A tour of Alcova

This tour shows you around Alcova in about ten minutes. You will open each part of the sidebar, ask Operator for help from any page, and find the tutorials, the latest updates and your account menu.

Before you start, sign in and finish setting up your account. See Setting up your account.

1. Start on the Operator home page

When you sign in, Alcova opens the Operator home page. Operator is the AI assistant built into Alcova.

The Operator home page, with the sidebar on the left, a prompt box under the greeting "Hi Sarah, where should we start?" and two of today's meetings below

The home page has three parts:

The prompt box. Enter a request for Operator here, then send it.
Suggestions. Select a topic, such as Meeting prep or Portfolio insights, to see example requests. Select an example to send it to Operator.
Today's meetings. Your meetings for today. An online meeting shows Operator when Operator is set to join it and take notes. An in-person meeting shows Record, so you can record it yourself. Select View all meetings to open your full meetings list.

To come back to this page from anywhere, select Operator at the top of the sidebar.

The sidebar on the left takes you to each part of Alcova.

Select Clients. The group opens to show Households and Contacts.

Enlarge screenshot:

Select each item in turn to see what it holds:

Item	What you find there
Meetings	Your upcoming and past meetings, with their notes and transcripts. See Meetings.
Tasks	The tasks you and your team are tracking. See Tasks.
Files	Folders of documents you keep in Alcova. See Files.
Prospects	Your prospect lists. This item shows only if your organisation has access to Prospects. See Prospects.
Households	The All Clients list of your firm's households. See Households.
Contacts	The people linked to your households. See Contacts.
Conversations	Every conversation you have had with Operator. See Conversations.

Look under Conversations in the sidebar. Recent lists your latest conversations with Operator. If Operator has replied in a conversation you have not read yet, that conversation shows under Inbox instead. If you have archived a conversation, an Archived link shows at the end of the list.
To start a new conversation, select the pencil button next to Conversations. A prompt box opens for your request.

You can give your page more room.

Select the double arrow button above Tutorials. Its label, Collapse, shows when you point to it. The sidebar shrinks to a narrow column of icons.

Enlarge screenshot:
Point to an icon to see its name.
To open the sidebar again, select the double arrow button that now points right.
To change the width, drag the right edge of the sidebar. If you drag it very narrow, it collapses.

Alcova remembers the width and whether the sidebar is collapsed, in this browser only.

4. Ask Operator from any page

Select Conversations in the sidebar.
Find the Ask Operator button at the bottom of the page.

Enlarge screenshot:
Select Ask Operator. A prompt box opens at the bottom of the screen, so you can ask a question without leaving the page.
Press Esc to close it.

You can also press ⌘K on a Mac, or Ctrl K on Windows, from any page. On the Operator home page, the shortcut takes you to the prompt box on the page.

The Ask Operator button does not show on the Operator home page or inside a conversation. It also hides while you are scrolled to the end of a page, so it never covers the last row. Scroll up to see it again.

To learn more, see Asking Operator.

5. Watch a tutorial

Select Tutorials near the bottom of the sidebar. The Tutorials dialog opens with the first video you have not watched yet.

Enlarge screenshot:
Play the video.
To watch another one, select its name in the list under the player.
To try the task yourself, select Try it. The dialog closes and Alcova opens the page where you do that task.

When you have watched most of a video, a tick shows next to its name. Alcova remembers which tutorials you have watched, in this browser only.

6. See what's new

Select What's new near the bottom of the sidebar. A panel opens with the latest change to Alcova.

Enlarge screenshot:
Select Learn more to read the full announcement.
Select Older updates to see earlier announcements, then select one to read it.
Select the close button to close the panel.

When there is a new announcement, a red dot shows on the What's new icon, and the panel opens by itself once. Closing the panel marks the latest announcement as read.

The bottom of the sidebar shows your organisation's name, then your own name.

If you belong to more than one organisation, select the organisation's name to switch to another one. Alcova then takes you back to the Operator home page.

Select your name. Your account menu opens.

Enlarge screenshot:
Point to Theme, then select Light, Dark or System. System follows your computer's setting. For more choices, see Change how Alcova looks.
Select Settings to manage your profile and your other preferences. See Settings.

The menu also has Report a Bug, which opens a form to send a problem report, and Sign Out.

You can also press G, then S, to open Settings from any page.

Use Alcova on a narrow screen

On a phone, or in a narrow browser window, the sidebar moves into a menu.

Select the menu button at the top left of the screen. The menu slides in from the left.

Enlarge screenshot:
Select an item. The menu closes and the page opens.

The menu has the same items as the sidebar, except What's new, which shows only on wider screens. The top bar also has the Operator logo, which opens the Operator home page, and your picture or initials, which open your account menu.

What you have learnt

You have now visited every part of the sidebar, opened Operator from a page, watched a tutorial and found your account menu. Next:

Join your team if colleagues still need to sign in.
Ask Operator to prepare for your next meeting.