Builder Troubleshooting

This guide covers the common things you'll need to do as a builder of assistants — keeping them running, making them better, and helping out the people who use them. If you're chatting with someone else's assistant rather than building your own, this isn't the guide for you.

Topping Up Credits

If your assistants have stopped responding or you're seeing a warning about low credits, you probably need to top up.

How to Top Up

Go to Account → Credits
You'll see your current balance at the top of the page
Choose the amount you'd like to add and approve the payment
Credits are added to your balance immediately

Any credits you buy on top of your subscription stay on your balance — they don't get wiped at the next monthly reset.

When to Top Up

If you see a yellow warning banner, your balance is getting low (10 or fewer credits remaining)
If you see a red warning, your balance has hit zero — existing conversations may still work briefly during a short grace period, but new ones won't start
Once your balance drops below -10, all assistant usage is blocked until you top up or your monthly reset comes around
Your credits also reset automatically each month on your subscription anniversary, so topping up is only needed if you run out before then

Credit Costs

A response from a Standard assistant costs 1 credit
A response from a Premium assistant costs 2 credits
Some optional capabilities (like web search or image attachments) add a small extra cost on top of each response that uses them

You can check which model and capabilities your assistants use from the assistant settings if you want to manage costs.

Choosing Standard or Premium AI

Each assistant has an AI model setting that controls which model powers its responses. You can change this at any time from the assistant's Settings.

When Standard is Enough

The Standard model handles the majority of tasks well. We keep it on a current, capable model from a leading provider, and it's faster and cheaper than Premium. Use Standard for:

Day-to-day help, FAQs, and walkthroughs
Assistants that follow well-defined instructions
Anything where speed matters more than depth

When to Pick Premium

Premium uses the newest generation of models. They tend to be stronger at reasoning, more thorough, and better at tricky or open-ended questions — but they're slower and use 2 credits per response instead of 1. Pick Premium when:

The topic is genuinely complex (e.g. multi-step diagnostics, nuanced advice)
The assistant needs to reason carefully across a lot of context
You've tried Standard and the answers aren't quite landing

Premium isn't always better — newer doesn't mean perfect for every job. If you're not sure, start with Standard, see how it goes, and switch if you need more.

Free Tier and Premium

Premium models are only available on the Basic plan and above. On the Free tier, the Premium option in settings is greyed out. If you downgrade to Free with Premium assistants, those assistants will be automatically switched off until you upgrade again.

Editing Assistants

You can update your assistants at any time to improve their responses or add new information.

How to Edit

Go to your Assistant Builder page
Find the assistant you want to update in the list
Click the menu (three dots) next to the assistant and select Edit
You'll enter a chat where you can describe the changes you'd like to make
Review the updated summary and click Save and Close when you're happy

What You Can Change

Basically anything! Go into the change chat and ask what you need, and the system will guide you. You can adjust tone, add new facts, change how the assistant handles tricky topics, or rework who it's pitched at.

Tips for Good Edits

Be specific about what to change — instead of "make it better", say "add information about how to restart the router" or "make the tone more casual"
Use escalations as a guide — if your assistant keeps getting stuck on the same topic, edit it to include that information (see below)
Test after editing — use the Test option from the assistant menu to try a conversation and make sure the changes work as expected before sharing it more widely

Assistant Settings

For some changes, you can also open an assistant's Settings (the gear icon) to:

Rename the assistant
Switch between Standard and Premium AI models
Turn capabilities like web search or image attachments on and off
Enable or disable the assistant

When Conversations Aren't Going Well

If you've noticed an assistant giving rubbish answers, missing the point, or frustrating the people using it, you've got a few levers to pull.

Diagnose Before Fixing

Open the conversation history for that assistant — you can read what was actually said
Look at recent escalations for hints about where it's struggling
Try the Test chat yourself with the kind of question that's been going wrong

Things to Try

Edit the assistant to add the missing information or correct the framing — this is usually the best fix
Sharpen the audience description — if the assistant is pitching at the wrong level, update who it's for (e.g. "absolute beginner with no technical background")
Switch to Premium if the topic is genuinely complex and Standard is missing the nuance
Disable and rebuild as a last resort — if an assistant has drifted a long way from what you need, sometimes it's faster to start over with a fresh one

If the problem looks like a Deputise bug rather than an assistant issue, raise a support ticket (see below).

Disabling and Enabling Assistants

You can turn assistants off without deleting them, which is handy if you're stepping away, retiring an assistant, or freeing up a slot under your tier limit.

