# Your people's AI, working as one team

> Substrait's productivity tools: Slate, where a team and their AI think together; templates built on Substrait's best practice; Agentic Builder, where a request in plain words gets built; and the communications centre, one central, pre-wired exchange for every alert, approval, notification and message, so no tool builds its own.

URL: https://substrait.build/productivity/  
Last updated: 2026-11-10

Most companies give each person an AI assistant, and each one works alone, knowing only its own person. Substrait's productivity tools connect them, so your people, their AI and the tools they build plan, start, build and decide together.

- **[Slate](#think-together-slate):** One living page your team and its AI build together.
- **[Templates](#start-from-what-works-templates):** Best-practice business software, already wired to your company.
- **[Agentic Builder](#ask-and-it-gets-built-agentic-builder):** A request in plain words, built by build agents.
- **[Communications centre](#stay-in-the-loop-the-communications-centre):** One pre-wired exchange for every alert and approval.

## One team, in one story

1. **Slate.** Operations, finance and HR plan a new warehouse on one Slate, each person's AI adding its part.
2. **Templates.** They start the warehouse's stock tool from Substrait's inventory template, already wired to the company.
3. **Agentic Builder.** The site team asks for a pick list in plain words, and build agents build it.
4. **Communications centre.** Purchase orders reach the finance manager's own AI, which approves routine ones within set limits and passes the rest to the manager.

## Personal AI, or AI that works as a team

| With personal AI assistants | With Substrait |
|---|---|
| Each AI knows only its own person | Each AI draws on the shared project |
| Every tool starts from a blank prompt | Teams start from Substrait's best-practice templates |
| Requests wait in chat and email | Requests sit on a board, and build agents build them |
| Every tool builds its own emails and alerts | One pre-wired exchange that every tool calls |

## Built on the three pillars

Every productivity tool is built and put live the same way, reaches only the data its owner approved, and works under your company's identity and security rules.

## Think together: Slate

One living page for the whole team, in place of slides, documents and spreadsheets.
Each person adds their part through their own AI, and each AI reads the whole project before it writes.

### What a Slate can hold

| On a Slate | What it does for the team |
|---|---|
| Interactive charts and dashboards | Readers filter and explore the figures instead of reading a screenshot |
| Tables to fill in and checklists | Editors fill in fields and tick off tasks on the page, and everyone sees the change |
| Layers and tabs | A one-screen summary, with the detail one click below |
| Timelines and plans | Milestones, owners and dates in one view |
| Animated process flows and org designs | A process that plays step by step, and a structure readers can click through |
| Decision logs and comments | What was decided and by whom, and a question on a section that names who should answer |

### How a team builds one

1. **An owner starts it,** through their AI or from the portal, in minutes, with no app to build.
2. **Each member adds their part** through their own AI.
3. **Each AI reads the whole Slate first,** so every new section builds on what the team already knows.
4. **It reads as one piece of work,** in your organisation's own design.
5. **Nothing is lost:** every change is a version, and any earlier version can be restored.

### Good uses

- A cross-team project, from plan to status
- A board pack readers can explore
- A business case with live models
- A team's operating rhythm
- An org redesign

## Start from what works: Templates

Substrait builds templates of common business software, based on best practice from its own experience of building and running business systems.
Each template arrives already wired to your company, so a team starts from working software instead of a blank prompt.

### The catalogue

Department starters:

- Procurement
- Inventory and warehouse
- Orders
- Service desk
- Supplier management
- Assets and maintenance
- Quality
- Expenses and claims
- HR
- Account management

Common shapes:

- Approval router
- Partner portal
- Scorecard
- Document generation
- Reconciliation
- Leakage recovery
- Field data collection

### What comes in every template

- Your company's sign-in and identity, from the first version
- Your cloud, your deploy and rollback paths, and your security settings
- Your organisation's design
- Working code and its setup, so the first deploy goes live

### What never comes with a template

- No secrets, settings or sign-in lists from anywhere else
- No access to data: the new tool asks its data owners for its own grants

### Copy it, and it is yours

A team copies a template and changes it to fit how it works.
Substrait keeps no central version your team must stay on.

