Live Assist App Overview
Real-time video, screen-share, and point-of-view remote-expert sessions woven directly into your work objects — a field worker taps “Get help” on a work order, a remote expert sees what they see, guides them live, and the session is recorded, transcribed, and summarized against the record.
What is the Live Assist App?
Live Assist puts remote video help exactly where the work happens — not in a separate meeting app. A frontline worker stuck on a fault taps “Get help” from a work order, an inspection, an incident, or a lone-worker alert; a remote expert joins over live video to see their point-of-view (POV) camera or shared screen and guides them through the fix.
Because every session is launched from a work object and recorded against it, the video becomes part of the record — an inspection’s evidence, a work order’s resolution, an incident’s response — not a file lost in a meeting tool. When the session ends, the recording is captured to the record’s media, transcribed, and summarized by AI so a written note lands on the work object automatically.
It is deliberately different from Livestreaming (one-to-many company broadcasts like town halls) and from Zoom-style scheduled meetings. Live Assist is interactive, asymmetric, and work-embedded: the worker shares POV, the expert directs.
Core Value Proposition:
- 🎥 See what I see — The field worker shares their phone-camera POV or screen; the remote expert directs. Camera, mic, and screen-share are one tap each in the browser.
- 🧷 Woven into work — Every session is stapled to its work order / inspection / incident / shift and recorded against the record.
- 🧠 A written record, automatically — Recordings are transcribed (Whisper) and summarized (AI) back onto the work object — no note-taking.
- 🏗️ Open infrastructure, your choice — Built on the open LiveKit WebRTC stack: run on the managed account, or bring your own server for data residency.
Key Concepts (How It Works)
If you only read one section, read this — it explains the model behind the screens, and clears up the four or five things people get wrong about Live Assist.
A “session” is video stapled to a work object — not a meeting
The core primitive is a Session (LiveAssist::Session). What makes it different from a Zoom call is that every session is attached to a specific record through a polymorphic sessionable — a Field Service work order, an inspection, an incident, an asset, an onboarding plan, a chat room, a location, or a lone-worker alert. The video lives where the work is. A session moves through three states: pending → live → ended. The first person to join flips it live; ending it (or everyone leaving) flips it ended, at which point participant minutes are metered and the recording, if any, is finalized.
The four modes, and how they differ
A session’s mode is what kind of help it is. There are exactly four:
| Mode | What it’s for | Who’s in control |
|---|---|---|
| Call for help | A worker requests an expert on a live problem (the default “Get help” button) | The worker shares POV; the expert guides |
| Show me | A remote inspector/auditor directs an on-site camera through a checklist (a remote inspection) | The remote observer directs the camera |
| Watch | A supervisor observes a fixed, consented site feed (a capture device at a location) | The site device publishes; observers are subscribe-only |
| Huddle | A quick video huddle pinned to a work object (e.g. a shift handover) | Symmetric — everyone can publish |
The modes are asymmetric on purpose. That asymmetry is the whole point: it makes Live Assist a work tool, not a peer meeting grid.
Mode vs. role — they are different things
People conflate the session mode with a person’s role. The mode is what the session is; your role (LiveAssist::Participant) is who you are in it — host, expert, observer, or guided. The worker who shares POV is guided; the person who joins to help is an expert; someone watching a site feed is an observer. The crucial consequence: in watch mode, observers are granted subscribe-only rights at the video layer — they cannot broadcast into a site feed even if they tried. The fixed device at the location is the only publisher. This is enforced in the token grant, not just the UI.
What makes someone able to start, join, or end a session
These are three different gates — don’t assume “can join” means “can start”:
- Who can start a session is governed by the app setting Who can start a Live Assist session? (
any_userormanagers_and_admins). One exception is baked in: watch mode is always admin-only — observing a workplace is the privileged act. (Enforced inLiveAssist::InitiationPolicy, at the service layer, so every entry point inherits it.) - Who can join a session is tighter than tenant membership: the host, an invited/added participant, any manager-or-above, a Live Assist app-admin, or someone the work object explicitly admits (e.g. a chat room’s members). A random colleague cannot join an unrelated session by URL — important, because a lone-worker SOS session carries the worker’s GPS.