How to Disable

Open the assistant's Settings (gear icon)
Toggle Enabled off
Save

When an assistant is disabled, it can't be used in new or existing conversations. The people you've shared it with will see that it's unavailable. You'll still see it in your list, and you can re-enable it later.

Enabling Again

Toggle Enabled back on in Settings. If you're at your tier's assistant limit, you'll need to disable another one first or upgrade your subscription before you can switch this one back on.

When Things Get Auto-Disabled

If you downgrade your subscription and end up over the new tier's assistant limit, the least recently used assistants are disabled automatically. Premium-model assistants are also auto-disabled if you drop to the Free tier. You can re-enable them later if you upgrade again.

Sharing Your Assistant

Building an assistant is only useful when the right people can chat with it. You can invite anyone by email.

How to Invite Someone

From the Assistant Builder page, find the assistant in your list
Click the menu (three dots) and select Share
Enter the recipient's name and email address
Send the invitation

The recipient gets an email invite. They sign in (or create an account if they don't have one) and the assistant appears in their list. The invitation expires after 7 days, so nudge them if they don't act on it.

Managing Who Has Access

From the assistant menu you can open the access management page, which shows:

Active Users — people who have accepted an invitation and are using the assistant
Pending Invitations — invites that haven't been acted on yet

You can filter by assistant, revoke access, or cancel pending invitations from there.

Tips for Sharing Smoothly

Give context in the assistant — when you set up the assistant's audience, mention who it's actually for. If you're sharing with several people, "Use their name" tends to work better than picking one specific name
Try it yourself first — use the Test chat to walk through the kind of questions you expect, before sending the invite
Watch the early conversations — the first few chats tell you a lot about whether the assistant is pitched right

Answering Escalations

Sometimes your assistant won't be able to help with a question. When the person chatting asks to speak to someone, the assistant will escalate the conversation to you.

How Escalations Work

The person chatting explicitly asks for human help (e.g. "can you get the owner to help?" or "I want to talk to a person")
The assistant passes the question to you and lets the person know someone will get back to them
You receive an email with the details — what was asked, why the assistant couldn't help, and how urgent it is. You'll also get a push notification if you've enabled them
The person's chat is paused on that thread until you respond

Responding to Escalations

When you receive an escalation:

Click the link in the email (or open the conversation from your dashboard) to view it
Read through the chat history to understand the context
Send your response — the person is notified by email and push that you've replied
They can continue the conversation, and the assistant can pick things up again afterwards

You can also dismiss an escalation if it doesn't actually need a reply (for example, the question has resolved itself, or it was a misunderstanding), or resolve it once you're satisfied the person has what they need. If something gets resolved or dismissed by mistake, you can reopen it.

Urgency Levels

Escalations are tagged with an urgency level to help you prioritise. These are guessed by the system based on what the person said — they could be wrong, so it's worth glancing at the message itself:

Low — we think the person is asking but it's not time-sensitive
Medium — we think this is a standard request that needs attention
High — the person indicated it's urgent or important. The email subject is also flagged as urgent

Using Escalations to Improve Your Assistants

Escalations are a great signal for what your assistant is missing. If you notice the same topics coming up:

Go to your assistant and click Edit
Describe the new information the assistant needs to handle that topic
Save the changes — future conversations on that topic should be handled without escalation

Over time, your escalation rate should drop as you fold answers back into the assistant.

Raising Support Tickets

If you need help with Deputise itself — whether it's a technical issue, a billing question, or something that doesn't seem right — you can raise a support ticket. This is available to anyone on a paid tier.

For everyone else, we monitor for errors and issues. You can also always send us an email and we'll try to take a look.

How to Raise a Ticket

Click the Get Support button — you'll find this on the Assistant Builder page and other areas of the app
Type your question or describe the issue
Send your message — a ticket is created automatically
You'll receive an acknowledgement straight away, and someone from the team will review your ticket as soon as possible

Pro tier customers get priority support — your tickets are pushed to the front of the queue.

Checking on Your Tickets

Your recent support tickets are visible on the Assistant Builder page. You can click on any ticket to:

See the full conversation history
Send follow-up messages
Check the current status

Ticket Statuses

New — your ticket has been created and is waiting for review
Active — someone from the team is working on it
Resolved — the issue has been addressed
Closed — the ticket is complete

If a resolved ticket hasn't fully addressed your question, you can send another message to reopen it.

Tips for Effective Support Tickets

Be specific — include what you were trying to do, what happened, and what you expected
Mention the assistant — if the issue is related to a specific assistant, include its name
One issue per ticket — this helps us track and resolve things faster