Channel modes and guardrails | kanman documentation

kanman only speaks up in your team’s conversations as much as you let it. This page explains the switch that turns conversations on, the listening mode of each channel, and the guardrails that apply to the whole team.

All settings on this page are in the team’s Settings, Communication. Team admins (the workspace’s owners and admins) can change them; everyone else can see them.

Turn conversations on

Conversations are off for every team by default. Turn on Let kanman take part in conversations to start. kanman then answers when someone mentions it or messages it directly in one of the team’s places, and speaks up on its own only in channels set to Suggest or Active.

To connect Slack or Microsoft Teams and add places, see Work with kanman in Slack and Microsoft Teams.

Listening modes

Each place under Channels has its own listening mode:

Mode	What kanman does
Mentions only (default)	kanman replies only when it is mentioned or messaged directly.
Suggest	kanman may also reply unprompted. To a question it can answer, it posts a short answer that names its sources. To a feature or change request, it offers “Should I turn it into a story?” with the buttons Turn into a story and No thanks.
Active	Like Suggest, and kanman also joins the threads it started, to refine a request with follow-up questions.

Unprompted replies are always subject to the guardrails below. When kanman is not sure enough, it says nothing.

Guardrails

The guardrails apply to every place of the team.

Setting	What it does	Default
Who can turn chat into stories	The roles (Owner, Admin, Member) and the named people under People who can approve stories from chat who may approve stories that come from chat.	Owners and admins
Unprompted replies per day	Once the limit is reached, kanman stops speaking up unprompted for this team until the next day. Mentions and direct messages still work.	5
Quiet hours	Quiet from, Quiet until and Time zone. During quiet hours kanman does not reply unprompted.	None
Speak up unprompted only when	How sure kanman must be before it replies unprompted: Fairly sure (60%), Sure (70%), Very sure (80%) or Almost certain (90%).	Very sure (80%)
Team language	The language kanman writes in, for this team. Workspace default uses the workspace’s language.	Workspace default

Stories from chat stay drafts

A request from chat never goes straight to the board. kanman drafts the stories, and they stay drafts until a person who is allowed to turn chat into stories approves them on the team’s Intake page. Everyone else sees the drafts with the note “A person allowed to turn chat into stories approves these drafts”. See Stories.

Only when asked

Under People, each person can switch on Only when asked for themselves. kanman then never replies to that person unprompted; mentions and direct messages still work. Team admins can set it for everyone.

Not helpful and Stop in this channel

Every unprompted reply carries two buttons:

Not helpful tells kanman the reply missed. kanman thanks the person and holds back with messages like this one.
Stop in this channel stops unprompted replies in that channel. kanman stays quiet there unless someone mentions it; mentions keep working.

A stopped channel shows Stopped from chat under Channels. Team admins click Resume to let kanman speak up there again.

What kanman said

What kanman said lists the latest messages kanman posted for the team. Each entry shows the channel, what kind of message it was (for example an answer, an offer or a draft), an Unprompted marker for replies nobody asked for, the Sources kanman cited, and whether someone marked it Not helpful. Every message is also recorded in the audit log.