks Accountant | # quickbooks | Accountant reads your financials and logs the expenses you approve. |
You can change any of it after you install: the goal, the instructions, the crew, the schedule and the budget. See Team and rooms.
Remove a ready-made Room
- Open the room and click its name at the top to open room settings.
- Go to Advanced. Under Danger zone, find Remove room and click Remove….
- Click Remove to confirm.
Removing deletes the room, its conversation, its results, its schedules and the Room's own workflows. Its teammates, guidelines and connections stay in your workspace. You can install it again at any time from Team ▸ Add a teammate.
Not ready to remove it?
Start over… (in the same Danger zone) clears the conversation and results but keeps the setup. Pause room (under Schedule) stops all scheduled work until you resume it.
Want something else?
Ready-made Rooms cover four jobs. For anything else, describe the work in your own words and Pencel drafts a room for it. See Set up your own Room.