- Who can end a session for everyone is tighter still: only the host, a manager/admin, or the app-admin. A plain participant can only leave.
What makes someone a Live Assist admin (vs. a manager)
Two levels of elevated access, and they’re not the same thing:
- Admin — either a business admin (
admin_or_above?) or someone explicitly granted the Live Assist app-admin capability (app_admin?(business, "live-assist")). Admins get the Settings, Site feeds, and Analytics tabs, and can register/observe watch feeds. - Manager — anyone who is
manager_or_above?. Managers are the monitoring pool: they’re rung when a worker requests help, they can join any session (oversight + responders), and they see the Monitoring wall. They do not get Settings or Site-feed CRUD.
A help session vs. a watch site feed — different primitives
This is the most common mix-up. A help session is interactive, ephemeral, and stapled to a work object (a worker pulled in an expert). A watch feed (LiveAssist::Feed) is a registered capture device — a wall tablet, a Raspberry Pi, or a fixed RTSP/IP camera at a location — that publishes a long-lived stream supervisors can observe. A feed is admin-only to register and to observe, carries an append-only consent ledger (LiveAssist::FeedEvent: registered / on-air / observed / rotated / …), and can run on a schedule. Watch is consensual and non-covert by construction — there is no ambient, always-on employee monitoring anywhere in the app.
Recording & AI summary — what’s manual vs. automatic
Recording is manual to start (a Record button in the room) and, for watch feeds, off by default and opt-in per feed — the most consent-sensitive surface. Everything after “stop” is automatic: LiveKit finishes the Egress recording → a signature-verified webhook fires → RecordingIngestJob attaches the video as a MediaItem on the work object → SummarizeJob transcribes it (Whisper) and summarizes it (AI), writing ai_summary back onto the session and, if the work object opts in, onto the record itself.
Managed vs. bring-your-own infrastructure
Live Assist needs a meeting provider (LiveKit). Two ways to supply it: the platform-managed LiveKit account (works out of the box), or a bring-your-own LiveKit server configured as a meeting_provider integration under Admin → Integrations — for enterprises that need data residency or an in-VPC deployment. Rooms and access tokens are always tenant-isolated either way.
How it’s billed — pay-as-you-go, no license
Live Assist is a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) app: there is no seat license to buy. It’s metered purely on usage — the sum of every participant’s connected minutes, recorded once when a session ends (live_assist.minutes). No floor, no per-seat fee. Admins still have to turn it on per tenant and per consuming app, but there’s no licensing decision to make first.
At a Glance
| 🎥 Session Modes | 🔌 Consuming Apps | 📱 Mobile Ready | 💳 Billing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 (Call for help · Show me · Watch · Huddle) | 9 work-object types | ✅ Yes (POV-first) | Pay-as-you-go / per participant-minute |
Perfect For:
- 🛠️ Field technicians — Pull a senior expert onto a live POV video when a fault on a work order is unfamiliar.
- 🔎 Remote QA auditors — Inspect a site over video (Show me) instead of travelling to it.
- 🚨 Lone & deskless workers — An SOS escalation can open a live video session with the acknowledging responder.
- 🧑🏫 Trainers & new hires — Coach through a task while the new hire shares their POV.
- 👀 Site supervisors — Observe a consented, on-air site feed from the monitoring wall.
