Approvals and Autopilot

If you don’t want to be asked at every step, you can turn on autopilot for that conversation. Autopilot is a standing permission you give for paid steps.

Which actions need approval

An approval card appears mainly for these actions:

Argus may also suggest other paid actions on some pages. For example, if it suggests rerunning a failed study on the study’s progress page, a generic card titled Your approval is needed appears. This card holds only the question Do you want to confirm this action? and an Approve button; it has no detail rows and no amount. Before you approve, read the sentence in the conversation where Argus explains what it is going to do.

The card is pinned just above the message box and stays in place even if you refresh the page. Only one card waits for approval at a time: if Argus proposes a new action, the new card replaces the old one. While a card is waiting, Argus does not move on to the next step in the background. If you are on another page and the Argus window is closed, the Argus button in the bottom-right corner is highlighted and reads Needs approval.

What an approval card shows

• Description. The card opens with a sentence describing the action. On a study card it also says that the action will spend account credits. The population card in the conversation also says that the action will use credits, although creating a population does not spend credits.
• Details. A study card has Study (the method), Title, Product, Audience, Price ladder and Questions rows; the Audience row gives the number of people in brackets, e.g. “(200 kişi)” (200 people). A population card has Population, People, Product, Brand and Target audience rows. Only rows with a value are shown.
• Amount. The Credits to spend row appears only on the Launch the study card for Fashion and Ad Testing studies that Argus starts from the conversation, and shows the estimated cost calculated by SCL. On the plan card, each strategic question lists the method that will answer it and its approximate credits, with the Total estimate at the bottom. The section below explains when these amounts are missing or differ.
• Bottom row. Population and study cards read Runs as soon as you approve; it cannot be cancelled. at the bottom. Each card is valid for 30 minutes; the time left is shown on the right (e.g. valid for 28 min). In the last five minutes this changes to expires in … min.

Approving the plan card spends no credits; it only locks the plan. Each study in the plan is started separately, and while autopilot is off each launch gets its own card. The programme’s phases are described in Strategy reports and presentations.

Checking the amount

The amounts on the card and in the plan are estimates. In some cases the card shows no amount, or the credits deducted differ from the card:

How credits are calculated, which screen shows the estimate and when credits are deducted are covered in Credits.

Approving or dismissing a card

1. Read the card’s details and its amount, if it shows one.
2. Click Approve and launch or Approve. The card’s title changes to Approved, starting.
3. Follow the action’s progress on the card in the conversation. The card reads Creating: for a population or Running: for a study, followed by the name of the job. Argus reports the result in the same conversation.

If you don’t want to approve, click Not now. The card closes, does not come back when you refresh the page, and no credits are spent. If you dismiss the plan card this way, the programme goes back to the research phase and Argus may propose a new plan.

Approving by typing

While the card is open, you can type a clear approval in the conversation, such as “I approve” or “OK, start it”. Replies that contain a question or a reservation (“ok but wait”, “would that work, though?”) do not count as approval. If the card has not expired, Argus proposes the same action again with the same details and the action runs without a new card. If Argus changes a detail, a new card appears.

Approving by typing works only on cards for actions Argus carries out from the conversation. On cards that appear while Argus fills in the setup pages (Launch the survey, Launch the focus group and Create the population for the population form on the page), a typed approval does not run the action; click the approve button on the card.

Other card states

Goals: when Argus fills in pages for you

For some methods, for example Competitive Analysis (Conjoint), Priority Ranking (MaxDiff) and Comparison in General Research, Argus sets up the study not in the conversation but by filling in the setup pages for you. This multi-step setup is called a goal. The goal’s status appears in the header of the floating window:

• With autopilot off, a goal stops at every paid step: when creating a population and when starting the study.
• After 12 steps on a goal, Argus stops and asks I have taken several steps toward your goal. Want me to keep going? Choose Yes, keep going or No.
• If the population is not ready within about 30 minutes, or generation fails, the goal pauses.
• If the form you approved fails the page’s checks, Argus corrects the fields itself up to twice. If it still fails, Argus asks you to check the missing or invalid fields.
• The Stop button cuts off Argus’s current reply and ends the goal; Argus stops filling in pages. Closing the window, on the other hand, does not stop what Argus is doing.

