The Ask button opens an assistant that answers questions about your institution in English, Marathi or Hindi and drafts circulars. It is off until the right people switch it on. If you cannot see Ask, read The Ask button is missing.
What it can answer
It looks things up in SunRuby through a fixed list of read-only tools. Examples:
- "Which students have fees overdue by more than 30 days?" (fee dues)
- Collections for a period
- Attendance of a class for a month, or staff attendance for a month
- Who is free in period 3 (for substitutions)
- Leave balances, exam lists and a summary of results
- Hostel occupancy, and trust-level figures for the owner or institution admin
- "What is my day?" for a teacher
Answers can name students and link to the real screen. How this answer was made lists the look-ups. A note says the answer comes from AI.
Who sees what
The assistant works as you. It can show only what your role already lets you open, for the institutions you work at. A class teacher asking about another class gets "I cannot see that with your access". It never shows full contact, identity or health details.
What it cannot do
- It does not send messages, change records or take money. "Send an SMS to all parents" cannot be done.
- It shows no outside links, images or HTML in answers.
- It does not remember students after the conversation. Questions are logged for audit.
Drafts
Choose Write a draft, say what you need (for example a circular about the annual day). You get text with {date}-type placeholders and the line "This is only a draft". Copy gives plain text. Save as draft notice makes an unpublished notice in Communication > Notices. Nothing goes to anyone until you publish it yourself.
What must be on, and who does it
- SunRuby switches an AI provider on for the server. If it is off, Ask is not shown anywhere.
- The organisation owner opts in under Organisation > AI assistant. They read the notice (English, Marathi, Hindi), tick the box and press Accept and switch on. They also set the plan level: Basic (drafts only), Standard (data questions), a monthly budget (above Rs 5,000 needs a reason) and how long to keep question text (above 365 days needs a reason).
- The institution turns the feature on in Institute > Institution profile > Features > AI assistant.
- Your role must hold the Ask permission. Gate staff, mess staff and families never have it.
- Staff give their own consent. The first time, the panel asks you to agree under My privacy.
Limits and cost
There is a daily limit for each person and a monthly budget. When the budget is reached, questions are refused with a message and the usage page shows the stop date.
- Organisation > AI usage and cost (owner and permitted roles): month totals, a budget bar, usage per person.
- Organisation > AI audit (owner only): every question with person, time, cost and the look-ups made. The text of old questions is erased after the retention period. The CSV download holds no question text.
Switching the assistant off turns the privacy purpose off too.
Common questions
It says it cannot see that.
You do not have access to that data. Ask someone who does, or ask the owner to review your role.
The answer is wrong.
Use the thumbs-down and open the linked screen to check. The assistant is a helper and can be wrong.