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Steward Inbox

The Steward Inbox is where Steward brings you problems and improvements it finds in your semantic layer. Your AI Analysts run into friction while they answer questions: a missing metric, a misleading definition, a query that fails. Your data connections can break or drift away from your models. Steward collects these observations, checks them, and turns the ones you can fix into Inbox items, often with a plan to fix them, so you don't have to read through AI Analyst conversations to find the problems.

Availability

  • Who can do this: members with the Edit capability in the active Workspace.

Where to find the Inbox

  1. In Studio, open the Steward panel from the right-hand side of the page.
  2. If a Steward session is open, select Back to sessions to return to the start screen (Steward is here to help).
  3. Select the Inbox tab. The History tab next to it lists your past Steward sessions.

The Steward tab on the right-hand side shows a number when there are open Inbox items, that is, items nobody has approved or dismissed yet and that haven't expired. Items count whether or not anyone has read them. Above 99, the number shows as 99+.

Each Workspace has its own Inbox. Items belong to the Workspace, not to one person, so every member with Edit in that Workspace sees the same items.

Read state is shared

When anyone in the Workspace opens an item, it is marked as read for everyone. Unread items show a dot and bold text in the list.

You can also see Steward items in Explorer: open Inbox and select the Studio tab. This tab appears only for members with Edit. There you can read items and mark them read. To approve or dismiss an item, use the Steward panel in Studio. For the Explorer Inbox itself, see Inbox.

How Steward finds issues

As AI Analyst runs, it records signals. There are four kinds:

Signal Where it comes from
AI Analyst friction An AI Analyst hit a problem with the semantic layer while answering someone's question and reported it, for example a missing metric, a gap in coverage, or a misleading definition.
Query failure A query an AI Analyst ran failed against your data warehouse.
Connection failure A saved data connection failed its connection test.
Schema drift A daily check found a model that points at a table or column that no longer exists in your warehouse.

People don't submit these signals. AI Analyst friction is reported by the AI Analyst itself, not by the person asking the question.

Steward reviews the signals in a Workspace when one of these happens:

  • Enough open signals have built up.
  • A connection failure or schema drift is detected. These start a review as soon as they are detected, without waiting for more signals.
  • A signal has been waiting for about a day.

During a review, Steward checks each signal against your semantic layer, your warehouse and, where there is one, the AI Analyst conversation that raised it. It groups signals with the same root cause into one item, adds new signals to an existing open item when they cover the same issue, and skips duplicates.

Item types

Each item carries one of three badges.

Badge Meaning
Alert Something is broken or likely to give wrong results, and needs attention soon.
Suggestion An improvement with a clear fix that Steward can carry out once you approve it. Suggestions normally come with a proposed plan.
Insight A pattern worth knowing about, even if there's no single fix.

Alerts

For example:

  • A column that a model or metric uses no longer exists in your warehouse, so queries fail.
  • A model's underlying table was renamed or moved.
  • A metric refers to a measure that has been deleted.
  • The connection test for one of your data connections is failing.

Suggestions

For example:

  • AI Analysts keep working out a value by hand, such as revenue per customer, that would work better as a defined metric. Steward suggests adding the metric.
  • AI Analysts keep needing a dimension, such as customer segment or contract type, that isn't modeled yet. Steward suggests adding it.
  • A relationship between two models, such as orders and customers, isn't defined, so AI Analysts work around it. Steward suggests adding the relationship.
  • A measure or dimension has a vague or missing description, and AI Analysts misread it. Steward suggests a better description.

Insights

For example:

  • People keep asking about a topic your semantic layer doesn't cover yet. This helps you decide what to model next.
  • Several AI Analysts reported the same definition as unclear or misleading.

What Steward doesn't raise

Steward focuses on what your data team can fix in the semantic layer. It skips:

  • Product limitations.
  • Temporary errors, such as a one-off timeout or connection blip that later recovered.
  • Questions or queries that were simply asked wrong.
  • Anything that editing the semantic layer can't fix, such as bad values in your source data.

Read an item

Click an item in the list to open it. An item shows:

  • From Steward and the item's title.
  • Steward's findings: what it found, the evidence, and how to fix it. Links take you straight to the models, metrics, glossary terms, data connections or AI Analysts involved.
  • Analyzed conversations, when the item came from AI Analyst conversations. The first three are listed. Click Show N more to see the rest. Click a conversation to open it in that AI Analyst's Monitoring → Tasks view. Items raised by connection tests or the schema-drift check have no conversations.
  • Proposed plan, a numbered list of the steps Steward will take. Suggestions normally have one. Alerts and Insights often don't.

To return to the list, click the back arrow at the top of the panel.

Approve a plan

  1. Open an item that has a Proposed plan.
  2. Click Approve plan.

Steward starts a new session that carries the item's findings and plan, and shows a Plan Approved chip in the conversation. The item leaves your open Inbox.

Approving the plan doesn't apply any changes on its own. Steward still shows each change it wants to make for you to approve, as in any other session, unless you've set the tool to Always allow in Tool permissions. See Approvals and tool permissions.

The Approve plan button appears only when the item has a proposed plan. Other items show only Not useful.

Discuss or edit a plan first

To change the plan, or to ask Steward about an item, type in the composer under the item (Reply to discuss or edit,) and send your message.

Steward starts a new session that includes the item's findings and your message. You can adjust the plan in conversation before Steward makes any changes. Like approving, replying moves the item out of your open Inbox.

Dismiss an item

If an item isn't relevant:

  1. Click Not useful in the open item, or Dismiss at the top of the item. In the list, you can also click the Dismiss (archive) icon on the item's row.
  2. In Dismiss this item?, optionally explain why in Why is this not useful? (optional). You can enter up to 500 characters.
  3. Click Dismiss. To dismiss without a reason, click Skip.

Closing the dialog without choosing also dismisses the item, without a reason. You can find it again under Filter → Dismissed.

Steward takes your recent dismissals and their reasons into account in later reviews, so it doesn't raise the same issue again.

Filter the Inbox

Click Filter and choose:

Filter Shows
All Every open item.
Unread only Open items nobody in the Workspace has opened yet.
Dismissed Items that have left the open list: dismissed, approved, replied to, or expired.

Under Dismissed, each row shows when the item left the open list and, if there is one, the reason. Open the item to see Reason: followed by the reason. Expired items show Reason: expired.

You can still reply to an item under Dismissed. This starts a new Steward session about it.

Expiry

Items left open for 14 days are archived automatically. Nothing is deleted: you can still find them under Filter → Dismissed, and they no longer count toward the number on the Steward tab. If the issue comes back, Steward raises a new item.

Email and channel alerts

Members with Edit can get an email when Steward adds new Inbox items. Emails are grouped and sent at most once per day. To turn them on or off, use Steward inbox alerts in Settings → Notifications. Your organization can also post Steward inbox alerts to a Slack or Microsoft Teams channel. See Notifications.

Troubleshooting

The Inbox is empty. Steward creates items only after it has signals to review: AI Analysts need to have been used, or a connection test or schema-drift check needs to have found a problem. Steward also skips signals it treats as noise (see What Steward doesn't raise). No reviews run for an organization whose trial has ended or whose access is otherwise blocked.

The Studio tab in Explorer's Inbox is missing. The tab appears only for members with the Edit capability in the active Workspace. Ask a member who manages your Workspace members. See Members.

The Inbox tab in the Steward panel shows an error or no items. Check that you have the Edit capability in the active Workspace. Ask a member who manages your Workspace members. See Members.

An item disappeared. It was approved, replied to, dismissed by someone in your Workspace, or it expired. Look under Filter → Dismissed.