Live Assist
1. What it is
Live Assist lets a worker start a real-time video, camera, or screen-share session from a work order, inspection, SOS alert, chat room, or other record — and have a remote expert guide them live. The session, its recording, transcript, and AI summary are saved against that record automatically.
- Enablement: Live Assist is a pay-as-you-go app billed per participant minute with no license required. An admin enables it per tenant and then turns on its integration inside each consuming app’s own settings.
- What it is not: Live Assist is not a general-purpose meeting tool. Sessions start in context from a work object, not from a standalone “new meeting” button. The test-session launcher on the Settings page is for connectivity checks only.
2. Standing it up
- Enable the app. Go to Admin → Apps Marketplace, find Live Assist, and enable it.
- Add a video provider. Go to Admin → Integrations and add a LiveKit meeting-provider integration (API key, API secret, and server URL). Without this, no session can start — the app shows a warning banner. If your organization uses the platform-managed LiveKit account, this step is already done.
- Turn Live Assist on inside each consuming app. Live Assist does not surface a “Get help” button until the consuming app opts in via its own settings toggle. Each toggle defaults to Off.
- Field Service Suite → Settings: toggle Enable Live Assist (remote video inspection).
- Inspections → Settings: toggle Enable Live Assist (remote video inspection).
- Chat → Settings: toggle Video huddles (Live Assist) — adds a Huddle button to chat rooms and DMs.
- Lone Worker → Settings: toggle Open Live Video to Responder on SOS Acknowledgement — automatically opens a Live Assist session when a responder acknowledges an SOS.
- Confirm it works. Go to Apps → Live Assist → Settings and run Start test session. Invite a teammate if you want to verify the join flow end-to-end.
The consuming-app toggle is the step most often missed. If the provider is configured but workers see no launch button, check whether the consuming app’s toggle is still Off.
3. How it fits together
Sessions and modes
A session is a single video interaction attached to a specific work object. Every session has a mode that determines who may start it and what role each participant gets:
- Call for help — a worker shares their camera or screen and asks for guidance. The remote expert sees what they see. This is the most common mode.
- Show me — the same camera/screen-share flow, initiated when a worker wants to demonstrate something.
- Huddle — a quick video call launched from a chat room or DM. When AI huddle summaries are enabled in Chat settings, the huddle is automatically recorded and a summary is posted back to the room.
- Watch — an admin observes a registered site feed (see below). The admin receives video only and cannot broadcast into the feed.
Example: a technician on a work order taps Get help. A Call for help session is created, attached to that work order. The assigned expert is invited automatically and managers are notified (if that setting is on). The expert joins, sees the technician’s camera, and guides them. When the session ends, the recording and AI summary appear on the work order’s record.
Participant roles
Each person in a session has a role that controls what they can publish and subscribe to:
- Host — the worker who started the session. Full camera/mic/screen-share permissions.
- Expert — a remote helper invited to the session. Full permissions.
- Guided — the person being walked through a procedure (assigned automatically in Call for help and Show me modes).
- Observer — subscribe-only; cannot publish audio or video. This is the role assigned when watching a site feed.
Routing and notifications
When a session starts, Live Assist routes it automatically. The work object names its own recipients — the ticket assignee, the work-order technician, the onboarding manager — and invites them. On top of that, if Notify managers when a worker requests help is on (the default), all managers and admins are also notified for help-request sessions (Call for help, Show me). Lone Worker SOS always uses its own responder roster regardless of this setting.
Site feeds (Watch mode)
A site feed is a registered camera at a physical location — a tablet, kiosk, or IP camera — that publishes video into a long-lived room. Admins register feeds, and supervisors observe them from the monitoring wall. The key differences from a regular session:
- The device publishes; supervisors subscribe. A supervisor watching a site feed cannot broadcast into it.
- Admin-only. Both registering a feed and observing one require Admin or Live Assist App Admin access.
- Consent ledger. Every lifecycle event — registration, pairing, on-air/off-air, observe start/end, token rotation, recording start/stop — is written to an immutable, append-only audit trail per feed. This log answers “who watched which site, when, and for how long.”
- Two source types. A Browser feed uses a capture page on a tablet or kiosk at the location (open the feed’s capture URL). An RTSP feed pulls a fixed IP camera’s stream directly with no browser.
Recording, transcription, and AI summary
Sessions can be recorded. For regular sessions, recording is manual (start/stop from within the room). For chat-room huddles with AI summaries enabled, recording starts automatically and the room receives a consent notice. For watch-mode site feeds, recording must be explicitly enabled per feed.