How It Works
The remote-help flow
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CALL FOR HELP (worker → expert) │
├──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌────────┐ │
│ │ Tap "Get │──▶ │ Session │──▶ │ Expert(s) │──▶ │ LIVE │ │
│ │ help" on a │ │ created │ │ notified → │ │ video │ │
│ │ work object │ │ (pending) │ │ Inbox + push │ │ POV + │ │
│ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ screen │ │
│ └───┬────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────┐ │
│ │ AI summary │◀── │ Transcribe │◀── │ Recording │◀──│ Session │ │
│ │ on the record│ │ (Whisper) │ │ → MediaItem │ │ ended │ │
│ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ └──────────┘ │
│ (automatic once the session ends — recording is opt-in / manual start) │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Integration ecosystem — one app, launched from many
Live Assist is a shared spine. Any model that mixes in LiveAssistable can host a session with one line + one render of the launch button:
┌─────────────────┐
│ LIVE ASSIST │
│ (session spine)│
└────────┬────────┘
│ polymorphic sessionable
┌────────────┬────────────┬─────────┼─────────┬────────────┬────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼ ▼
┌────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌─────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌────────┐
│ Field │ │Inspection│ │ Lone │ │ Safety │ │ Asset │ │Onboarding│ │ Chat │
│ Service│ │ │ │ Worker │ │Hub/Inc.│ │ Pro │ │ Plans │ │ Rooms │
│ (WO) │ │ │ │ (SOS) │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
└────────┘ └──────────┘ └─────────┘ └────────┘ └────────┘ └──────────┘ └────────┘
(also: Help Requests · Locations · registered site Feeds for Watch mode)
Key Features
🎥 Real-time video, screen-share & POV
The heart of the app: a browser-native WebRTC room — no app install, no encoder.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Camera + microphone | One-tap mute/unmute and start/stop camera in the room. |
| Screen share | The worker (or expert) shares their screen; a persistent banner and a local preview make it unmistakable what’s being shared. |
| POV / “see what I see” | The field worker’s phone-camera point of view is the primary track; the expert directs. |
| Asymmetric roles | Host, expert, observer, or guided — the room reflects who does what. |
| Browser-native join | Joins from a notification or link on any phone or desktop; no client to install. |
Use Case: A technician opens a stuck valve’s work order, taps “Get help,” and points their phone at the assembly; a senior engineer joins from their desk and talks them through the fix while watching the live POV feed.
💡 Pro Tip: The launch button won’t render unless the Live Assist app is enabled and a provider is configured — so if a “Get help” button is missing, check the app toggle and the LiveKit integration first.
🔎 Watch feeds (site cameras)
Watch mode observes a registered capture device, not someone’s phone. Admins register feeds under Live Assist → Site feeds:
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Two source types | A browser capture page (a wall tablet / Pi / Chromium kiosk) or a fixed RTSP / IP camera pulled in via LiveKit Ingress. |
| Token-authenticated device | A 32-char device token boots a fullscreen capture page at /live-assist/feed/:token; the short-lived LiveKit publish JWT is minted server-side. |
| On-air control & scheduling | Toggle a feed on-air manually, or set a weekday + time-of-day schedule (with overnight windows) in the feed’s timezone. |
| Subscribe-only observers | Supervisors can only watch a feed — the token grant blocks them from publishing into it. |
| Consent ledger | Every lifecycle event (registered, on-air, observed start/end, token rotated, recording) is written to an append-only ledger — the compliance-grade “who watched which site, when” record. |
| “N watching” indicator | The capture page shows how many supervisors are observing right now. |
Use Case: A safety manager registers a wall tablet on the packing line, schedules it on-air during shift hours, and glances at the live feed from the monitoring wall — with every observation logged for the works council.
💡 Pro Tip: Recording a watch feed is off by default and must be enabled per feed. Rotate a feed’s token if a device is replaced or compromised — the old capture URL stops working immediately.
🧷 Woven into work (consuming apps)
One line on a model (include LiveAssistable) plus the shared launch button is the entire integration. Each consuming app decides who a session routes to and who may join:
| Consuming app | What launches it | Routed to |
|---|---|---|
| Field Service work orders | “Get help” on the work order | The assigned technician + creator |
| Inspections | Remote inspection (“Show me”) | The inspector |
| Lone Worker alerts | An SOS escalation opens a session | The acknowledging responder (system-initiated) |
| Safety Hub incidents | Video on an incident | (Manager pool) |
| Asset Pro assets | Help on an asset | (Manager pool) |
| Onboarding plans | Coach a new hire | Plan recipients |
| Chat rooms | Video from a room | Room members admitted to join |
| Help Requests / Locations | Ad-hoc help / site huddle | (Manager pool) |
Use Case: A lone worker triggers SOS; the escalation engine acknowledges a responder and, with initiation policy bypassed for the system flow, opens a call_for_help session so the responder can see the worker live.
