Assists

What are Assists?

Assists let your voice agent pause a task and ask a human colleague for help — while staying on the line with the customer. Unlike a call transfer, the AI does not hand the conversation over. It creates a request, routes it through a contact-center queue, and keeps talking to the caller (or plays hold music) until a teammate accepts, rejects, or closes the request. Use Assists when the model can handle most of the call, but some steps need a person: looking up an account the AI cannot access, approving a refund, confirming a policy exception, or answering a question that is too sensitive to automate.

Think of Assists as tools that call a human instead of an API. You configure them next to Tools in the dashboard, and the model invokes them the same way it invokes any other action.

Assists vs Tools vs call transfer

	Tools	Assists	Call transfer
Who does the work	Your API or backend	A human on a contact-center queue	A human who takes the live call
What the customer hears	The AI stays on the call	The AI stays on the call (or hold music)	The AI leaves; a person picks up
When to use it	Lookups, updates, SMS, CRM writes	Judgement, systems the AI cannot reach, approvals	The caller must speak to a person directly

If the caller needs to talk to someone, use call transfer. If the AI only needs a colleague to do something in the background, use an Assist.

How Assists are organized

Assists follow the same hierarchy as Tools:

Assist — A named container (shown as Assists in the sidebar under Tools). It holds one or more actions.
Action — A single LLM-callable task, such as lookup_order or approve_refund. Name and description are what the model sees. Each action points at a contact-center queue.
Instance — One live request created when the model calls an action during a conversation. Instances show up in History and in the contact-center Assists inbox.

You can clone an Assist or an action when you want a starting point instead of building from scratch.

Prerequisites

You will need at least one queue in the contact center before you add actions. Every action routes requests through a queue — without one, the add-action form cannot be submitted. Make sure the teammates who should handle requests are assigned to that queue and can open the contact-center Assists inbox.

Create an Assist

Open Assists

In the dashboard, go to Tools → Assists.

Start a new Assist

Click New Assist.

Fill in the basics

Name — A short label your team will recognize (for example, Order lookups or Billing exceptions).
Description — What this Assist is for. This is for your team, not the model.

Save

Click Create. The new Assist appears on the list. Open it to add actions.

Assist names must be unique in the workspace. If you see a duplicate-name error, pick a different name or clone the existing Assist instead.

Add an action

Open an Assist and click Add Action. Each action is advertised to the model as a tool.

What the model sees

Field	What to put	Tips
Name	The tool name the LLM calls (for example, `lookup_order`).	Letters, digits, underscore, and hyphen only. Max 64 characters. Use `snake_case`.
Description	When and why the model should call this action.	Be specific: “Use this when the customer asks for order status and you cannot find it in tools.”
Queue	The contact-center queue that receives requests for this action.	Different actions on the same Assist can use different queues.
Assist reason description	Guidance for the required `assistReason` argument.	Tell the model to summarize what the human needs to do, not the whole transcript.
Parameters schema	Optional extra JSON Schema fields beyond `assistReason`.	Use this when the human needs structured data (order ID, refund amount).
Restricted system prompt	Extra instructions used only while a human is waiting on the customer.	Keep this short. The model is collecting an answer, not continuing the original task.

How the request behaves

Field	Default	What it does
Interactive	On	When on, the human agent can send free-text questions to the customer through the AI.
Blocking	On	When on, the speech machine parks the caller (hold music) while the request is outstanding. Turn off if the AI should keep chatting.
Cancelable	On	When on, the customer can refuse to continue and the model may cancel the request. Turn off for must-complete steps (compliance, identity).
Wait before execution	On	Waits for the start message to finish speaking before the request is created.

Action names are function names. Spaces, punctuation, and emoji will be rejected. If two actions share a name inside the same Assist, creation fails.

Optional parameters schema

assistReason is always required. Add a parameters schema when the human needs extra fields the model can fill in:

{
  "type": "object",
  "properties": {
    "orderId": {
      "type": "string",
      "description": "The customer's order ID, digits only."
    }
  },
  "required": ["orderId"]
}

The schema must be a JSON Schema object ("type": "object"). Invalid schemas are ignored at runtime, and the model will only send assistReason.

