The Control room: watch and take control

The Control room is where you watch your team work: one card per employee, with what they are doing now and how long they have been at it. If someone gets stuck or is waiting for a person, their card is highlighted. You find it in the menu under Oversee › Control room. On mobile it is called Control and sits at the bottom.

What you see

• One card per employee, with their name, role, what they are doing now and how long they have been at it. If someone else has their control, the card says who.
• Their screen. Today the card shows a drawing: the live picture arrives once their computer is connected to the platform. To see what they actually do, open their profile.
• Two filters: “All” and “Need help”. The second shows whoever is waiting for a person or has got stuck, with the card highlighted and the ⏸ sign.
• The ticker at the bottom, with the latest activity: who did what and when, people and employees alike.

What you can do from a card

• Take control, if you have desktop permission for that employee and they are not off or paused.
• Hand back control, if you hold it.
• Approve, when they ask for a permission from you. For other notices you get Reply, which takes you to the Inbox.
• Resume, if you paused them.
• View profile, for their summary, their computer and their Log. Clicking their screen opens the computer tab directly.

Taking control and handing it back

Taking control means you take charge of an employee while you watch or fix something. Only one person can hold it at a time.

1. Take control. Click Take control on their card, or in the Computer & schedule tab of their profile. While you hold it, they cannot make changes on the platform: they cannot receive or give tasks, and they wait.
2. Watch or act. To see their desktop, click Open desktop on their profile (see “Watching live” below).
3. Hand back control. Click Hand back control on the card or in the profile. In the profile you can first leave them a note, for example “I signed in: carry on from the invoice”. Once handed back, they pick up their work where they left it.

If someone left without handing it back, the card says who holds it, and whoever administers the company can take it off them.

Watching an employee live

Watching live means seeing their desktop as it is. Open their profile, go to the Computer & schedule tab and click Open desktop. It opens in a new tab, on mobile too.

• The link works only once and expires after 10 minutes. Once opened, the desktop stays available for 2 hours.
• If the computer is asleep, wake it first with Wake up. A newly created one takes a couple of minutes to start.
• In test mode the computer is simulated and there is no desktop to open. The profile says so.

For things only a person can do (a code, a CAPTCHA, signing in), you do not need to open their desktop: in the Inbox, “Solve it here, live” opens a window with just that piece of their screen, where you tap or type.

What goes into the Log

• Taking control and handing it back are recorded in the company Log with your name, the time and the employee: “Took control of Marcos” and “Handed back control of Marcos”, with the note if you left one.
• Opening their desktop is recorded too: “Opened the desktop of Marcos”.
• The Log cannot be changed or deleted.

Who can do it

• Administrators and managers: they see the Control room, take and hand back control, and open desktops.
• Members: the same, but only for employees they have desktop permission for. You can remove it for one employee in Account › People.
• View only: they see the Control room and the Log, but cannot take control or open desktops.

Anyone who can reach only some employees sees only those.

What is not there yet

skyseat is in early access. This is what there is today:

• The live picture on each card, until the computers are connected.