What Can Users Do With It?
Analytics & Insights
- Ask questions like “What are my top customer topics this month?” or “Show me conversation trends for the last 3 months”
- View interactive charts (bar, line, area, pie) generated in real time
- Check credit usage breakdowns
- Identify knowledge gaps — questions the agent couldn’t answer
Training & Knowledge Base
- Add, update, or delete knowledge base sources (text, Q&A pairs, URLs)
- Upload files (PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets, archives) to extract training data from
- Trigger retraining after making changes
- Toggle auto-retrain on or off
Agent Configuration
- Update the agent’s system instructions or channel-specific instructions
- Change the AI model or temperature
- Modify the chat bubble appearance (colors, header, button styles, themes)
Helpdesk (Read-Only)
- Query tickets by status, assignee, channel, or date
- Search tickets using text or semantic search
- View agent performance metrics, resolution analytics, and workload distribution
- Review helpdesk settings and saved views
Actions & Integrations
- Create, update, enable/disable, or delete actions (Slack notifications, webhooks, ticket creation, etc.)
- Check integration status and trigger OAuth connections for new integrations
Deployment
- Check which channels are active (chat bubble, WhatsApp, Slack, etc.)
- Enable or disable channels
Built-in Skills (Multi-Step Workflows)
Users don’t need to invoke these explicitly — the AI uses them automatically when relevant:- Weekly insights report
- Tone/instruction updates with safe diff preview
- Drafting Q&A from knowledge gaps
- New AI agent onboarding walkthrough
- File/archive processing into training data
- Helpdesk triage, issue review, performance review, and settings audit
How Does Approval Work?
Backstage never makes changes silently. Any mutative action (updating instructions, adding sources, deleting an action, etc.) triggers a confirmation UI where the user can review each change and approve or reject it individually before anything is applied. Text changes show a side-by-side diff; settings changes show a before/after table.Plan Access & Daily Message Limits
Backstage is accessible to all plans — there is no plan-level gate blocking access. The only throttle is the daily message limit, which varies by plan:
There is also a rate limit of 10 requests per 60 seconds per user to prevent abuse.
Backstage on Slack & iMessage
You can now talk to your agent’s Backstage directly from Slack or iMessage, no need to open the dashboard. Ask questions, review analytics, manage your agent, and approve changes from the apps you already use.What you can do from a DM or a text
Analyze your agent
Ask questions like “How did my agent do this week?” or “What did users ask about most?” Charts and reports are delivered directly in the conversation.
Update your agent
Change models, instructions, chat interface, branding, and other settings using natural language. Every change requires your approval before it’s applied.
Manage sources & actions
Inspect, update, and retrain knowledge sources, and manage actions without opening the dashboard.
Approve safely
Review exactly what’s changing before approving. Nothing is applied without your explicit confirmation.
Analyze files (Slack)
Upload a CSV or other supported file and ask questions about its contents directly from Slack.
Continue anywhere
Start on Slack or iMessage and continue the same Backstage session on the web with full history, richer approvals, and interactive charts.
Approving changes
Every change proposed by Backstage requires your explicit approval.- Slack
- iMessage
Review the proposed changes and approve or reject them directly from Slack.Each proposal includes:
- A detailed diff of what will change
- Approve and Reject controls for every change
If you send another request while an approval is pending, the previous proposal is automatically superseded. You won’t accidentally approve an outdated change.
Connect Slack
- Open your Dashboard.
- Select your agent.
- Open Backstage.
- Click Controllers in the top-right corner.
- Expand Slack.
- Click Add to Slack. You only need to do this once per workspace.
- Copy the generated link message.
- Send it as a DM to the Backstage Slack app.
- Once you receive Connected ✓, you’re ready to chat.
Each Slack thread is its own Backstage session.If your Slack account has access to multiple agents, starting a new thread will ask which agent you’d like to use.
Connect iMessage
- Open Controllers from the Backstage page.
- Expand iMessage.
- Text the generated link message to the displayed phone number, or scan the QR code to open Messages with the number and message pre-filled.
- Once you receive Connected ✓, you can start chatting.
Your phone maintains one active conversation.To switch agents, send another agent’s generated link message. This starts a new Backstage session for that agent.
Good to know
Link messages
Link messages
Link messages are single-use and expire after 10 minutes.
Permissions
Permissions
Connections are personal. They inherit your Chatbase permissions and can be revoked at any time from the Controllers dialog.
Attachments
Attachments
Slack supports uploading files for analysis.iMessage does not support attachments, if you send one, it’ll tell you your caption.
Web experience
Web experience
Large analyses, interactive charts, and long approval flows include a link back to the corresponding Backstage session in the dashboard.
Limitations
- Message length: 10,000 characters max per message
- File uploads: Max 50 MB per file, up to 5 files per message
- Analytics range: Queries can cover a maximum of 6 months
- Knowledge base source size: Max 1 MB per text source or Q&A entry
- Helpdesk is read-only: Backstage can surface helpdesk analytics and tickets, but it cannot modify ticket status, assign tickets, or send messages to customers
- File tools are agent-focused: Backstage will only process uploaded files for agent-related tasks (improving knowledge base, instructions, analytics). It won’t do general-purpose tasks like summarizing a random document or solving homework
- Permission-based: Users only see tools they have permission to use based on their RBAC role. If a user lacks write permissions, mutative tools will return an “insufficient permissions” error
