Choose what a chat can see
Every chat searches only the files in Train that carry its tags. This guide covers where your tags come from, choosing and changing a chat's tags, what tags do not control, and who sees which files.
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On this page12 sections
- 1What a chat can read
- 2Where your tags come from
- 3Choose tags for a new chat
- 4Parent tags and sub-tags
- 5Change a chat's tags with Swap tags
- 6When Swap tags is not offered
- 7Your tag choice stays in one browser
- 8What tags do not control
- 9Files with no tag
- 10Who sees which files
- 11Shared chats, WhatsApp and Teams
- 12Messages you might see
What a chat can read
Each chat is tied to one or two tags, picked when the chat starts. When you ask a question, Centrus searches only the files in Train that carry one of those tags. A file with a different tag, or no tag at all, is left out of that chat's answers however relevant it is.
Start conversations with Centrus
Your personal chat history, excluding agent-generated threads.
08 Oct 07:50
John Martin
last message sent: 2 minutes ago
Detector 14 on the Zone 3 panel keeps showing a fault. If the head needs replacing, what is our procedure?
Start at the detector head and its base. The panel manual gives three usual causes of a repeat fault on one detector: a dirty sensing chamber, a loose head, or damp in the base.
If the head needs replacing, the detector replacement SOP says to isolate zone 3 at the panel, fit the new head, then smoke test it before you restore the zone and record the work on the job.
Sources:
- • Zone 3 panel manual.pdf
- • Detector replacement SOP.docx
Centrus may make mistakes. Check important info.
- 1Start new chat, where you pick the tags for a new chat.
- 2Every chat in the list shows its tags.
- 3The open chat shows the same tags in its header.
- 4The gear menu, which holds Swap tags for changing them.
- 5Sources: the files the answer came from. Each one carries Technical or SOPs.
Three sets of tags meet here: the tags on each file, the tags on you, and the tags on the chat. You can only give a chat tags you hold yourself, so the tags an admin gives you set the limit for every chat you start.
John Martin
His tags, set by an admin
This chat
One or two of them, picked in New chat
Files in Train
Searched only when a file carries one of the chat's tags
- Zone 3 panel manual.pdfTechnicalSearched
- Detector replacement SOP.docxSOPsSearched
- Riverside House SLA.pdfContractsTechnicalSearched
- Rate card 2026.xlsxPricingTag not chosen for this chat
- Absence policy.pdfHRNot one of your tags
- Van stock checklist.docxNo tagNo tag, so never searched
Tags decide which files in Train a chat searches, and nothing else. Web search, your email and calendar, job systems and agents each have their own controls, covered in What tags do not control further down.
Where your tags come from
An admin gives each person their tags in Edit users: they open the person and add tags under Data access tag. The same window sets the person's Default tag, which New chat fills in for them. Tags given to a team in Settings > Teams go to everyone in that team, leaders included. See Edit users and roles and Teams.
Edit employee
Data access tag
Default tag
TechnicalEmployee information
- 1Data access tag: the person's tags. The cross on a tag takes it away. Add Tag adds one tag, Add Multiple Tags several at once, and Add All Tags every tag the organisation has.
- 2Default tag, filled in each time they start a chat. It is chosen from the tags above.
- 3Admin and Train access decide what the person sees in Train. Neither adds any tags.
Click Save Changes to apply them. The person gets the new tags the next time they open New chat, with no need to sign out.
Being an admin does not come with tags. Admins see every file in Train, but their chats can only use the tags on their own user, the same as everyone else. An admin who should be able to ask about everything can use Add All Tags on themselves. Tags created after that are not added automatically, so add each new one too.
Choose tags for a new chat
- 1Click Start new chat at the top right of the Chat page.
- 2Your default tag is already in the Select tags (max 2) box, if you have one. Keep it, or click the cross on it to take it out.
- 3Click the box to open your tags, and pick one or two. You can type to narrow the list.
- 4Click OK. It stays greyed out until at least one tag is chosen.
Your personal chat history, excluding agent-generated threads.
New chat
Select up to 2 tags
The list shows only the tags on your own user. Once two are chosen, the rest of the list greys out, and trying to pick a third shows You can select up to 2 tags.
Pick the tag that matters most first. The first tag becomes the chat's main tag, and it is the one Centrus falls back to when you open the chat on another device, as explained in Your tag choice stays in one browser below.
