Interface and navigation

Ask Alma consists of a sidebar on the left and the workspace on the right. On the desktop, you collapse and expand the sidebar with the icon to the right of the logo, and you change its width by dragging its right edge. On small screens, the sidebar is hidden and you open it with the icon at the top left.

Sidebar

From top to bottom, the sidebar contains:

Section	What it contains
Header	The Ask Alma logo, the Lite badge when the Lite version is active (see Lite version) and the icon for collapsing the sidebar.
New general chat	Starts a chat without an assistant, see Chat features. If the entry is missing, your institution has not enabled the general chat.
Global assistants	Institution-wide assistants, for example for the library or the examination regulations. One click opens the list, a click on an assistant starts the chat. Only visible if your institution has activated such assistants. The entry may have a different name at your institution.
My assistants	Your personal assistants, see Custom assistants. Only visible if your institution has enabled this feature.
Courses	Your course areas in alphabetical order. Below the current course, that is the course you came from or the course the open chat belongs to, you see its course assistants, sorted into groups. A click on an assistant starts a chat. A click on the Courses heading collapses the list, so that only the current course remains visible.
Pinned	Your pinned chats. This section appears as soon as you have pinned a chat.
History	Your other chats and your quiz attempts in one list, with the most recently used entry at the top. The magnifying glass to the right of the heading (Search chats) opens the search in your chats.
Settings & help	The menu at the bottom, see Menu.

Each course has its own color. It appears in the icon in front of the course name (a graduation cap on a colored background) and on all chats and quiz attempts of this course. In the history, the icon shows the type of entry: general chats show a gray speech bubble, chats with course assistants a speech bubble in the course color, chats with custom assistants a grid, and chats with global assistants a globe or your institution's icon. Quiz attempts show a question mark in the course color and their status to the right, that is a dot for In progress or the score achieved in percent.

A response from Ask Alma keeps running even if you open another chat in the meantime. A gray, pulsing dot to the right of the chat's title then shows that the response is still being generated (Response is being generated). Once it is finished, the dot turns blue (Response ready). It disappears as soon as you open the chat.

When you hover over an entry, a three-dot menu (Options) with the actions for this entry appears on the right, see Manage chats. For the open entry, it is always visible.

Collapsed sidebar

On the desktop, you collapse the sidebar with the icon next to the logo (Close sidebar) or with a keyboard shortcut. What remains is a narrow bar of icons: at the top New general chat, Global assistants and My assistants, below them your courses as colored icons, and at the bottom Settings & help. When you hover over an icon, a tooltip names the entry. Pinned chats and the history are hidden in this view.

To expand the sidebar again, hover over the logo at the top and click the Open sidebar icon.

Menu

The Settings & help menu (gear icon) sits at the bottom of the sidebar. It contains:

• Open in a new tab: only when Ask Alma runs embedded in the learning platform, see below.
• Settings: see Settings.
• Feedback: send a message to the Ask Alma team, see Feedback.
• Wiki: opens this wiki in a new tab.
• Artifacts: opens the page with your exported chats for download, see Manage chats.
• Redeem course code: enter an enrollment code you received from an instructor, see Course areas.
• Administration: only for administrators, opens the Admin Dashboard.
• Privacy policy: opens your institution's privacy policy.
• Log out: signs you out. Afterwards, start Ask Alma again from the learning platform.

Open in a new tab

When Ask Alma runs embedded in the learning platform, the Settings & help menu shows the entry Open in a new tab at the very top. This opens Ask Alma in its own browser tab with more space. It also helps when the learning platform blocks certain actions in embedded content, for example copying messages. The entry is not available on smartphones.

Keyboard shortcuts

On the desktop, you can reach the most important sidebar functions with the keyboard. On a Mac, use the Command key ⌘, on Windows and Linux the Ctrl key. ⇧ stands for the Shift key. The sidebar and its menus show the shortcuts next to the entries.

Action	Mac	Windows and Linux
Collapse and expand the sidebar	⌘ B	Ctrl + B
New general chat	⌘ ⇧ O	Ctrl + ⇧ + O
Search chats	⌘ K	Ctrl + K
Global assistants	⌘ ⇧ U	Ctrl + ⇧ + U
My assistants	⌘ ⇧ E	Ctrl + ⇧ + E
Pin the open chat or remove its pin	⌘ ⇧ P	Ctrl + ⇧ + P
Rename the open chat	F2	F2
Delete the open chat or quiz attempt	⌘ ⌫	Delete
Settings	⌘ ,	Ctrl + ,
Feedback	⌘ ⇧ F	Ctrl + ⇧ + F

The shortcuts do not work while a dialog is open. Rename and delete do not work while you are typing in an input field, and rename only works when the sidebar is expanded. Ask Alma asks for confirmation before deleting.

Header

On pages such as the course page, the settings or the artifacts, the header at the top of the workspace shows the page title with a short note below it, for example the number of items in a course. The page's actions are on the right.

In a chat, the header is reduced to two icons at the top right:

• New chat: starts a new chat with the same assistant, or a new general chat.
• Export chat: saves the chat as a PDF, see Manage chats.

In a learning session, in the studios for learning content and in the assistant editor, there is an arrow to the left of the title. It takes you back to the course (Back to course) or, in the editor, back to the previous page (Back).

You can see which chat is open in the sidebar, where it is highlighted. That is also where you change its title, see Renaming chats.

Lite version

When your institution's monthly quota or your personal quota is used up, the Lite badge appears at the top of the sidebar next to the logo. Ask Alma keeps working, but with limitations, see Settings → Credit. A click on the badge (tooltip “Learn more about the Lite version”) opens the explanation of the Lite version in this wiki.

Ways in from the learning platform

What Ask Alma looks like after launch depends on which element instructors have added to the course:

Ask Alma as the full application. You see the interface described above with all features. Ask Alma starts in the general chat or, if the instructor has set it up that way, directly on the course page with the course content.

A single course assistant. Instructors can embed a course assistant as a separate course element in the learning platform. When you open such an element, you go straight to the chat with this assistant. The view is reduced and has its own sidebar: New chat at the top, below it Pinned and History with your chats with the assistants of this element, and at the bottom Settings & help with Settings, Artifacts, Wiki, Privacy policy and Log out. Instructors also see the Assistant options section, see Add Ask Alma to your course. If the instructor has added several assistants to one element, first choose one of them under Select an assistant. You can reach the full application through the corresponding course element, if instructors have created one.

A single quiz, flashcard set or learning session. Instructors can also embed a quiz, a flashcard set or a learning session as a course element. A quiz element shows a start page with Start quiz, and an attempt in progress opens directly. The sidebar contains Start quiz or Continue quiz and, under History, your attempts of this quiz. A flashcard element opens the study mode directly, a learning session element opens the learning session directly. At the bottom of the sidebar is the same Settings & help menu as for the course assistant. In the settings, Delete all quiz runs only deletes your attempts of this quiz. Instructors also see the Quiz options, Flashcard options or Learning session options section, see Add Ask Alma to your course.