## Ask, and it gets built: Agentic Builder

Anyone with a tool, or an idea for one, writes a request in plain words.
Build agents do the building, and the tool's owner stays in charge of every change.

### From request to live tool

| Stage | What happens |
|---|---|
| **Requested** | A feature or a fix is filed in plain words, from the portal or from the builder's AI |
| **Ready** | The owner or a collaborator accepts it; anything declined is recorded with who decided |
| **Building** | The owner clicks Build. Build agents plan, build and test the change. |
| **Check on Dev** | The change is live in dev, behind your sign-in, for the owner to try |
| **Live** | The owner takes it live, through the security check |

<figure class="art">
  <img src="/illus/art/request.svg" alt="One request on Agentic Builder: a depot clerk asks in plain words, the owner accepts it and clicks Build, build agents plan, build and test it, a question comes back to the card for the owner to answer, and the owner checks it on dev and takes it live." width="1040" height="470" loading="lazy" />
</figure>

### The owner stays in charge

- **Nothing builds without the owner.** A build starts only when the owner clicks Build, so the owner decides cost and timing.
- **Questions come back to the card.** If a build agent needs an answer before it builds, the card waits, and the owner answers on the card.
- **A failed build explains itself.** The card returns with the reason, and a person decides what happens next.
- **Every move is recorded,** with who made it.

### Requests from wherever people work

- Each tool has its own board, on its Requests tab.
- My requests shows one board across every tool a person works on.
- Builders file, list and move requests from their AI, without leaving it.

## Stay in the loop: the communications centre

The communications centre is one central, pre-wired exchange that connects every alert, approval, notification and message across the organisation.
Every tool built on Substrait calls it, so no tool has to build its own notifications, emails, approvals or messaging.

### One exchange, every tool

- **One API.** A tool declares the kinds of message it sends, and sends them through the communications centre.
- **Followed, not blasted.** People, teams and other tools follow the messages they need.
- **Answered where they arrive.** A reply or an action goes straight back to the tool that sent the message.

### Your company's own channels

Your company hooks in the channels it already uses: Slack, Google Chat, Microsoft Teams, email, SMS or WhatsApp.
From then on, every tool built on Substrait reaches people there, with nothing more to build.
Each person chooses where their notices arrive, and the inbox on their Home page holds everything.

### Every approval in one inbox

- One badge shows every request waiting on a person, from every tool.
- Approve or reject from the inbox, with a reason for every rejection.
- Nobody approves their own request.
- A requester sees where each of their requests stands.

### Help from your own AI

A person can let their own AI read their notices and handle the routine ones, within limits they set.
An approval is never routed back to the requester's own AI, so no AI approves its own request.

### Brokered and on the record

Substrait decides which tool may reach whom, under the same identity and permissions as everything else.
A message to someone a tool may not reach is refused and recorded.
Admins see how much each tool sends, and can pause a noisy one.

## Questions and answers

### What are Substrait's productivity tools?

Four tools that make people and their AI work as one team: Slate, a living page a team builds together; templates of common business software built on Substrait's best practice; Agentic Builder, where a request in plain words is built by build agents; and the communications centre, one central, pre-wired exchange for every alert, approval, notification and message, so no tool builds its own.

### Does every tool need its own notification system?

No. Every tool built on Substrait calls the communications centre for its notices, emails, messages and approvals. The company hooks in its own channels, such as Slack, Google Chat, Microsoft Teams, email or WhatsApp, and each person chooses where their notices arrive.

### Who builds Substrait's templates?

Substrait does, from its experience of building business software. Each template follows Substrait's best practice and arrives already wired to the company's sign-on, data and cloud. A team copies one, and the copy is theirs to change.