If you have no tags, New chat shows a message instead of the list. Admins get a link to Edit users to give themselves tags. Everyone else is asked to speak to an admin. Someone whose only tags are sub-tags of a parent tag sees the same message, because sub-tags are not offered here.
New chat
You do not have any tags. Apply tags here to start creating chats.
New chat
You do not have any tags. Please ask an admin user to apply tags to your account.
Parent tags and sub-tags
A parent tag groups other tags, called sub-tags. An organisation might have a Sites parent with a sub-tag for each site it looks after. In New chat a parent shows a folder mark and its number of sub-tags, and choosing it searches the files of every sub-tag inside it. It still counts as one of your two tags.
New chat
What Centrus searches
Every file tagged with a sub-tag of Sites
- Riverside HouseSearched
- Mill LaneSearched
- Kingsway DepotSearched
A sub-tag added to Sites later is searched too.
With a parent tag, Centrus first looks at the sub-tags and chooses which to search for your question, up to five at a time. Naming the site, contract or customer in your question helps it choose the right ones.
Sub-tags are never offered on their own in New chat or Swap tags, so a web chat cannot be narrowed to a single sub-tag. You need the parent tag on your user to reach them. Files carry the sub-tags, never the parent. See Parent and child tags.
Change a chat's tags with Swap tags
To point a chat at different files without starting again, use Swap tags.
- 1Open the chat and click the gear at the right of its header.
- 2Choose Swap tags.
- 3Under Current tags, click the red cross beside the tag you want to replace.
- 4Pick the new tag from Select tag. It goes into the first empty slot.
- 5Click Apply.
John Martin
last message sent: 2 minutes ago
Detector 14 on the Zone 3 panel keeps showing a fault. If the head needs replacing, what is our procedure?
Swap tags
Current tags
Select a tag
Choose up to two tags. One tag is required.
- 1Current tags. The first slot must be filled, the second is optional.
- 2The red cross takes a tag out.
- 3Select tag lists your tags. The one you pick fills the first empty slot.
- 4Apply keeps the change. Your next message searches the new tags.
When both slots are full, take a tag out before adding another. You cannot take out the only tag, because a chat always needs at least one.
Swap tags changes what Centrus searches, not the tags saved with the chat. The header and the chat list keep showing the tags the chat started with, and a new tag appears beside them. A tag you took out stays on show even though it is no longer searched, and Share Chat still asks for the original tags.
John Martin
last message sent: 2 minutes ago
Detector 14 on the Zone 3 panel keeps showing a fault. If the head needs replacing, what is our procedure?
Earlier answers in the chat are left as they were. Only questions you ask after clicking Apply use the new tags.
When Swap tags is not offered
Swap tags is only in the gear menu of a chat you own that has not been shared. Once you share a chat, it is removed from your menu, and the chat keeps the tags it has. People you share a chat with get Download chat and nothing else. To ask about other files, start a new chat.
John Martin
last message sent: 1 day ago
Sarah Price
last message sent: 1 day ago
Your tag choice stays in one browser
When you start a chat, Centrus saves its tags with the chat, which is why the header shows them on every device. The choice of what to search is kept separately, by the browser you picked the tags in. On that browser, Centrus searches every tag you chose. On any other, it searches only the chat's first tag, whatever the header says.
The laptop where you picked the tags
The answer's sources
Sources:
- • Zone 3 panel manual.pdf
- • Detector replacement SOP.docx
Your phone, or any other browser
The answer's sources
Sources:
- • Zone 3 panel manual.pdf
The same applies on the same computer in another browser or a private window, and after clearing your browsing data. It also applies after Swap tags: the new tags are searched only in the browser where you applied them, and every other device goes back to the chat's first saved tag.
To put it right on the device in front of you, open the chat, choose Swap tags from the gear, pick both tags again and click Apply. On a device that has never seen your choice, Swap tags opens with an empty Primary tag required slot.
CentrusJohn Martin
Detector 14 on the Zone 3 panel keeps showing a fault. If the head needs replacing, what is our procedure?
Centrus may make mistakes. Check important info.
Swap tags
Current tags
Select a tag
Choose up to two tags. One tag is required.
Select tagIf an answer on your phone or a second computer misses something you know is in Train, open Swap tags. If it shows Primary tag required, that device is searching only the first tag in the header. A shared chat cannot be fixed this way, because it has no Swap tags, so start a new chat on that device instead.
What tags do not control
Tags decide which files in Train a chat searches. Everything else a chat can draw on has its own control, and picking different tags does not change it.