Spoken copy and timeouts

Every action has its own customer-facing lines and timers. Edit them from Update Action. Spoken copy is what the caller hears — never mention tool names or “assist request.”

Spoken copy

Message	When the caller hears it
Start	As soon as the model calls the action.
Queue delay	Repeated while waiting for a teammate to pick up the request.
Working delay	Repeated after a teammate is assigned and still working.
Success	The teammate accepted the request.
Error / reject	The teammate rejected the request.
Queue timeout	Nobody picked up in time.
Working timeout	The teammate did not finish in time.
Resume	The customer answered a clarifying question from the human.
Human-agent close	The teammate closed the request and handed control back to the AI.
User cancel	The customer declined to continue.
Hold start / hold end	The teammate put the caller on hold, then took them off.
Technical error	The request failed for a system reason.

Timeouts (milliseconds)

Timeout	What it controls
Queue delay timeout	How often the queue-delay line is spoken while unassigned. Default 10 seconds.
Working delay timeout	How often the working-delay line is spoken after assignment. Default 10 seconds.
Queue timeout	How long to wait in queue before giving up. Default 10 minutes.
Working timeout	How long to wait after assignment before giving up. Default 10 minutes.
Failure timeout	How long create / resume / cancel may wait before a technical failure. Default 10 minutes.

Match delay copy to the action. “I’m checking that order with a colleague” is clearer than a generic “please wait,” especially on blocking actions where the caller is on hold.

What happens during a call

The model calls the action

When the conversation needs a person, the agent invokes the action (for example, lookup_order) and fills in assistReason plus any extra parameters.

The caller hears the start message

The AI speaks the start copy. If Wait before execution is on, the request is created only after that line finishes.

The request lands on the queue

A live instance is created and routed to the action’s queue. If Blocking is on, the caller hears hold music and delay copy until a teammate is assigned.

A teammate picks it up

In the contact-center Assists inbox, the request appears under In-flight. The teammate can accept, reject, send a clarifying question (if Interactive is on), put the caller on hold, or close the request.

Control returns to the AI

On accept, reject, timeout, cancel, or close, the AI speaks the matching line and continues the conversation with the outcome.

Request statuses

Status	Meaning
Created / queued	Waiting for a teammate.
Offered	At least one teammate has been offered the request.
Working	A teammate is assigned and handling it.
Completed	Accepted or closed by the human.
Failed	Rejected, timed out, overflowed, or a technical error.
Cancelled	The customer cancelled, or the conversation ended.

Handle requests in the contact center

Human teammates work requests from Contact Center → Assists, not from the Tools page.

In-flight — Open requests that still need a person.
Approved — Requests that were accepted.
Denied — Requests that were rejected.

Open a request to read the reason, the live transcript, and (when Interactive is on) send a question back to the customer. The voice agent speaks that question; the customer’s answer is returned to you.

Tools → Assists is where you configure who the AI can ask and what they can ask for. Contact Center → Assists is where people work those live requests.

Review stats and history

Open an Assist to find three tabs:

Actions

Create, edit, clone, or delete the LLM-callable tasks on this Assist.

Stats

Counts for the selected date range (defaults to the last 30 days):

Total instances
Completed (with completion rate)
Failed
Cancelled
Per action breakdown (completed / total / failed)

Use this tab to see which actions time out or get cancelled too often — usually a sign that copy, timeouts, or queue staffing need a change.

History

A paginated list of every instance: action name, status, end reason, and created time. Open a row to read the logs for that request.

Edit, clone, and delete

Edit — Change the Assist name or description from the Assist page. Change an action’s queue from Update Action.
Clone — Duplicates the Assist and its actions. Use this to spin up a regional or language-specific variant.
Delete — Archives the Assist. Agents stop receiving its actions. Runtime history is kept.

Deleting an Assist is an archive, not a hard delete. You will not see it on the list, and agents can no longer call its actions, but past instances remain in History.