🧠 Recording & AI summary
Ended sessions stop being dead ends — they become a written record.
| Stage | What happens | Automatic? |
|---|---|---|
| Record | A LiveKit Egress recording starts (button in the room; opt-in per watch feed) | Manual start |
| Ingest | A signature-verified LiveKit webhook fires; the recording is attached as a MediaItem on the work object |
✅ |
| Transcribe | The recording is transcribed via Whisper (shared transcription service) | ✅ |
| Summarize | AI writes a 2–3 sentence summary + key points + action items back onto the session | ✅ |
| Write-back | If the work object opts in, the summary is mirrored onto the record itself | ✅ (when supported) |
Use Case: After a 12-minute repair over video, the work order shows a recording, a searchable transcript, and an AI summary with the two follow-up parts to order — the technician wrote none of it.
📊 Analytics & Insights (admin)
The Analytics tab (with CSV export) reports, over a configurable rolling window (default 30 days, up to 365):
Standard Analytics:
- Total sessions, ended count, and live-now count
- Volume trend by day (zero-filled so quiet days show as gaps)
- By mode (call for help / show me / watch / huddle)
- By consuming app (which work objects generate the most sessions)
- Average session duration and recorded-session count
- CSV export of every session (mode, status, attached-to, host, timestamps, duration, recording status)
🖥️ Monitoring wall (manager & admin)
A live ops view of live and recent sessions across the business, with join links, plus every registered site feed. Only consensually-started sessions appear — there is no covert or ambient capture surfaced here.
🔔 Notifications
| Type | When triggered |
|---|---|
| Help Requested | A worker starts a help/inspection session → routed recipients (or the manager pool) get an actionable “Join” item. |
| Video Huddle Invite | A huddle is started on a work object → invitees notified. |
| Test session invite | An admin runs a connectivity test and invites a teammate. |
Help requests surface as action-required items in the global Inbox (a help ring outranks a huddle invite) and push to deskless responders, so “Join” reaches people wherever they work. Notifications honor each user’s notification preferences.
🤖 AI
- Session summarization — Whisper transcription + an AI summary (via the platform’s canonical LLM path) turn a recording into a factual 2–3 sentence summary, key points, and action items, written onto the session and (optionally) the record.
📱 Mobile
Live Assist is mobile-first by design. The in-context “Get help” launch button and the WebRTC video room are fully responsive and work natively on a phone. The app home (provider status + recent session log) has a dedicated mobile landing at /m/apps/live-assist; admin surfaces (monitor / settings / analytics) stay on desktop.
User Roles & Permissions
| Role | Capabilities |
|---|---|
| Employee | Start a session from a work object (when “any user” is allowed), share POV/camera/screen, join sessions they host or are invited to, leave a session. |
| Manager | Everything an employee can, plus: rung for help requests, may join any session (oversight/responder), and sees the Monitoring wall. |
| HR / Admin (business admin or Live Assist app-admin) | Everything above, plus: Settings (who-can-initiate, manager-ring toggle), Site feeds CRUD + observe, Analytics + CSV, connectivity Test session, sample-data load/clear, and end a session for everyone. |
Note: Watch mode (both registering a feed and observing one) is always admin-only, regardless of the who-can-initiate setting.
How We Compare
See how MangoApps Workforce Live Assist stacks up against leading remote-video-assist solutions:
| Feature | MangoApps Workforce | TeamViewer Assist AR | Zoom | MS Dynamics 365 Remote Assist |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| “See what I see” POV video + screen share | ✅ | ✅ | ⚡ | ✅ |
| Launched from a work object (WO / inspection / incident) | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Session recording captured onto the record | ✅ | ⚡ | ❌ | ⚡ |
| AI transcript + summary written back to the work object | ✅ | ⚡ | ⚡ | ❌ |
| Remote inspection & consented site-camera “watch” feeds | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Part of a unified employee platform (not a bolt-on) | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ⚡ |
| Bring-your-own / self-hosted infra for data residency | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Pay-as-you-go, no per-seat license | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |
| Legend: ✅ Included | ❌ Not Available | ⚡ Limited / Partial |
Note: Microsoft has announced Dynamics 365 Remote Assist will be retired after December 31, 2026. Zoom offers symmetric screen share and AI meeting summaries but is not asymmetric POV nor attached to a work record.
