AI Assistant

Overview

OptiCRM includes a built-in AI Assistant powered by Claude that understands your institution's data. It can query students, fees, attendance, and reports using natural language — and even help you configure custom objects, create announcements, and manage your CRM.

The AI Assistant is accessed via the "Ask AI" button in the dashboard header.

What It Can Do

Data Queries

Ask questions about your institution's data in plain English:

• "How many students are enrolled?"
• "Show me outstanding fees above 50,000"
• "What's the attendance rate today?"
• "List all students in Grade 10"
• "How many staff are in each department?"

The assistant queries your live database and returns formatted results.

Reports & Analytics

• "Run the monthly fee collection report"
• "What are the dashboard KPIs?"
• "Show me fee collection this month"
• "List all saved reports"

Configuration Help

On Enterprise plans, the AI can help you configure the CRM:

• "Create a custom object called 'Scholarship Application' with fields for name, amount, and status"
• "Add a phone field to the Vehicle object"
• "Create a fee head for Transport Fee"
• "Send an announcement to all parents about the PTM on April 20"

Navigation Help

• "What objects are configured in the system?"
• "Show me the fields on the Student object"
• "Where do I set up fee structure?"

Guardrails

The AI Assistant has strict guardrails to ensure security and relevance:

• CRM-only — Refuses to answer general knowledge questions, write code, or discuss topics outside OptiCRM
• Role-based — Users only get tools matching their role permissions. A Teacher can't create objects. A Finance Officer can't modify staff.
• Institution-scoped — All queries are filtered to your institution's data. No cross-tenant data access.
• Read-before-write — For configuration changes (creating objects, fields, announcements), the AI confirms before executing.
• No external access — Cannot browse the web, access external APIs, or send data outside your CRM.

Plan Availability

How to Use

1. Click the "Ask AI" button (gradient blue button) in the dashboard header
2. Type your question or click a suggestion
3. The assistant queries your data and responds
4. For multi-step tasks, it will ask for confirmation before making changes
5. Chat history is preserved during your session

Tips

• Be specific: "Show outstanding fees for Grade 10" works better than "show fees"
• The AI can chain multiple tool calls in one response (e.g., looking up a student then their fees)
• Use "What objects are configured?" to discover what entities you can query
• For configuration tasks, describe what you want in plain English — the AI will figure out the right fields and types

Privacy & Security

• All AI queries run through your institution's API with your user session
• Your data never leaves the OptiCRM infrastructure beyond the AI API call
• Conversation history is stored in your browser only (not on the server)
• The AI cannot access data from other institutions