The Lotics AI Assistant
The AI assistant is built into every part of Lotics. It is not a separate product or an add-on. It has access to over 50 tools that let it query your data, create and update records, build views, generate documents, set up workflows, send emails, and analyze your operations. You interact with it through natural language conversation, and it executes actions directly in your workspace.
What the AI assistant can do
The AI assistant has full access to your workspace. It can read and write data across all your tables, create new tables and fields, build filtered views, generate PDF and Excel documents from templates, configure workflow automations, and send emails on your behalf. Every action the AI takes is the same action you could take manually. It uses the same tools, respects the same permissions, and produces the same results.
The assistant understands context. When you ask a question, it knows which tables exist, what fields they contain, how records are linked, and what workflows are active. You do not need to specify table names or field IDs. Say "show me all overdue invoices" and it finds the right table, identifies the date field, filters for past-due records, and returns the results.
The assistant also remembers your conversation. You can ask follow-up questions, refine results, and build on previous requests without repeating context. A conversation might flow from "show me last month's revenue" to "break that down by customer" to "create a view that shows this breakdown permanently."
| Category | Capabilities | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Data queries | Search, filter, aggregate, and analyze records across tables | "What's our total revenue from customer X this quarter?" |
| Record management | Create, update, delete, and link records | "Create a new shipment record for container MSKU1234567" |
| Views & setup | Create tables, add fields, build filtered/sorted views | "Add a priority field and create a view showing only high-priority items" |
| Documents | Generate PDFs, fill PDF forms, create Excel reports from templates | "Generate a gate-in receipt for this container" |
| Workflows | Create and configure multi-step automations with triggers and conditions | "When a repair is marked complete, update the container status and notify the customer" |
| Send emails, set up email-triggered workflows | "Send the invoice PDF to the customer's email address" | |
| Analysis | Calculate totals, averages, trends, and comparisons across data | "Compare this month's container throughput with last month" |
| Import | Import data from CSV/Excel files, map columns to fields | "Import this spreadsheet and create a customers table from it" |
Example conversations
Shipment query: "Show me all containers owned by Maersk that arrived this week but haven't been inspected yet." The AI queries your containers table, filters by owner, arrival date range, and inspection status, then returns a formatted list. You can follow up: "Send inspection reminders to the assigned gate clerks for each of these containers." The AI looks up the assigned person for each record and sends individual notification emails.
Document generation: "Generate gate-out receipts for all containers being released today." The AI identifies containers with today's release date, pulls the relevant data (container number, owner, charges, timestamps), fills your PDF template for each one, and attaches the generated documents to the corresponding records. If you have an email workflow configured, it can also send each receipt to the container owner automatically.
Workflow setup: "When an email arrives from a shipping line with a container release order, extract the container number and release date, update the container record, change the status to awaiting-pickup, and notify the gate team." The AI creates a complete workflow: email trigger with sender filter, AI extraction step for parsing the email content, record update step, status change, and notification. The entire workflow is built and activated from a single conversation.
Revenue analysis and operational insights
The AI assistant can perform ad-hoc analysis across your data without requiring pre-built reports. Ask "What was our storage revenue last month, broken down by container size?" and it queries your billing records, groups by container size, sums the amounts, and presents results. Follow up with "How does that compare to the same month last year?" and it runs the comparison.
Spreadsheet import and restructuring: "I have an Excel file with our customer list, their contracts, and billing rates all in one sheet. Import it and split it into separate linked tables." The AI reads the file, identifies the logical entities (customers, contracts, rates), creates three tables with appropriate field types, establishes record links between them, and imports the data with proper relationships preserved.
Email automation: "Set up a workflow that sends a weekly summary email every Monday to the operations manager with the number of containers received, released, and currently in yard." The AI creates a scheduled workflow with a recurring Monday trigger, adds query steps to count records by status and date range, composes the email body with the aggregated data, and sends it to the specified recipient.
How the AI assistant works
The AI assistant operates with full workspace context. When a conversation starts, the assistant knows your table structure, field definitions, record relationships, active workflows, and document templates. This context means you can speak in business terms ("overdue invoices," "containers in yard," "pending repairs") without mapping those concepts to technical field names or table IDs.
The assistant has access to a tool registry of over 50 operations. Each tool performs a specific action: querying records, creating a table field, generating a document, sending an email, or configuring a workflow step. When you make a request, the AI determines which tools to use, in what order, and with what parameters. Complex requests may chain multiple tools together.
For interactions that require structured input, like configuring a multi-step workflow or reviewing a batch of records, the assistant uses inline apps. These are interactive interfaces that appear directly in the chat conversation, allowing you to review data, make selections, confirm actions, and provide input through forms rather than typing everything out. Conversation memory persists across messages, so the assistant builds on previous context throughout the session.
Use cases by role
Different team members use the AI assistant for different tasks. The assistant adapts to each person's permissions and typical workflows. A gate clerk interacts with it for fast operational lookups and record creation, while a business owner uses it for strategic analysis and system configuration.
The table below shows common use cases for each role. These are real examples from teams running on Lotics, not hypothetical scenarios. Each role can also ask the assistant for help with tasks outside their usual scope. The assistant guides them through unfamiliar operations.
| Role | Common Requests | What the AI Does |
|---|---|---|
| Gate Clerk | "Log gate-in for container TCLU7654321, 40ft, owner Hapag-Lloyd" | Creates a container record, sets the status, timestamps the entry, and generates a gate-in receipt PDF |
| Operations Manager | "Show me all containers that have been in yard for more than 14 days" | Queries containers by arrival date, filters for overstays, and returns a summary with owner contact details |
| Accountant | "Generate invoices for all storage charges due this week" | Calculates charges based on storage days and rate tables, fills invoice templates, and attaches them to customer records |
| Sales Rep | "What's our utilization rate this month compared to last month?" | Counts occupied vs total capacity across date ranges and presents the comparison with percentage change |
| Business Owner | "Set up a daily report that shows revenue, container count, and pending repairs" | Creates a scheduled workflow that aggregates data across tables and emails a summary report each morning |
Skills: reusable instruction templates
Skills are saved instruction sets that customize how the AI assistant behaves for specific tasks. Instead of repeating detailed instructions every time you need the AI to perform a particular operation, you create a skill once and invoke it by name. A skill can include business rules, formatting preferences, data validation logic, and multi-step procedures.
For example, a "container gate-in" skill might instruct the AI to always ask for container number, size, condition, and owner; validate the container number format; check for duplicate entries; create the record with the correct status; and generate the gate-in receipt. When a gate clerk invokes this skill, the AI follows these instructions consistently every time, reducing errors and ensuring process compliance.
Skills are shared across the workspace. An operations manager can create skills that standardize how the entire team interacts with the AI. This turns the AI assistant from a general-purpose tool into a customized operations partner that knows your specific business rules and procedures.