Autopilot

While autopilot is on:

• every action that needs approval (creating a population, starting a study, a programme plan) runs without a card;
• Argus does not ask setup or preference questions and makes any missing choices itself;
• Argus writes in a line or two what it chose, what it started and what it spent.

Turning it on

To turn it on with the toggle:

1. Start a conversation on the Argus page. The Autopilot toggle appears above the message box after your first message.
2. Turn the toggle on. On narrow screens, use the lightning bolt icon in the message box instead of the toggle. No approval card appears; unlimited is shown next to the toggle.

To turn it on from the conversation:

1. Type a message such as “carry on without asking me” or “do it all yourself” in the conversation. Argus proposes the Turn autopilot on card with an amount between 50 and 100,000 credits.
2. Click Approve. The amount left is shown next to the toggle as … / … credits left.

This amount is a reference, not a limit: even when it is exceeded, paid actions keep running without asking. Only the card estimate of Fashion and Ad Testing studies that Argus starts from the conversation is deducted from the indicator. General Research studies, and studies Argus starts by filling in the setup pages, are not reflected in it. So the indicator is not a record of spending; track your actual spending with the Remaining credits: line in the sidebar or on the Credits & Usage page.

If you turn on autopilot while Argus is replying, the note From the next turn on appears. However, because Argus checks autopilot again before each paid step, paid steps in that reply that it has not reached yet may also run without a card. In the floating window on other pages, the toggle appears only while autopilot is on, so you can turn autopilot off from any page.

Turning it off

• Turn the toggle off. Autopilot turns off immediately, and no credits are spent for this.
• Typing “stop” in the conversation can also turn autopilot off, but Argus does this while processing your message. If Argus is busy at that moment, your message waits with the note Queued — will send when the agent is free, and any paid steps left until then may run without a card. To stop immediately, use the toggle.
• If you turn the toggle off while Argus is replying, Off; the paid steps left in this turn will ask appears below the toggle. Argus checks autopilot again before each paid step; the remaining paid steps in that reply come with an approval card.
• The Stop button does not turn autopilot off; it only cuts off the current reply.

Limits and safeguards

• Autopilot applies only to the conversation where you turned it on; a new conversation starts with it off. It stays on in that conversation until you turn it off; refreshing the page or closing the window does not turn it off.
• Autopilot has no budget limit: turning it on with the toggle sets no amount, and the amount given when you turn it on from the conversation can be exceeded.
• Autopilot replaces the approval click, not the checks. An incomplete or invalid design is not started.
• Argus does not always compare your balance with the study’s cost before starting. It does not start the study at all in these cases: for a focus group, if your balance does not cover the cost of all the questions; for Comparison in General Research, if your balance does not cover the estimate (10 credits per persona; 2,000 credits for 200 personas); and for the other methods in General Research, if your balance is zero. In all other cases the study starts even if your balance is not enough: the card changes to Approved, starting, and if autopilot is on, Argus writes that it has started the study. The study then fails without producing responses, no credits are deducted, and Argus reports the failure in the same conversation. Argus cannot buy credits.
• If you or someone in your organisation has run a study with the same method for a product with the same or a very similar name in the last 180 days, Argus usually tells you so before starting a new study from the conversation and asks whether you want to run it again. This check looks only at how similar the product names are; it does not kick in for one-word product names or for most ad tests, so it does not catch every earlier study. With autopilot off, a rerun still comes with an approval card; with autopilot on, Argus may rerun without asking.
• While Argus works in the background without you typing, it cannot start a new study or create a population on its own if a study has already been started in this conversation. Studies in a research programme are the exception.
• In rare cases, an approval card can appear even with autopilot on. The card carries the note Autopilot is on, but this action still needs your explicit approval.

Troubleshooting

Related pages

• What is Argus?
• Working with Argus
• Strategy reports and presentations
• Credits
• Buying credits and billing