When you install the add-on, ServiceM8 shows a list of things it wants access to and asks you to approve them. The list is long because the add-on does a lot of ordinary work inside your account. Here is what each one is for.
| Permission | What it is used for |
|---|---|
| Vendor | Your business name, opening hours and timezone, so you do not type them in twice |
| Manage jobs, read customers, read job contacts, read customer contacts | Finding the customer’s number on a job or client card, and filing a conversation against the right job |
| Create jobs | The Chat Assistant creating the job it has just booked |
| Publish job notes | Putting the conversation on the job diary, and tagging staff so they are told |
| Manage attachments, read attachments | Saving customers’ photos onto jobs, and sending a quote or invoice PDF that is already on the job |
| Manage templates | Mirroring your SMS templates to WhatsApp |
| Read staff, read schedule | Alerting the right person, and knowing what is already on the board before offering a time |
| Manage schedule | The Chat Assistant putting a booking on the dispatch board |
| Read job categories, read inventory, manage job materials | Filing a booked job under one of your categories, and putting line items from your materials list on it |
| Read inbox, publish inbox | New enquiries arriving in your Inbox, and converting them to jobs |
Nothing here reads your invoices, takes payments, or changes anything you did not ask it to. It does not send messages to your customers by itself, with one exception you switch on deliberately: the booking assistant, which answers new enquiries and stops the moment a member of staff types.
When an update needs one more
Every now and then a new feature needs a permission the add-on did not have when you installed it. When that happens, a message appears in your ServiceM8 Inbox headed “ServiceHQ Chat: one reconnect needed”, and the settings screens say the same. It takes about ten seconds and you only do it once. What to press, and what it fixes.