When a recording finishes, it is attached to the work object as evidence. The platform then transcribes it (Whisper) and generates an AI summary with key points and action items. If the work object supports write-back (e.g. a work order or inspection), the summary is also posted there. The session host receives a notification when the summary is ready.
In-call snapshots are also available: any participant can capture a frame from the live video. Snapshots are saved as photo evidence on the work object (or on the session itself for connectivity tests).
Consuming-app integration
Live Assist is a session type that attaches to records in other apps. Each consuming app controls whether the launch button appears via its own toggle. Currently integrated: Field Service work orders, Inspections, Lone Worker SOS alerts, Chat rooms, Help Desk tickets, Safety Hub incidents, Asset Pro assets, Onboarding plans, Locations, and App Builder plugin records.
Access rules
Who can see what inside Live Assist follows a clear hierarchy:
- All users see sessions they hosted or were invited to.
- Managers see all sessions across the organization and can join any of them. The monitoring wall is available at Manager level and above.
- Admins and Live Assist app admins see everything managers see, plus the Site feeds, Analytics, and Settings tabs.
4. Running it
Reviewing sessions
Go to Apps → Live Assist. The Overview page lists recent sessions with status, mode, duration, and AI summary. Filter by status (Pending, Live, Ended) or mode (Call for help, Show me, Watch, Huddle). Click Details on any ended session to see the full AI summary, transcript, recording playback, and participant roster.
Using the monitoring wall
Go to Apps → Live Assist → Monitoring wall (available to managers, admins, and Live Assist app admins). This page shows all live sessions across the organization, with join links, plus registered site feeds and their on-air status. It auto-refreshes every 30 seconds.
Managing site feeds
Go to Apps → Live Assist → Site feeds (admin only). From here you can:
- Register a feed — give it a name, assign it to a location, choose a source type (Browser or RTSP), and optionally enable audio capture and recording.
- Toggle on air — controls whether the device is actively publishing. A schedule can automate this: set the days, start/end times, and timezone, and the feed goes on air and off air automatically.
- Observe a feed — opens a subscribe-only session to watch the feed’s live video. Only available when the feed is actively broadcasting.
- View the audit log — the full, filterable consent ledger for the feed, exportable as CSV.
- Rotate the device token — generates a new authentication token. The capture URL on the physical device must be updated to the new value.
Viewing analytics
Go to Apps → Live Assist → Analytics (admin only). This page shows session volume over time, breakdowns by mode and consuming app, average duration, and recording counts. The default window is 30 days. Data can be exported as CSV.
5. Settings
| Setting | Where | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who can start a Live Assist session? | Apps → Live Assist → Settings | Any employee | When set to Managers & admins only, frontline workers cannot start sessions — the launch button is hidden and the server refuses the request. Watch mode is always admin-only regardless. |
| Notify managers when a worker requests help | Apps → Live Assist → Settings | On | When on, all managers and admins receive a notification for Call for help and Show me sessions, in addition to the recipients the work object names. Lone Worker SOS uses its own responder roster and is not affected. |
Each consuming app also has its own toggle (all default to Off):
| Setting | Where | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enable Live Assist (remote video inspection) | Field Service Suite → Settings | Off | Shows the launch button on work orders. |
| Enable Live Assist (remote video inspection) | Inspections → Settings | Off | Shows the launch button on inspections. |
| Video huddles (Live Assist) | Chat → Settings | Off | Adds a Huddle button to chat rooms and DMs. |
| Open Live Video to Responder on SOS Acknowledgement | Lone Worker → Settings | Off | Auto-opens a Live Assist session when an SOS alert is acknowledged. |
Per-feed settings are configured when registering or editing a site feed:
| Setting | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Audio capture | Off | Whether the feed captures audio in addition to video. Off by default due to privacy implications. |
| Recording | Off | Whether the feed’s video can be recorded. Off by default. When on, recordings attach to the feed as evidence. |
| Recording retention (days) | Blank (kept indefinitely) | When set, recordings older than this window are automatically deleted by a background sweep that runs every 5 minutes. |
| On-air schedule | Off (manual toggle) | When enabled, replaces the manual on/off-air control with an automatic schedule: days of week, start/end times, and timezone. |
6. More help
- Live Assist FAQ — specific setup and operating questions.
- Ask AI — the assistant answers questions about Live Assist from these articles.