Instance Skills
Teach Operator how your company handles a task
A skill is guidance written for Operator, the AI. It tells Operator how to handle one kind of task in your ERP.net instance. A skill is not an SOP: an SOP describes how work is done by anyone, people or bots, while a skill tells only the AI what to do. You can write a skill based on an SOP.
Every skill belongs to one ERP.net instance and uses that instance's areas.
How Operator uses skills
Before working on a task, Operator checks whether a skill in that area fits. If one does, Operator loads it and follows it, unless you tell it otherwise. Operator never loads every skill at once. It sees the list of your areas, and then searches for the skill it needs.
Example. A Finance skill could be titled "Month-end supplier invoice check":
- When to use: "When the user asks to check, review or close supplier invoices at month end."
- Guidance: "1. List unpaid supplier invoices of the closing month. 2. Flag invoices without a purchase order. 3. Summarise the totals per supplier in a table…"
When you ask "Check our supplier invoices for October", Operator finds this skill and follows its steps.
Teaching Operator new rules
When you tell Operator a rule that should hold from now on, it applies it right away and offers to save it in a skill, so it also holds in future chats.
- It finds the right place. If it's following a skill the rule fits, it offers to add the rule there. Otherwise it looks for a matching skill, and if there is none it offers a new one.
- It asks once. Example: you say "from now on, when you create cases, also choose a Project Area". Operator answers "Shall I add this to the skill 'Създаване на кейсове'?" Say yes and it adds the rule to the Guidance and tells you what changed; History lets you undo it.
- Rules you can't change. If the right skill is an instance skill you can't edit, Operator tells you who can (the area's Process Owner or an instance Admin) and offers to keep the rule in a personal skill instead.
- One-off wishes stay in the chat. "This time use project X" is not saved as a rule.
- You can also just say "add this to the skill" and Operator does it without asking.
Personal and instance skills
| Who can use it | Who can change it | |
|---|---|---|
| Personal | Only you | You |
| Instance (approved) | Everyone connected to the instance | The area's Process Owners and instance Admins |
Anyone can create personal skills. To share a skill with everyone, pick an area and send it for approval. A Process Owner of that area or an instance Admin approves it. Process Owners and Admins can approve their own skills straight away.
Areas
Areas group skills by business area. The first time someone in an instance opens Skills, the instance gets these standard areas: Sales, Purchasing, Inventory & Logistics, Finance, Manufacturing, CRM & Support, Marketing & Content, R&D, Regulatory, HR, Work Management and General.
Instance Admins can rename, add, deactivate or delete areas (up to 20 active areas) and assign Process Owners. Operator sees each area's name and short description (up to 200 characters), exactly as written. Notes are for people only.
Creating and editing a skill
Open Build → Skills. Then either:
- click New skill to open an empty skill next to a new chat, or
- click Describe in chat and tell Operator what the skill should do, for example "Create a skill for handling blocked sales orders".
The skill opens on the right and the chat stays on the left. On a phone, use the Chat and skill tabs at the top. Ask Operator to change the skill, or change it yourself:
- When to use and Guidance each have an Edit button. Your changes are saved when you click Save and thrown away when you click Discard.
- Click the skill's name (or the small pencil next to it) to rename it in a dialog. The area and tags are saved as soon as you change them.
- A new skill is placed in an area automatically: Operator picks the area that fits what you asked for, and a skill whose title names an area (for example "Sales order discounts") goes there. Change it in Settings.
- While Operator is working, you can't edit the skill. When it finishes, the editor shows its changes.
- Every save makes a new version. To undo a change, open History and restore an earlier version.
- Each version in History shows a short summary of what changed since the one before it, for example "Tags: added invoices" or "Guidance: 2 paragraphs (1 added, 1 changed)". Click a version, or Details, to see the full list of changes and the complete name, When to use, Guidance and tags of that version before you restore it. Restoring asks you to confirm first and shows exactly what will change.
- A version created by a restore is marked Restored from v5 (for example). To undo a restore, restore the version just before it.
Opening any skill from the list starts a new conversation with that skill open.
Deleting a skill
Open the skill and choose Delete, or use the bin icon next to it in the Skills list. You confirm before anything is removed.
- Your own personal skills: you can delete them at any time.
- Shared instance skills: only the area's Process Owner or an instance Admin can delete them. The skill disappears for everyone, and Operator stops using it.
Not sure? Use Archive instead: it hides the skill but keeps it, and you can restore it later. Operator itself never deletes skills.
Diagram
The Diagram tab draws the skill as a top-down process chart: it starts from the situation in When to use and follows the Guidance step by step, in the skill's own language.
- Green pill: where the process starts. Amber dashed boxes: questions with Yes/No branches. Blue boxes: steps. Red pills: where the process stops (for example "Ask for details. Don't create the case.").
- Numbered phases of the guidance (for example "1. Choose the project") are shown as labelled groups.
- Diagrams are made only when you click Generate in chat or ask Operator in the chat; opening the tab just shows the last one. Generating uses AI credits.
- Generate in chat asks Operator to draw the diagram right in your conversation. You can also simply ask Operator yourself and say how you want it, for example: "Draw this skill as a diagram, left to right, only the main steps" or "Make the diagram in English". Your wishes take priority over the default style.
- Style is remembered. When you tell Operator how you want the diagram, it saves your wishes together with a short note on its own choices (for example "phases grouped into boxes, labels kept short"). Both appear in the Style box on the Diagram tab, where you can edit or clear them, and every later diagram follows them. Your wishes always win over Operator's note; clearing both goes back to the default style.
- If the skill has changed since the diagram was made, an amber notice says so ("made from version 12; the skill is now at version 15") with a Generate in chat button.
- Anyone who can open the skill can see the diagram; only people who can edit the skill can regenerate it. Copy diagram and Image let you reuse it elsewhere.