Van is the AI assistant built into Include GO. You can chat with Van from any screen. Ask questions in plain English and Van can look up answers from your own business data ("show my open invoices"), walk you through a process step by step with links to the official help articles, take you straight to the page you need, or do the work for you — creating a project, updating a task, logging time, or adding a note.
Van's name and greeting are set by your platform administrator, so if your company renamed the assistant you'll see that name instead of "Van" throughout the app.
Where to find the AI Assistant
Look for the round assistant button in the bottom-right corner of the screen — it shows Van's blue circular mark. It is available on every page. Click it and the chat window opens right where you are, so you never lose your place.
There is also a full-page version of the chat at Dashboard › AI Chat if you prefer a bigger workspace for a long conversation. It uses the same assistant and the same saved history, so you can start a thread in the pop-up and carry on with it full-page.
What you see in the chat window
Area | What it does |
|---|---|
Chats panel (left) | Your recent conversations, each with a preview and timestamp. Click one to pick up any earlier thread exactly where you left off. The refresh button at the top updates the list. |
Assistant name (top) | Van's mark and name, with the current conversation's title underneath. |
New Chat | Starts a fresh conversation. Your previous one stays in the Chats panel. |
Starter prompts | One-click suggestions to get going — for example Create a new project or Show recent invoices. Once you've used the assistant, your own recent prompts appear here instead. |
Message box | Type your question and press Enter (Shift+Enter adds a new line). While the assistant is answering, the send button becomes a stop button you can use to interrupt it. |
Asking a question
Type your question the way you would ask a coworker. Here the assistant was asked "How do I create an invoice for a customer?" — it found the official help article, turned it into short numbered steps, and cited the article at the bottom so you can read the full guide.
Click the assistant button in the bottom-right corner.
Type your question and press Enter.
Watch the answer stream in. Small status chips (for example Searching…) show what the assistant is looking up along the way.
Click any link in the answer — such as the Source article — to open the full help page.
What the assistant can do
Answer from your data — search projects, tasks, accounts, branches, tags, AR invoices, purchase orders, locations, teams, commissions, reimbursements, miscellaneous pay, payroll runs, bank transactions, time entries, and the general ledger.
Run real reports — for "how many" and "how much" questions (AR aging, AP aging, job profitability, labor hours, revenue by profit center, sales pipeline) it runs the actual report and gives you exact figures rather than estimating.
Teach you the steps — for "how do I…" questions it searches the official help center and links the article it used.
Take you there — say "take me to payroll" and it opens the page for you.
Do the work — create projects and tasks, update them, log or fix time entries, add internal notes to invoices and purchase orders, assign resources, link Gantt dependencies, archive or complete records, and more.
Which changes need your approval
Van treats routine edits and risky ones differently, so you aren't asked to approve every small change.
Everyday edits happen right away. Creating a project or task, updating a task or project, adding a task resource, adding or updating a checklist item, logging or adjusting a time entry, adding an internal note to an invoice or purchase order, and un-archiving a record all apply as soon as you ask. Van tells you what it did afterwards. These are all edits you can review and change again yourself.
Wide-reaching and destructive actions ask first. Archiving, deleting, approving, completing, cloning or splitting a task, applying a task package, overriding a selling price, moving a workflow state, linking or unlinking a Gantt dependency, cloning or replicating a project, and bulk reassignment of a project's lead, manager, or sales rep all stop and show a confirmation card summarizing exactly what Van plans to do, with Yes, do it and Cancel buttons. Nothing happens until you click Yes.
Editing a task resource depends on the field. Descriptive changes (description, budgeted quantity, category, notes) apply right away. Anything that reaches an invoice — unit cost, unit price, tax rate, tax amount, billable, or taxable — shows a confirmation card first.
If several records match what you asked for, Van shows a clickable list so you can pick the right one instead of it guessing.
Letting it take you to a page
When you ask to go somewhere — for example "Take me to AR Invoices" — the assistant shows a short countdown card. Click Go now to jump straight there, or Cancel to stay put. If you do nothing, it opens the page when the countdown ends.
Your conversation history
Every conversation is saved. The Chats panel on the left side of the chat window lists your recent threads with a preview and timestamp — click one to reopen it and keep going. Use New Chat to start clean, and the refresh button at the top of the panel to update the list.
The AI Usage page
Administrators can see what the assistant is costing from the AI Usage page in the left sidebar. Pick a month at the top right, and the page shows the total cost, total tokens (the units AI usage is measured in), input and output token counts, and a per-person breakdown by model. The What do these mean? link explains each token type in plain terms. Rates themselves are managed by your platform administrator.
Where used elsewhere
Every page — the assistant button follows you throughout the app, so help is always one click away.
AI Chat page — a full-page version of the same assistant, for longer working sessions.
Help articles — the assistant's step-by-step answers link back to the help center, making it a quick way to find the right guide.
Permissions
Chatting is available to every signed-in user — no special permission needed.
The assistant only sees what you can see. Every lookup and every action respects your own permissions. If you can't view payroll, neither can your assistant — it will tell you so instead of answering. Editing time entries, for example, still requires your own timesheet permission, and approved entries can't be edited at all.
AI Usage requires the AI usage view permission, so it is typically visible to administrators only.
Tips
Be specific. "What's the balance on the Hillcrest invoice?" gets a better answer than "invoices?".
Let it navigate for you. "Take me to…" is often faster than hunting through menus.
Use it to learn. Ask "how do I…" and you'll get the short version of the help article, with a link to the full one.
Say what you want changed, clearly. Routine edits apply straight away, so phrase the request the way you want it done. Anything wide-reaching or destructive still waits for your Yes.
Start a New Chat for a new topic. Shorter threads keep answers focused.
Common questions
Is my data used to train AI models? Your prompts and the records the assistant looks up are processed by the AI provider only to generate the response you see. They are not used to train publicly available AI models. If you have questions about your organization's data policies, ask your administrator.
Can the assistant change or delete things without me knowing? It can make routine edits — creating a task, updating a project, logging a time entry, adding an internal note — as soon as you ask, and it always tells you what it did. Anything wide-reaching or destructive (archiving, deleting, approving, completing, bulk reassignment, price overrides) shows a confirmation card first and does nothing until you click Yes, do it.
Why did the assistant say it couldn't access something? It works under your permissions. If a record or module is off-limits to your account, the assistant can't see it either.
Can I rename the assistant? Yes — the assistant's name and greeting are set centrally by your platform administrator, and the new name appears everywhere in the app.
Does chatting cost anything? Each conversation uses AI tokens, which have a small cost your company can track on the AI Usage page. A typical question costs a fraction of a cent.
Related topics
Dashboard — the home screen where you'll most often open the assistant.
AR Invoices — the invoicing guide the assistant cites in the example above.