Only files carrying one of the chat's tags.
Change it in: New chat, Swap tags
The globe on the message bar, or a chat tag set to search the web.
Change it in: The message bar, Settings > Tags
Email and calendarNot set by tagsYour own connected account, in every chat.
Change it in: Integrations
Job systemsNot set by tagsEnabled for your account, then each tool allowed or blocked per person.
Change it in: Integrations, Settings
Turned on for the organisation, and Use access on the agent.
Change it in: Settings > Organisation, Manage access
Organisation and personal lessons always. Tag lessons follow the chat's tags.
Change it in: Lessons
- Web search is turned on with the globe on the message bar, and stays on in that browser until you turn it off. A tag can also be set to Always Enable Web Search, or to Intelligent web search, which searches the web when your message asks it to. Those settings apply whenever the tag is in the chat. See Web search and images.
- Email, calendar and documents from Outlook, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Sheets, Word and Excel are your own accounts, connected in Integrations. Your chats can use them whatever their tags, and nobody else's chats can use yours.
- Job systems such as BigChange, Simpro and Joblogic are connected for the organisation by an admin and then made available to each person. An admin can also allow or block single tools for each person on that system's tab in Settings, such as Simpro Tools. See Integrations overview.
- Agent Builder agents can be called from a chat only when an admin has turned on Enable Agent Builder chat tools in Settings > Organisation, the agent has a chat trigger and is published and active, and you have Use or Edit access to it in Manage access. View access lets you see the agent but not call it from chat.
- Lessons for the whole organisation, and your own personal lessons, apply in every chat. Lessons saved against a tag apply only when that tag is in the chat. See Lessons.
Simpro Tools
Choose which Simpro tools each user can use in chat.
Users: 3 | Tools: 5 | Unsaved changes: 0
A blocked tool stays blocked in every chat that person has, whichever tags they pick. A setting made for a person overrides one made for their team, and when two of their teams disagree, the block wins.
Files with no tag
A file with no tag is never searched by any chat, for anyone, admins included. Centrus only adds a file to a tag's search once the file has that tag, so a new upload is invisible to chat until someone tags it. In Train, an untagged file is shown to admins and to the person who uploaded it, and no one else.
Tag files as you upload them, or straight afterwards. See Upload files.
Who sees which files
Train and chat follow different rules, so someone can see a file in Train that their chats never use, and someone with no Train tab can still get answers from files they cannot open. The table shows the same five files for three people.
John MartinAdminTechnicalSOPsPricingContractsIn TrainIn chat- John Martin is an admin, so he sees every file in Train. His chats can search any file with one of his four tags, but never the untagged checklist.
- Dylan Hughes has Train access and two tags. In Train he sees the files tagged Technical or SOPs, plus the checklist because he uploaded it. His chats search the same tagged files, never the checklist.
- Sarah Price has no Train access, so she has no Train tab. Her chats still search the files tagged Pricing or Contracts, including the Riverside House SLA, which carries Technical as well.
A file with several tags is searched by any chat that uses any one of them. More on giving files and people the right tags is in Control who sees what with tags.
Shared chats, WhatsApp and Teams
Sharing follows the tags saved with the chat. Share Chat lists only the people who hold every one of them, so a chat with two tags can only go to people who have both. The people you share with can read the chat but not add to it. If nobody qualifies, the list reads No users have access to this tag, or No users have access to both tags.
Share Chat
Owner
John Martin
john.martin@meridianfm.co.uk
Share with more people
This chat requires access to:
Select users (they will have read-only access)
Team leaders can read the chats of the people in their team whatever the tags. See Share a chat and see team history.
On WhatsApp and Microsoft Teams, each conversation uses one tag. Centrus asks which one when the conversation starts, listing your tags by number with any parent tag marked as grouped, and RESTART CHAT lets you choose again. On WhatsApp the tag is kept with the conversation, so the browser issue above does not apply there. See Message Centrus on WhatsApp and Chat on Microsoft Teams. Both kinds of conversation can be read on the web but not continued there, as Chat in the web app explains.
Messages you might see
The tag pickers explain themselves with a short message at the top of the screen.
New chat, when you try to pick a third tag
Swap tags, when both slots are full
Swap tags, when you remove the only tag
Swap tags, when you click Apply with no tag
A chat whose tag has since been deleted turns red in the chat list and cannot take new messages. You can still read it. Start a new chat with another tag to carry on.
