Finding things and answering questions
Ask in your own words
Type a question like "what did Sandy finish last week?" and the filters set themselves.
The Tasks page can answer most questions through its menus — status, project, people, dates, priority. Ask in your own words is the shortcut: a box under those menus where you type the question the way you would say it, and the page sets the filters for you.
Type "what did Sandy finish last week?", press Ask, and you land on the same Tasks list you already know — status set to Done, Sandy chosen in People, the dates set to last week, and the chips underneath saying exactly that.
What the AI does, and what it never does
This box uses AI, and it is on a short leash:
- It only sets filters. It never changes a task, never writes a note, never touches your work. The most it can do is show you a filtered list — one you were already allowed to see.
- It never reads your tasks. The AI is given your question, today's date, and the names in your team — project names, people's first names, label names — and nothing else. Not a task title, not a note, not a file.
- You see what it understood. The answer arrives with an "Understood as" line and a small AI mark, and the filters it chose sit right there as chips. If it guessed wrong, click the chip off — a wrong guess costs you one click, not a wrong report.
If you ask about a name your team does not have — a person who is not on the team, a project that does not exist — that part of the question is left off and the page tells you so, rather than quietly showing you an empty list.
Questions it is good at
- What is on Joe's plate this week?
- Which Acme tasks are late?
- Unassigned high priority work
- What did we finish yesterday?
- What have I raised this month?
Anything the filter menus can express, you can ask for in a sentence. Anything they cannot — "why is this late?" — is a conversation, not a filter, and the box will say it could not turn the question into one.
Turning it on
The box is off until an admin turns it on: Team settings → Features → Ask in English. While it is off there is no box at all — nothing greyed out, nothing to wonder about.
Each team has a monthly allowance of AI questions that follows its plan. If a team uses its month up, the box says so politely and the menus keep working exactly as before — asking in English is a convenience on top of the filters, never a gate in front of them.
A question your team has asked before is answered from memory for a month, instantly and without using any of the allowance — Monday's "what did we finish last week?" only ever costs once.