Before you can use Pal, you need to activate it for your workspace. This is a one-time process.

Activating Pal

Open the Pal panel by pressing P or clicking the Pal button in the productivity bar.
You'll see an explanation of what Pal can access and how it works.
Click Grant secure access to activate Pal.

The backfill process

After you activate Pal, it starts learning about your workspace. This is called the backfill process: Pal processes your existing projects, contacts, tasks, invoices, conversations, and other data so it can understand and reference them when you ask questions.

While the backfill runs, you'll see a progress indicator in the Pal panel. The panel polls for updates every few seconds and shows you how far along the process is. You can close the panel and come back; the backfill continues in the background.

How long it takes depends on how much data is in your workspace. A workspace with a few projects will finish in minutes. A large workspace with years of data may take longer.

When it's ready

Once the backfill completes, you'll receive a notification. From that point on, Pal is ready to answer questions and take actions. Any new data you add to your workspace (new tasks, contacts, invoices, etc.) is processed automatically going forward.

The welcome screen

When you open Pal for the first time after activation, you'll see a welcome message: "Hey, I'm Pal" with four suggested prompts to get started:

Start my timer
Send a message
Create an invoice
Schedule an event

Click any suggestion or type your own message to begin.