Best practices

Recommendation	Why it helps
One queue per kind of work	Billing exceptions and order lookups rarely belong on the same queue — put them on different actions.
One action per job	`lookup_order` and `approve_refund` should be separate so the model picks the right one.
Write the description for the model	“Call this when you cannot find the order with tools” beats “Order lookup.”
Keep `assistReason` short and operational	Humans need “Refund $42 on order 1832, customer received damaged item,” not a transcript dump.
Turn Blocking on for work that cannot overlap	Approvals and lookups feel broken if the AI chats about something else while waiting.
Turn Cancelable off for required steps	Identity checks and compliance confirmations should not be skippable.
Test delay copy on a real call	Ten seconds of silence feels longer on the phone than in chat.
Staff the queue before you enable the action	An Assist with nobody on the queue always hits queue timeout.

Example: order lookup

A support agent can answer FAQs from the knowledge base, but order systems are behind a desktop the AI cannot reach.

Create an Assist named Order desk.
Add an action named lookup_order, pointed at the Support queue.
Description: Ask a teammate to look up an order in the order system. Use this when the customer asks for status, tracking, or contents and no tool can retrieve it.
Parameters schema with required orderId.
Start message: Give me a moment — I’ll check that order with a colleague.
Assign teammates to the Support queue and confirm they can see Contact Center → Assists.

During a call, when the customer says “Where is order 1832?”, the model calls lookup_order. The caller stays with the AI. A teammate sees the request, looks up the order, and replies. The AI continues with the answer.

Frequently asked questions

Can one Assist be used by multiple agents?

Yes. Assists are workspace-scoped. Link the same Assist to every agent that should be able to request that kind of help.

Do I need to restart an agent after adding an action?

No. Actions are loaded when a conversation starts. New conversations pick up the latest configuration.

What is the difference between rejecting and closing a request?

Rejecting means the teammate cannot do the work (the caller hears the error line). Closing means the work is done and the AI should continue (the caller hears the human-agent close line).

Why did the model never call my action?

Tighten the description, mention the action in the agent prompt, and make sure the Assist is linked to that agent. Vague descriptions (“help with orders”) compete with tools and knowledge base.

The request always times out. What should I check?

Confirm the queue has available teammates, they are looking at Contact Center → Assists, and the queue timeout is long enough for your staffing. Blocking actions feel slower to callers — consider shorter delay intervals with clearer copy rather than a longer timeout.

Can the customer cancel a request?

Only if Cancelable is on. The model then has a cancel tool and the caller hears the user-cancel line.

Tools

Connect APIs the agent can call on its own, without a human in the loop.

Call transfer

Hand the live call to a person when the customer needs to speak to someone.

Agents

Configure the voice agent that will call your Assist actions.

Cookbook: Assists

A worked example of human-in-the-loop help during a live call.

Need more help? Reach out to our team at support@oration.ai

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Workspace Settings

Widget

Integrations

What are Assists?

Assists vs Tools vs call transfer

How Assists are organized

Prerequisites

Create an Assist

Add an action

What the model sees

How the request behaves

Optional parameters schema

Spoken copy and timeouts

Spoken copy

Timeouts (milliseconds)

What happens during a call

Request statuses

Handle requests in the contact center

Review stats and history

Actions

Stats

History

Edit, clone, and delete

Best practices

Example: order lookup

Frequently asked questions

Tools

Call transfer

Agents

Cookbook: Assists

​What are Assists?

​Assists vs Tools vs call transfer

​How Assists are organized

​Prerequisites

​Create an Assist

​Add an action

​What the model sees

​How the request behaves

​Optional parameters schema

​Spoken copy and timeouts

​Spoken copy

​Timeouts (milliseconds)

​What happens during a call

​Request statuses

​Handle requests in the contact center

​Review stats and history

​Actions

​Stats

​History

​Edit, clone, and delete

​Best practices

​Example: order lookup

​Frequently asked questions

​Related

Tools

Call transfer

Agents

Cookbook: Assists

What are Assists?

Assists vs Tools vs call transfer

How Assists are organized

Prerequisites

Create an Assist

Add an action

What the model sees

How the request behaves

Optional parameters schema

Spoken copy and timeouts

Spoken copy

Timeouts (milliseconds)

What happens during a call

Request statuses

Handle requests in the contact center

Review stats and history

Actions

Stats

History

Edit, clone, and delete

Best practices

Example: order lookup

Frequently asked questions

Related