Maxanet's Live Assistant is the admin tool for placing bids on behalf of bidders during live or simulcast auction events — useful for phone bidders, absentee bids, or running a live sale where the audience bids verbally and you enter bids into Maxanet. The Live Assistant also supports halting and resuming individual items to simulate a live auction pace, bulk bid submission across multiple items, and bidding even after an item's countdown has reached zero (with the option to extend the end time).

From your Maxanet Admin panel, find the Live Assistant option under the main Auctions menu. On the Live Assistant page, the upper-right section has a dropdown to select which auction you want to work in. Pick the auction and the Live Assistant view for that auction loads.

On the Live Assistant page, enter the Bidder# and the bid amount for the item you want to bid on. Optionally enter a max bid if the bidder wants to auto-bid up to a ceiling. Click the green Bid Now button to submit the bid on behalf of the bidder. Maxanet records the bid exactly as if the bidder placed it themselves.

To mimic a live auction where the auctioneer can pause on a specific item, click the Halt button on any item in the Live Assistant view. A Halted message appears on the public auction page for that item, so bidders know bidding is paused. When you're ready to resume, click Resume. A dialog appears giving you the option to Extend the item's end date and time — if you check this, enter a brand-new End Date/time for the item so bidders have more time to react.

You can queue up bids on multiple items and submit them all at once. Enter each item's bidder number and bid amount on the Live Assistant page, then click the green Bid Now button to submit the entire batch. Useful when running a live room with multiple phone bids to enter in quick succession.

If an item's countdown has reached 0:00 but you need to record a late bid (for example, a verbal bid came in just as the timer ran out), enter the bid in Live Assistant. Maxanet displays a pop-up asking whether you want to Extend the item's end time. If you choose to extend, enter a new end time so the bid is accepted and the item stays open long enough for other bidders to respond.

If you are running a live sale using the Live Assistant, Maxanet strongly recommends clicking the Refresh icon in the upper-left section of the Live Assistant page frequently. This ensures you see the most recent data and current bid prices — without refreshing, you may be looking at stale prices and could enter a bid below the current winning amount.

Live Assistant is a web page and will load in any modern browser including mobile. However, the interface is optimized for desktop use during busy live events.

No. The bid is recorded as if the bidder placed it themselves. If you want to notify them by email when an admin-placed bid outbids someone, turn on Live Assistant Outbid Email Notifications in Public Page Configuration.

The item remains Halted until you Resume it. Bidders see a Halted message and cannot bid until you resume. There is no automatic timeout.

Yes. Enter multiple item/amount pairs on the Live Assistant page and click Bid Now to submit all of them at once.

Only if you want bidding to continue. If you're just recording a final bid after the fact, decline the extend option — the bid is recorded but the item stays closed.