# Capabilities overview for manager assistant
Manager assistant supports more than 150 Connect Customer metrics across all capability categories. You can ask about current performance, investigate historical trends, compare metrics across dimensions, and optimize self-service operations.
## How it works
When you submit a question, manager assistant processes it in the following steps:
1. **Ask** – you type a question in plain language.
1. **Interpret** – Manager assistant identifies the metrics, entities (such as queues and agents), and time range in your question.
1. **Retrieve** – Manager assistant retrieves the data that you have permission to view, and structures a response.
1. **Act** – you review the response and, optionally, ask a follow-up question.
## Supported question types
| Question type | Description | Example |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Metric lookup | Retrieve a specific metric value. | What is the average handle time for the Sales queue today? |
| Trend analysis | View metric changes over time. | Show me abandonment rate for the past 7 days. |
| Comparison | Compare metrics across queues, agents, or time periods. | Compare service level between Sales and Support this week. |
| Leaderboard | Rank agents or queues by a metric. | Who are the top 5 agents by contacts handled? |
| Drill-down | Investigate a specific contact or time period. | What happened during the 2 PM hour today? |
| Compound question | Ask a multi-part question in one message. | What is our busiest queue, and what is its current service level? |
| Self-service analysis | Evaluate containment and deflection performance. | What percentage of contacts were resolved without reaching a live representative? |
| Metric definition | Explain how a metric is calculated. | How is occupancy calculated? |
## Capability categories
| Category | Description |
| --- | --- |
| Agent performance | Handle time, satisfaction, contacts handled, occupancy, after-contact work. |
| Queue metrics | Service level, speed of answer, wait times, queue depth. |
| Contact volume and trends | Total contacts, hourly breakdown, channel splits, historical patterns. |
| Real-time insights | Current agent states, active queue depths, longest wait. |
| Self-service optimization | Containment rate, deflection rate, bot performance, IVR completion, repeat contacts. |
| Custom analysis | Questions that use the custom metrics defined in your instance. |
| Leaderboards | Ranked views of agents or queues by selected metrics. |
| Historical trends | Multi-day or multi-week metric patterns and comparisons. |
| Per-contact drill-down | Investigation of an individual contact. |
| Metric definitions | Explanations of metric calculations. |
| Abandonment analysis | Abandonment patterns, rates by time, contributing factors. |
| Service level analysis | Service level tracking and target comparisons. |
| Channel analysis | Performance by voice, chat, email, and task. |
| Transfer and escalation patterns | Transfer rates and escalation flows. |
| Evaluations and quality | Evaluation scores, completion rates, quality trends. |
## Supported metric categories
| Category | Examples |
| --- | --- |
| Contact handling | Average handle time, after-contact work time, hold time, interaction time |
| Queue performance | Service level, speed of answer, queue wait time, contacts in queue |
| Agent activity | Occupancy, availability, idle time, contacts handled |
| Contact volume | Contacts queued, contacts handled, contacts abandoned, contacts transferred |
| AI agents | Self-service resolution rate, containment rate, escalation rate, intent recognition confidence, average AI agent interaction duration |
| Flow performance | Flow completion rate, flow abandonment rate, average time in flow, flow error rate, transfer-out rate |
| Bots | Bot resolution rate, intent match rate, fallback intent rate, average bot conversation duration, slot fill rate |
| Cases | Cases created, cases resolved, average resolution time, cases reopened, first-contact resolution rate |
| Outbound campaigns | Contacts attempted, contacts reached, connection rate, right-party contact rate, campaign completion rate |
| Customer experience | Abandonment rate, callback metrics |
| Evaluations | Evaluation scores, evaluation completion rates |
| Custom metrics | Any custom metrics defined in your instance |
## Self-service optimization questions
Manager assistant helps you evaluate and optimize your self-service strategy. The following table provides example questions.
| Category | Example question |
| --- | --- |
| Self-service resolution | What is our self-service resolution rate this week compared to last week? |
| Transfer out | What percentage of callers opted out of self-service and transferred to a queue? |
| Flow performance | Which self-service flows have the highest abandonment rate? |
| Bot effectiveness | Which intents have the lowest resolution rate in our chat bot? |
| Channel shift | What percentage of our contacts are coming through chat compared to voice this month? |
| Repeat contacts | What is the repeat contact rate for customers who used self-service first? |
| Automation opportunity | Which 10 contact reasons could potentially be automated? |
## Manage your chats
Manager assistant saves each chat, so you can return to a chat later, start a new chat for an unrelated question, or continue where you left off.
### Start a new chat
Start a new chat when you want to ask about a different topic. Your previous chat is saved automatically and remains available in **History**.
**To start a new chat**
1. In the assistant panel, choose **New chat**.
1. Type your first question.
Starting a new chat clears the conversation from the panel but does not delete it. You can open it again from **History**.
### View your chat history
Manager assistant keeps your chats from the last 60 days, so you can revisit an earlier response or continue an unfinished chat.
**To view your chat history**
1. In the assistant panel, choose **History**.
1. Your past chats appear grouped by date, for example **Today** or **Yesterday**, with the newest chat first within each group. Each row shows the first question that you asked in that chat.
1. To see older chats, choose **View more** at the bottom of the panel.
**Note**
**History** shows only the chats that you started, and only those that you still have permission to view.
### Resume a chat
Resume a chat when you want to continue an earlier conversation. Manager assistant reloads the full chat, so responses to your follow-up questions reflect the earlier turns.
**To resume a chat**
1. Choose **History**.
1. Choose the chat that you want to resume. The chat reloads in the panel.
1. After the messages finish loading, type your next question.
**Tip**
Resume a chat when your new question builds on an earlier one, for example when you drill into the same metric or time range. Start a new chat when your question is unrelated.
**Important**
Because a resumed chat carries the full earlier conversation, manager assistant may reference details from previous turns in its responses. To get a response that is based only on your new question, start a new chat.