Ask AI vs. INNERGY Support Chat
INNERGY includes two AI-powered tools. They serve different purposes:
Tool | What It Does | Connected to Your Data? |
INNERGY Support Chat | Answers "how do I" questions using the Help Center knowledge base | No |
Ask AI | Analyzes your live grid data and generates reports, charts, and breakdowns | Yes |
Use Support Chat when you need to learn how a feature works. Use Ask AI when you need to understand what your data is telling you.
Where to Find Ask AI
Ask AI appears as a button inside grids throughout INNERGY. Look for the icon showing two small windows with an orange star. It is available in the following grids:
· Work Orders
· Projects
· Invoices
· Bottleneck Report
· Job Costing Report
Important: Ask AI reads the current state of the grid, including any filters or view settings you have applied. The more focused your grid, the more accurate and useful your results will be.
Before You Ask: Prepare Your Grid
This is the single most important step. Ask AI works best when your grid is filtered down to the data that is relevant to your question.
Best Practice Before Using Ask AI
1. Apply workflow status filters (for example, exclude Closed and Completed work orders if you only want active work)
2. Set any relevant date ranges
3. Choose the grid view that best matches your analysis goal
4. Remove records that are incomplete or not relevant (for example, work orders with no assigned project manager, or projects with zero estimated cost)
A broad, unfiltered dataset can produce empty results, misleading output, or cause Ask AI to get stuck on the first step of your analysis.
Using Ask AI in the Work Order Grid
Work orders provide an operational view of active work inside larger projects — making the Work Order grid a great starting point for day-to-day analysis.
Getting Started
With 36,000 or more work orders in a typical dataset, start by filtering to only the work that needs attention. A recommended starting filter:
· Remove: Closed, Completed
· Keep: On Schedule, Due Today, Overdue
Example Prompts for Work Orders
Materials status summary:
"Give me a summary of work orders that need attention regarding their materials. How many work orders need materials ordered versus work orders that need the BOM created or approved?"
This type of prompt can surface material bottlenecks across thousands of work orders in seconds.
Work orders by workflow step (with chart):
"Show me a breakdown of work orders by workflow step and create a bar chart."
Ask AI can generate bar charts, pie charts, and table outputs directly in the conversation window.
Overdue work orders by project manager:
"Break down overdue work orders by project manager and compare them to completed work orders. Show the percentage of overdue work orders per PM."
Note: Ask AI may ask you to clarify which workflow statuses count as "complete" before calculating. Be ready to specify statuses like Closed, Completed, or Canceled.
Using Ask AI in the Project Grid
The Project grid provides a higher-level view of overall project performance. Ask AI history in this grid is separate from the Work Order grid because each grid is a different dataset.
Example Prompts for Projects
Good project vs. bad project by PM:
"For each project manager, recommend two projects to look at: one best example of a good project and one best example of a bad project. Define a good project as actual margin above 50% with actual costs below estimated costs."
Active projects only: Filter to active projects and exclude zero-cost projects before running any analysis for the cleanest results.
Using Ask AI in the Invoice Grid
The Invoice grid lets you track billing status by project manager, making it useful for both PMs and your AR team.
Example Prompts for Invoices
Invoice status by PM:
"Break down invoices by project manager. Show which invoices have been paid and which are still outstanding."
Note: The Invoice grid is newer and has fewer default prompts. If you develop a prompt that works well, share it with the INNERGY team so it can be considered for the default prompt library.
Using Ask AI in the Bottleneck Report
The Bottleneck Report is built around INNERGY's Theory of Constraints foundation. Ask AI here is well-suited for analyzing project manager capacity and workload distribution.
Recommended view: Use a project management time or project management workflow-related view for the clearest PM-level results.
Example Prompts for the Bottleneck Report
PM workload analysis:
"Which project managers are overloaded? Who has capacity to take on additional work?"
Ask AI will use labor hours and revenue as proxies for workload and recommend where work could be redistributed.
Role assignment warning: People appear in this report based on their assigned role in INNERGY. If someone is tagged as Project Manager or Estimator but is not actively managing projects, their data will be included. Make sure roles are assigned correctly before drawing conclusions from this analysis.
Using Ask AI in the Job Costing Report
The Job Costing Report is ideal for post-project analysis and budget performance reviews.
Example Prompts for Job Costing
Budget performance by PM:
"Summarize projects that were under budget. Break the results down by project manager."
Results will show total projects, under-budget count, over-budget count, and percentage for each PM. Output can be copied to the clipboard, pasted into Teams or email, or downloaded as an XLS file.
Refinement Tips
· Exclude projects with no PM assigned
· Limit to specific PMs or date ranges for cleaner output
Built-In Prompt Types
Ask AI includes several default prompt templates to get you started quickly:
Prompt Type | Best Used For |
Post-Mortem Analysis | Reviewing closed projects for estimating and process improvements |
Mid-Mortem Analysis | Evaluating an in-progress project to check if it is on track (requires actual critical date data) |
Additional default prompts are available inside the Ask AI panel depending on the grid you are in.
Conversation Controls
Control | What It Does |
New Conversation | Clears the current session and starts fresh |
History | Shows previous prompts and outputs from the same grid |
Use History to revisit a successful prompt or learn from attempts that did not produce useful results. Prompting is iterative — do not be discouraged if your first attempt needs adjustment.
Tips for Better Results
Filter first, then ask. Narrow your dataset before writing your prompt.
Define your business logic. Tell Ask AI what "complete," "at risk," or "under budget" means for your organization.
Start specific. A focused prompt on one question tends to outperform a broad, open-ended one.
Rephrase if needed. If Ask AI returns empty or unclear results, adjust the prompt or broaden the filter and try again.
Give feedback. Use the thumbs up/thumbs down buttons inside Ask AI to help improve the model over time.
Important Limitations
Data quality matters. Ask AI depends entirely on the quality and completeness of your data. Incomplete records, missing dates, or incorrect role assignments will affect the accuracy of results.
· Ask AI is INNERGY's own solution and is not connected to an external large language model.
· The feature is actively evolving. Customer feedback directly influences future improvements.
Have a prompt that works well for your team? Share it with us — it may be added to the default prompt library.
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