The Sidekicks section

Sidekicks have a section of their own in the main window, beside Canvases. Click Sidekicks in the rail and the sidebar lists every Sidekick shared with you, including drafts and paused ones. This is where you open a Sidekick to check on it, talk to it or change it.

The sidebar#

The sidebar has three groups:

• Needs input holds the Sidekicks with a run waiting for something only a person can give it. Each row shows the question, such as Which status page gets the update?. Click it to answer.
• Pinned holds the Sidekicks you pinned. Drag a Sidekick in to pin it, or right-click a row and choose Pin or Unpin.
• All Sidekicks lists the rest, the most recently active first. The Recent menu beside the heading sorts them by Name instead.

Each row shows the Sidekick's hexagon, its name and a line saying where it stands: Working, Runs Friday 2:00 PM, Last run and how long ago, Paused, Draft or Active. A bold name and a red dot mean something new in its conversation since you last looked.

The home page#

The Sidekicks home page, headed Sidekicks, shows every Sidekick on one page.

• New Sidekick starts a new one (see Make a Sidekick).
• Search finds Sidekicks by name or description.
• The filter chips Everyone, Only you, Organization and Paused narrow the list.

Below them is the list, titled Your Sidekicks (or Search results while you search) with a count. Each row shows the Sidekick's hexagon, its name, its description, its Status (such as Active, Working, Needs input, Paused or Draft), who it is Shared with, and when it wakes up Next. Shared with shows Only you, Organization, or avatars for the people named. Next shows a time, or On alert or On email for a Sidekick that waits for an event. Click a card to open the Sidekick.

If you have none yet, the list says No Sidekicks yet. If a search finds nothing, it says No matching Sidekicks; try a different word or filter.

A Sidekick's page#

Opening a Sidekick shows its shared conversation, covered in Talking to a Sidekick, beside a details column. The pill at the top names the Sidekick; click it for Pin, Run now and Copy link. When the window is narrow, the details column folds away; the Sidekick details button on the pill brings it back.

The details column shows:

• the hexagon (click it to change the icon and colour);
• the name, a status pill (Draft, Active or Paused), who it is shared with (Only you, such as Shared · 3 people, or Organization), and its description;
• Pause or Resume, beside a … button with Run now, Run history, Copy link and Archive Sidekick (Archive draft for a draft). A draft has no Pause, and its … sits beside its pills. Unavailable items stay visible but disabled; hover or focus them for an explanation;
• Wakes on: its triggers in plain words, and Next with how long until the next scheduled run, when there is one;
• Uses: the connections it uses, with a count of its tools;
• Writes to: the Canvases it writes to, each of which opens the Canvas;
• Delegation allowed, the people the Sidekick may act as (see Tools and delegation);
• Email this Sidekick, if it has an email address (see Triggers and schedules);
• Tools, the custom tools of its own, if it has any, each with Show code.

A section with nothing in it yet says Nothing yet. If an action fails, the error appears under the description.

Run now#

To start a run straight away, outside the schedule, click … → Run now. It reads Starting… while Rally sets the run going. There is no "are you sure?"; the run starts and its row appears in the conversation. This is the quickest way to test a Sidekick you have made, rather than waiting until Monday to find out it misunderstood you.

Run now works only when the Sidekick is Active and has at least one trigger. The item is always visible and is greyed out when unavailable, including on drafts, paused Sidekicks and instructions-only Sidekicks.

You can also ask for a run in the conversation, in words. That works on any active Sidekick, and the run uses your own access unless you are on its Delegation allowed list.

Run history#

Click … → Run history to see the Sidekick's runs, newest first. The dialog is subtitled "Technical details for troubleshooting this Sidekick."

Each row shows:

• a status dot: blue and pulsing while it runs, amber for needs input, grey when it completed, brown when stopped and red when it failed;
• how the run started: On request, Scheduled, Event or Email;
• a short summary of the result, or "Running" with how long it has been going, or when it finished;
• a status badge: Running, Needs input, Latest run completed, Latest run stopped or Needs intervention. These are older words than the run rows in the conversation use; Latest run completed is a row's Done, and Needs intervention its Failed.

If there have been no runs yet the dialog says No runs yet. If it says Could not load runs, close it and try again in a moment.

Run history is a summary for troubleshooting. To read what a run actually did, unfold its row in the Sidekick's conversation.

A run can wake up again. If someone replies to something a run posted, such as a Slack thread it started, the same run carries on, and it keeps one row in the history.

Runs do not get rows of their own in the Sidekicks sidebar. A finished run marks the Sidekick as unread, and a run that needs input moves the Sidekick into Needs input. A run you asked for also gets a row in your Activity when it finishes. You see a run's work in the conversation, and anywhere else it posts it (see Where a Sidekick's results go).

The Run history item is always visible. It is disabled until the Sidekick has triggers or has already run.

Pause and Resume#

Click Pause on an active Sidekick to switch it off without losing it. The badge changes to Paused straight away. Pausing:

• stops any run that is in progress;
• cancels its schedules;
• stops it listening for events;
• makes it refuse email.

Click Resume to switch it back on. A resumed Sidekick picks up from now. It does not catch up on the runs it would have made while paused, and it ignores events that happened in the meantime. A Sidekick on holiday does not come back with a fortnight of postcards.

A paused Sidekick shows Paused in the sidebar and on the home page until someone resumes it.

Archive#

When you no longer need a Sidekick, click … → Archive Sidekick (or Archive draft for a draft). Rally asks you to confirm: the Sidekick will be removed from your Sidekicks and its schedules will stop, and its conversation and run history will stay stored but can no longer be viewed. Click Archive to go ahead, or Cancel. You land back on the Sidekicks home page.

Archiving also stops any runs in progress. If the Sidekick had an email address, that address is retired and will not be given to anyone else.

Copy a link to a Sidekick#

To send a teammate straight to a Sidekick, click … → Copy link, or choose Copy link from its pill, and paste the link wherever you like. Opening it in the Rally app opens that Sidekick's page.

The link only works for people in the same Organization who are allowed to see the Sidekick. A teammate cannot open your Only you Sidekick from a link. If copying fails, Rally says The Sidekick link could not be copied.

Pausing, archiving and changing need permission#

Pause, Resume, Archive and changes to the icon or colour need permission to manage the Sidekick. Who has it is set out in What a Sidekick is.

Next: Tools and delegation, for what a Sidekick can use and whose access it runs with.