Why MangoApps Workforce?
- 🔗 Unified platform — Live Assist works seamlessly with Field Service, Inspections, Safety Hub, Lone Worker, Asset Pro, and Onboarding in one system — not a separately-licensed video bolt-on.
- 🧠 AI-native — Recordings become searchable transcripts and written summaries automatically, on the record.
- 💳 No seat tax — Pay-as-you-go per participant-minute; turn it on and only pay for what you use.
- 🏗️ Open, portable infra — Managed LiveKit by default, or your own server for data residency.
Getting Started
For Administrators
- Configure a video provider. Use the platform-managed LiveKit account, or add your own LiveKit server as a
meeting_providerintegration under Admin → Integrations (for data residency). - Enable Live Assist for your business from the Apps Marketplace (no license to buy — it’s pay-as-you-go).
- Turn it on per consuming app. In each app’s settings (e.g. Field Service → Settings), enable the in-context “Get help” / “Live inspection” button — the app-level toggle is required in addition to admin setup.
- Set who can start sessions under Live Assist → Settings (any user, or managers & admins only) and the manager-notification toggle.
- (Optional) Register site feeds under Live Assist → Site feeds for watch mode.
- Run a connectivity test (Settings → Test session) and load sample data to explore analytics, then clear it.
For Managers
- Open the Monitoring wall to see live and recent sessions across the business.
- Join a help request when you’re rung (from the Inbox item, a push, or the wall).
- Review Analytics for session volume, modes, and durations.
For Employees
- On a work object (a work order, inspection, or asset), tap “Get help.”
- Allow camera & microphone in the browser, point your phone at the problem, or Share screen.
- Talk it through with the expert who joins; tap Leave when done (or the host taps End session).
Best Practices
- ✅ Gate the launch button on the app’s own toggle, not just the provider — admin setup alone shouldn’t surface “Get help” in a consuming app.
- ✅ Keep watch mode consensual — register a site feed openly, keep the on-air indicator visible, and leave recording off unless there’s a documented reason.
- ✅ Rotate a feed’s token whenever a capture device is replaced or removed.
- ✅ Use BYOK LiveKit if you have data-residency requirements; the managed account is fine for most tenants.
- ✅ Let the AI summary do the writing — end the session cleanly so the recording finalizes and the summary lands on the record.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How is this different from Zoom or our Livestreaming app?
A: Livestreaming is one-to-many broadcast (town halls). Zoom is scheduled peer meetings. Live Assist is interactive, asymmetric, work-embedded video — launched from a work object, mobile/POV-first, and recorded, transcribed, and summarized against the record — for frontline remote help and inspections.
Q: Do we need our own video infrastructure?
A: No. Live Assist runs on managed LiveKit by default. Enterprise tenants can bring their own (cloud or self-hosted in-VPC) LiveKit under Admin → Integrations for data residency.
Q: How does a worker start a session, and who can?
A: Each consuming app surfaces it in context — in Field Service, a “Get help” button on the work order. Who can start is set per tenant (any user, or managers & admins only); watch mode is always admin-only. The Live Assist app and a LiveKit provider must both be configured.
Q: Is covert video monitoring of employees possible?
A: No. Live Assist is consensual and work-context only — a worker invites help, an auditor is granted a session, and a site feed is explicitly registered, shown on-air, and logged in an append-only consent ledger. There is no covert or always-on employee monitoring.
Q: What happens to a session after it ends?
A: Participant minutes are metered (that’s how it’s billed), and if the session was recorded, the recording is attached to the work object as evidence, transcribed, and summarized by AI — with the written summary landing on the record automatically.
Related Resources
- Apps Overview — The full MangoApps Workforce app catalog.
- Field Service Suite Overview — The primary launch point for “Get help” on work orders.
- Inspections Overview — Pair remote “Show me” sessions with inspection checklists.
- Lone Worker Overview — SOS escalation can open a live video session with a responder.
Live Assist — remote expertise, exactly where the work happens.