---
id: GS-1
title: What Streamliner is
group: Getting started
summary: The one-page orientation — work as conversations, one per job, with an assistant that uses your own systems
keywords: [overview, orientation, streamline, chat, assistant, job]
---

Streamliner turns the work of a department into conversations. Instead of a screen for sales, another for approvals and another for deliveries, you open a conversation and say what you need done. An assistant does the steps in your organization's own systems, as you, and shows you the results as it goes.

## Streamlines and chats

A **streamline** is a department's assistant: *Register*, *Approvals*, *Receiving* in the Meridian demo. Each has its own name, color, icon, welcome and quick phrases, all set by whoever runs it.

A **chat** is one conversation in a streamline, and one chat is one job: a sale, an offer to review, a delivery to receive. When the job is done, the chat says so and becomes read-only. The next job is a new chat. See Streamlines and chats (ST-1).

## What the assistant does

The assistant reads what you write, calls the tools your organization's systems offer, and draws what comes back as cards: a customer list, an item with its photo, a receipt. It never decides anything that cannot be undone on its own. Before a sale is submitted or an offer approved, it stops and shows you a confirmation card, and only your tap sends it. See Confirmation cards (AS-2).

Everything it does is done with your own access. If you cannot do something in your organization's systems, neither can the assistant on your behalf.

## Secrets stay out of the conversation

Card numbers, ID numbers and passwords never go into a chat. When a job needs one, a secure form opens and what you type goes straight to your organization's system. The assistant only learns the outcome. See Secure forms and secure views (AS-3).

## Two places in one app

Streamliner shows one of two places at a time:

- **Your organization**, by its own name: streamlines your organization set up, for the work you do there.
- **On this device**: streamlines you make yourself, for your own tools, free and with no account. See Using Streamliner on this device (FR-1).

There is also a demo, the fictional Meridian Jewelers, which works with no account and no network. See Three ways in (GS-2).