What you can ask your AI assistant about your site

Once Claude, ChatGPT or another assistant is connected to Foreman, you can ask about your sites in plain English and have it do routine admin for you. It reads diary entries, tasks, form submissions, photos and the induction register, and it can log diary entries and create tasks, projects and form templates. It can't see costs, because Foreman doesn't store any.

If you haven't connected one yet, start with how to connect ChatGPT or Claude to Foreman.

Questions you can ask

The assistant pulls the records from Foreman and does the reading and adding up itself. These work well:

• "What happened on site today at the Smith Street job?" It reads that day's diary entries for the project, and can check the photos and any forms submitted.
• "Who was inducted at Smith Street this week?" It reads the project's induction register: names, companies, and when each person signed.
• "How many hours did each person log on Smith Street this fortnight?" It lists the diary entries and totals the hours by person.
• "Which tasks are still outstanding on Smith Street, and who has them?"
• "Show me every incident report submitted this month."
• "What's the gate code and client contact for Smith Street?"
• "Which documents are in the OHS library for Smith Street?"

Name the project and the dates. You'll get a better answer than "what's going on?". "Today" means today in your business's timezone, which the assistant can look up in Foreman.

Things you can ask it to do

It can make changes too. For example:

• "Log a diary entry for Sam on Smith Street yesterday: 8 hours, framing the first floor." The entry is recorded against Sam and shows in Foreman as logged by you for Sam. Sam has to be active and assigned to that project. Hours go in 15-minute steps, up to 12 in one entry.
• "Create a task for Jess on Smith Street to clean up the slab." Then "mark it done", or "give it to Tom instead".
• "Build a toolbox talk form with a date locked to today, a topic, a checklist of what we covered and a signature." It creates the form template, ready for your crew. See how to build a form template.
• "Set up a new project at 14 Smith Street, add Jess and make her the Site Manager."
• "Add a line to the Smith Street induction declaration about the dog on site."

Read what it's about to do before you say yes, the same as you would with a new office admin. The changes are real, and your crew will see them.

What the assistant can read and change

It can read your projects (including gate codes and client contacts), crew and users, tasks, diary entries, project and diary photos, form templates and submissions, the induction register for each project, the document lists, and your business details.

It can create and change projects, crew on a project and who the Site Manager is, tasks, form templates, users, the induction declaration, document folders, and your business details. It can upload documents and photos, and it can create new diary entries. It can also delete projects, tasks and form templates, so check any delete before you say yes.

What it can't do

• It can't tell you what a job cost. Foreman records hours, not dollars, so there are no costs, prices or budgets for it to read.
• It can add diary entries but can't edit or delete existing ones. Do that in the app. See how to edit a diary entry.
• It can't fill in a form or sign an induction on someone's behalf. Submissions come from the person on site, in the app.
• It can't delete photos. That's for an Admin in the app.
• It can't hand you an export file. It can read the records, but the CSV and ZIP downloads live in the app. See how to export the site diary.

A diary entry the assistant logs for someone carries no photos and no location, because the person logging it wasn't on site.

Good to know

• The assistant sees everything an Admin sees, across all projects. Anyone using your assistant can ask about any site.
• Check the totals. The assistant does its own adding up from Foreman's records, so before you pay or invoice off a number, open the entries and check it yourself.
• On the Free plan, asking it to create a second project returns a link to upgrade. You pay in your own browser, not through the assistant. See the free plan and the paid plan.
• If your subscription is cancelled, the assistant can still read but can't change anything.

For more on what's possible, see Foreman's AI assistant connection.