When the Agent Hands You Its Computer

Sometimes the agent reaches a point on a website that only a person can get past. Instead of guessing, it stops and asks for you. This page explains what that means and what happens to your sign-in.

What is actually happening

The agent browses the web on a computer of its own, running in the cloud. It is not your laptop, and none of your accounts are on it.

When it gets stuck, three things happen:

  1. Its browser goes to sleep on the page it was on, with everything it typed still in the form.
  2. It puts a link in the chat. If it was working on its own in the background with nobody watching, it emails you the link as well, because a chat message nobody is looking at is no use. In a live chat it doesn't email, since you are already there.
  3. It stops. Nothing runs while it waits.

Opening that link wakes that same browser and puts it in front of you, on the same page, with the agent's typing still there. You can click, type and scroll in it exactly as you would in your own browser. When you are finished, click Give it back, and the agent picks up in that same browser, on that same page, with everything you did still in place.

If the agent needs you on two forms at once, each one gets its own link, and you can do them in any order.

Why it stops

  • A sign-in, or a code sent to your phone
  • A "prove you are human" check
  • A question only your organization can answer
  • A last look before something is submitted

It will also stop rather than guess a password, invent a number it was not given, create an account in your name, or press a final submit button.

Before you sign in to something

If you sign in to a funder's portal while you have the computer, the agent stays signed in as you for the rest of that task. That is the whole point: it is how the agent can go on to read the application questions or fill in the form. Only sign in where you are happy for it to keep working in that account.

Two things worth knowing:

  • The agent cannot see the passwords saved in your own browser. You are typing into the site directly, on its machine.
  • Anything you type into the chat, on the other hand, is stored with the conversation. Put credentials into the sign-in form, never into a message.

You can say no

"Not now" gives it straight back and tells the agent you are not doing this one. It carries on with what it can do without you, and it will not ask you again for the same thing. If that leaves it stuck, it says so and tells you what it would need instead. You are never stuck with a task you did not want.

Waiting costs nothing

The agent is fully stopped while the link sits there unopened, and a sleeping browser costs nothing, so leaving it until tomorrow uses none of your plan.

The browser stays asleep on its page for about three days. Open the link two days later and you get the same browser, with the page, the typing and any sign-in just as they were. After about three days the browser is put away, and the link then opens a fresh one at the same address, so anything typed on that page has to be filled in again. The link itself stays live for as long as the task is open.

The agent does set itself a reminder to wake up and check on you. Two days is its usual choice, and it picks something sooner when a deadline is close. If you haven't picked the link up by then, it emails you rather than giving up.

When the computer goes back on its own

Once you open the link, the computer is yours for up to eight hours. It goes back to the agent on its own if you leave it for fifteen minutes, or a couple of minutes after you close GrantLoop. Anything you did, including signing in, is still there when it picks up.

Glancing at your chat or a sheet is fine. Come straight back and it is still yours, still signed in. Leave it longer than those fifteen minutes and it goes back on its own, with your sign-in kept.

Closing the browser window inside GrantLoop is different: that puts it back to sleep without waking the agent, so you can open the task again later (within those three days) and carry on where you stopped.