Troubleshooting
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Sales Assistant Ever Send Emails Automatically?
No. Sales Assistant writes the draft and places it in your Gmail Drafts folder. It never sends on its own. You click Send from Gmail after reviewing the draft, and the email goes from the Gmail account that owns the relationship.
What Is the Difference Between Dismiss and Not Responding?
Dismissing a card tells Sales Assistant you have consciously decided not to re-engage this prospect right now. The card is resolved. Not responding leaves the card open; Sales Assistant will not re-flag the same prospect until the next scan cycle surfaces a new signal for them.
Can I Re-Engage a Prospect I Dismissed?
Yes. Ask Sales Assistant directly in Slack:
@Alpheous draft a re-engagement email for [advisor or firm name]
It will generate a fresh draft whether or not you dismissed a previous card.
How Does Sales Assistant Decide Who Is Dormant?
It checks three sources: HubSpot deals (no activity past the deal threshold, across your wholesale, main, FIG, and institutional pipelines), HubSpot contacts (no note or update past the contact threshold), and Gmail threads (you sent the last message and have not received a reply past the email threshold). A prospect qualifies if any one of those sources flags them. An engaged contact that already has an active late-stage deal is handled by the deal scanner, not the contact scanner, so you do not get two cards for the same person.
Why Does Sales Assistant Only Post a Few Cards per Scan?
Cards arrive in small batches so the channel stays actionable. A flood of cards tends to get ignored; a few specific, prioritised ones get acted on. If you have a large backlog of dormant prospects, cards keep appearing on subsequent scan cycles until the queue is clear.
Can I Change the Dormancy Thresholds?
Your firm administrator can adjust the silence windows per source in your Alpheous settings. The defaults are 30 days for deals, 60 days for contacts, and 14 days for Gmail threads. Different pipelines (wholesale vs. institutional, for example) can run on different windows.
What Does Brand Guard Flagged Mean on a Card?
Brand Guard reviewed the draft and found a concern, usually a phrase that reads as broadcast marketing rather than 1:1 correspondence, or language that does not match your firm's voice. A flagged draft is still written to Gmail Drafts; you can open it, edit the highlighted phrasing, and send. A rejected draft is not written to Gmail at all; the card explains why and you can ask Sales Assistant to redraft from Slack.
Common Issues
No Approval Cards Are Appearing
- Confirm your HubSpot and Gmail connections are still active in the Alpheous web app. Both need to be authenticated for the scanners to do their work.
- Confirm Sales Assistant is posting to the Slack channel you expect. Your administrator can verify the channel assignment in your Slack app configuration.
- Trigger a manual scan from Slack (
@Alpheous scan for dormant prospects) and watch for a reply. If Sales Assistant confirms no new dormancy, your existing prospects are likely all inside their silence windows. - If you get no response at all, contact support@alpheous.com.
A Draft Appeared in Gmail Drafts but the Slack Card Did Not Arrive
- Check whether the card may have been posted to a different channel than you expected.
- Search Slack for "Re-engagement" to find any cards that may have scrolled out of view.
- If no card exists, contact support@alpheous.com with the prospect name and the approximate time of the scan.
The Draft in Gmail Does Not Match the Preview in the Slack Card
The card preview shows the subject and opening lines at the time the draft was written. If you or another teammate edited the Gmail Draft after the card was posted, the preview will not update. The card button still opens the current state of the draft in Gmail.
Sales Assistant Flagged a Prospect I Have Already Been in Touch With
Sales Assistant looks at deal activity, contact notes, and Gmail threads inside the configured windows. If you spoke by phone, met at an event, or had a meeting that was not logged in HubSpot, or the email thread was outside your connected Gmail account, it cannot see that activity. Dismiss the card and, if it makes sense, log a note in HubSpot so future scans have the full picture.
The Re-Engagement Email Feels Too Generic
Draft quality depends on how much context is recorded for the prospect. If the deal notes, meeting history, and contact notes in HubSpot are sparse, the email will be more general by design (Sales Assistant will not invent prior conversations it cannot see). Adding notes to the HubSpot contact or deal record gives it more to work with. You can also ask for a redraft with a specific angle:
@Alpheous redraft the email for [advisor or firm name], focus on [angle]