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Scratchpads

Report pages the assistant builds when you ask it to analyse something.

Scratchpads

What it is

Report pages the assistant builds when you ask it to analyse something: a cashflow forecast for the next eight weeks, which jobs are drifting from their estimate, claims ageing by client. Each is a page of charts, tables, stat tiles and a recommendation, kept under Scratchpads for the whole team, and shareable by link with someone outside Base. Owners and bookkeepers use them for the Monday meeting; a PM uses one to show a client where the programme stands.

Before you start

  • The Scratchpads module must be on for you (on by default; Settings → Team modules).
  • Something to analyse: jobs with estimates, costs or claims. The assistant builds from what the business already holds.
  • Permission to share by link, if you want the link. Staff have it by default; an admin can withdraw it per person.

How to

Build one

Ask in the chat: "build me a cashflow forecast for the next eight weeks". The assistant gathers the figures, lays out the page and posts an Open card in the conversation. The page appears at the top of Scratchpads. There is no button to make one by hand; everything on a scratchpad is written by the assistant.

Read one

Open it from the list (newest first; Active or Archived). The page has a title, a summary, a version number and when it was last updated, then the blocks: headings, text, stat tiles, sortable tables, charts (each with a Show table toggle), callouts, columns, collapsible sections and tabs.

Change or refresh one

Press Refresh with the assistant. It opens a new chat asking the assistant to re-run the same figures and update the page in place, keeping the layout, and to say in one line what moved. To change the content, ask in chat: "add a table of the underlying figures", "turn the first chart into a line chart over time".

  1. Press Share link. The page shows the link; press Copy.
  2. Send it. Anyone with the link can open the page without signing in.
  3. Press Stop sharing to withdraw it. The link stops working at once.

A link lasts 30 days. Pressing Share link again later makes a new link; the old one is dead.

Archive one

Press Archive. It leaves the active list and any share link stops working. Archived pages are still readable under Archived; Restore brings one back to the list but does not revive the old link.

What happens on its own

  • A scratchpad is a snapshot of what the assistant fetched when it built it. It does not update itself; a refresh is something you ask for.
  • Every member of the business can open every scratchpad; they belong to the organisation, not to the person who asked.
  • Share links expire 30 days after they were made.
  • The assistant cannot publish a share link from a background run, or from an inbound email; only a person can.

Things that surprise people

  • The shared page shows the figures exactly as they are, including money, with no business name and no sign-in. Share it as you would share a PDF.
  • Opening an expired, withdrawn or archived link gives one line, "This link isn't active", and nothing else; the viewer cannot tell which it was.
  • There is no delete. Archive is the end of the road, and the page stays readable to your team.
  • No rename, no pin, no export button. The page is a web page; print it from the browser if you need paper.
  • Anyone in the business can withdraw a share link, not only the person who made it.