Write a report from chat

The month is over, and management wants the carrier report: two pages of findings in Word and the numbers behind them in Excel. The data is already in your Shipments table. In this recipe you ask chat for both files, watch the work on a checklist, and find the results in Files.

What you need: a project with a table of data, and a role that may use chat for more than reading. Creating files uses AI and counts against your organization's credit budget.

Step 1: Open chat in the project

Open the table and click Ask AI. Chat docks next to the table and works with it. Because the chat belongs to the project, the files it creates are saved with the project.

Step 2: Pick the Word skill with /

Type / in the message box. The skills menu opens with the Generate group on top. Pick Generate a Word document, then write what you need:

Write the carrier report for March from the Shipments table: a summary, a ranking of carriers by on-time deliveries, the three biggest problems and recommendations.

Picking the skill tells the assistant exactly which kind of result you want. You can also skip the menu and simply ask for a Word report; the assistant then loads the fitting skill on its own.

Step 3: Follow the checklist

A report takes several steps, so the assistant shows its plan as a Checklist above the message box and ticks the items off as it goes. The steps themselves appear in the conversation as coloured chips with live progress, from Reading the data to Saving.

If the plan misses something, say so in the next message. It is easier to correct the direction now than to fix the finished file.

Step 4: Open the report

The finished report appears as a card with two buttons:

• Download saves the DOCX file to your computer.
• Open in Files shows it in the project's Generated folder.

Read the report against the table before you send it. The assistant can make mistakes, and the numbers in a report are the ones people will quote.

Step 5: Add the Excel workbook

Type / again and pick Generate an Excel workbook:

Build a workbook for the same report: one sheet with shipments per carrier and month with totals, and a chart of on-time deliveries.

The workbook comes with number formats, totals and charts, so it opens in Excel ready to read. It lands as a second card in the conversation and in the same Generated folder.

Step 6: Make it repeatable

If the report comes back every month, write the rules down once as a skill: which table to read, how the ranking is calculated, which sections the report must have. Create it on the Skills page, and it shows up in the / menu under your organization's skills. Next month the request is one line.

Where to go next

• Chat: the / menu, the checklist and every file format chat can create
• Skills: writing a SKILL.md for your own reports
• Files & Knowledge Base: where generated files live