Chat¶
The Chat page allows you to talk with the AI-powered Slide Restore Assistant. It can do things like create restores, find files in snapshots, and answer your questions about Slide. Note, Client users do not currently have access to the Chat feature.
Info
Slide does not send data to Claude (Anthropic) unless you're actively using the Chat feature. Sent data is limited to your chat messages and any backup data necessary for the assistant to perform the task you asked it to do. Slide does not send any other data or information tied to your account to Anthropic or any other external AI provider.
Capabilities¶
The Restore Assistant has access to the following capabilities:
- See your Protected Systems, Slide Boxes, snapshots, clients, restores, and networks
- Create file restores, virtual machines, and image exports
- Start, stop, or pause a virtual machine, and change its CPU, memory, or network
- Create networks, including DHCP, DNS, internet access, and WireGuard settings
- Search for a file across a protected system's snapshots and find its previous versions (requires File Indexing)
- Browse the contents of file restores
- Push files back to the protected system and check on the push
It can take action on your behalf and answer questions about backup and restore. Actions are limited by your user permissions and destructive actions such as deleting restores are not allowed. It can't read or resolve alerts, see billing information, or download files for you. For those, use the Console directly. Note that chats are not tied to your specific user and are visible across your account.
Warning
As an AI-based tool, responses may sometimes be inaccurate.
Who Can Use Chat¶
Chat is available to users with the Account Owner, Account Admin, Business Continuity Admin, and Business Continuity Technician roles. Users with the Billing or Read Only role and client users don't have access. See Users for the Chat permissions of each role.
Example Chat¶
To start chatting with the Restore Assistant, click the New Chat button, type in your message, and submit. You can select a Client Focus if you want the chat session to be limited to the Protected Systems and Slide Boxes of a specific client. If you're not sure where to start, click one of the example prompts below the message box to fill it in, then edit it before you send it.
You can be as vague or as detailed as you like. If needed, the Restore Assistant will ask you clarifying questions. In this case, it was asked to start a virtual machine for the "fileserver". It searched the list of protected systems and correctly identified "Buffalo Fileserver" as the one to virtualize. You can continue to send messages to the Restore Assistant to refine your request, but if you change the topic, it is more effective to start a new chat.
The Restore Assistant will respond with clickable chips for each resource referenced in the chat. Clicking on them will open the slideout for that resource. Here you can see the Virtual Machine that was started for the "Buffalo Fileserver" system.
A few more things to know while a chat is running:
- Steps: Each action the assistant takes appears as a row in the chat. Expand a row to see its Input and Output.
- Stop: Click the stop button (the square icon next to send) to cancel a response that is still in progress.
- Passphrases: If a protected system uses a user managed passphrase, the assistant asks for it in a separate dialog before it creates the restore, virtual machine, or image export. Your passphrase is not shared with any external providers.
- Links: Clicking a link in a response asks you to confirm before the website opens.
- Busy: If the assistant is overloaded or a message fails to send, wait a few minutes and try again.
You can also start a chat from the Power Bar with Start New Chat, or jump to the Chat page with G C. Chats started from the Power Bar have no Client Focus, but you can set one later in the chat's Settings tab.
Resources¶
Each chat keeps track of any resources (file restores, virtual machines, image exports, and networks) that were created or changed during the chat. These can be viewed in the chat info slideout.
If you're done with a chat and don't need the resources anymore, you can delete them all at once when you delete the chat. On the main Chat page, click the three dot menu next to your chat, click Delete, check the Delete all associated active resources box, type DELETE, then confirm. All the resources listed in the chat info slideout will be deleted. The box is only available when the chat has resources and you have permission to delete each type of resource in it.
Warning
The list includes virtual machines the assistant changed during the chat, such as one it powered on or resized, even if the chat didn't create them. Review the resources in the chat info slideout before you delete them.
To delete the resources but keep the conversation, open the chat info slideout, go to the Settings tab, click Delete Resources, and type DELETE to confirm. The Settings tab is also where you rename a chat or change its Client Focus (click Save to apply), and where you can delete the chat. New chats are named automatically after the first response.
Disabling AI Chat¶
If you do not want to use AI tools, you can disable the Slide Restore Assistant completely in the AI section of the Account Settings page. This setting controls whether all users on your account can access the Slide Restore Assistant. Only Account Owners and Account Admins can change it. When it's off, Chat no longer appears in the Console for anyone on your account.
