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Sidekick Writing Assistant

Your AI-powered writing assistant for Newsfeed posts and Messages

Josie avatar
Written by Josie
Updated yesterday

Introducing Sidekick Writing Assistant - your very own AI-powered writing assistant designed to make writing Newsfeed posts and Messages a breeze. Sidekick Writing Assistant checks over your writing to correct any pesky spelling or grammar mistakes, suggests adjustments to your tone, and speeds up your writing process.

For an overview of just how helpful Sidekick Writing Assistant can be, check out what Matt has to say about it below:

Please note, Sidekick Writing Assistant is available for customers on our Premium package. If you have any questions, reach out to support@famly.co.


Where to find Sidekick Writing Assistant

To toggle on Sidekick Writing Assistant, head to Settings → Sidekick and toggle on the Sidekick switch here. Please note, that you will need to accept the Terms & Conditions before enabling.

Sidekick Writing Assistant will need to be enabled for staff members by a manager who can grant each role permission to use it. To so do, head to Settings → Staff → Roles and permissions → Compare roles

Go to the Communication & Events section and enable Can use Sidekick.

Once enabled, the Sidekick button will appear in the bottom left corner of any Newsfeed post or Message you go to write. To start using Sidekick Writing Assistant, click on the button and start exploring some of the text adjustment options it has to offer.

At the moment, you'll be able to make use of Sidekick Writing Assistant in the following places

  • When drafting a Newsfeed post

  • When writing Messages in your messaging inbox

Sidekick Writing Assistant is available on both the desktop version of Famly and the app - just make sure your app has been updated!


What can Sidekick Writing Assistant help with?

Sidekick Writing Assistant can adjust the text in your posts and messages to:

  • Improve your writing

  • Correct grammar and spelling

  • Make it shorter

  • Make it professional

  • Make it polite

  • Make it descriptive (in older versions, you may see descriptive being referred to as observant - but don't worry, the output will be exactly the same)

  • Make it conversational

By selecting Suggest a different option, you can browse through even more prompts for adjusting the tone of your text.

You can change the output by clicking Try again to update the suggested text. Click Apply suggestion to enter it. If you're not satisfied with Sidekick Writing Assistant's output, please do leave us with some feedback. See the next section for how best to do this.

Please note, rich text will be removed if you have applied it before using Sidekick Writing Assistant - so we suggest using Sidekick Writing Assistant first, before bolding, italicising, etc.!


Limitations

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are rapidly evolving fields of study. As with any new rapidly developing technology, there are some limitations to AI and the Sidekick Writing Assistant feature.

Limitations may occur because of many different reasons, such as narrow inputs, systemic biases and a limited quantity of training data. If you are using Sidekick Writing Assistant, your data is for example not used to train the AI and this approach has been taken as a step to protect personal data that may be processed by using the feature.

This means that the Sidekick Writing Assistant feature may:

  • Give you output that is wrong and does not match the input

  • Give you output that is inaccurate or misleading

  • Give you output that contains harmful information

  • Give you output that is biased and/or discriminating

So, it is very important that you carefully read and review the output that is generated by the Sidekick Writing Assistant feature. It’s also good practice to review the text you want to use as an input before you request the Sidekick feature to generate an output.

As the AI and machine learning technology develops the better it gets and we’ll also work on making our Sidekick Writing Assistant feature better. You can always give us feedback by either giving a direct feedback to the output by clicking “report issue” or by clicking “suggest a different option” when giving instructions for the delivery of the output (available on desktop only).


FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Sidekick Writing Assistant and how to use it

  • Can I turn it off again?

    • Yes

  • Can parents use Sidekick Writing Assistant?

    • No

  • Can parents see that we’re using Sidekick Writing Assistant?

    • Currently, there is no indication for parents that you’re using Sidekick

  • Can I use Sidekick Writing Assistant in more than one center if I'm part of an organisation?

    • Yes! However, Sidekick Writing Assistant only will show up if it's enabled for all centers that you have access to. For example, if you are a manager in two centers (within the same organisation or in different organisations), both will need to have Sidekick enabled for you to use it in either center

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