Updates

What an update holds

Every update has the same shape, so it reads the same way every time:

1. A summary line you write, up to 280 characters.
2. Decisions needed: what you need, from whom, by when. Each one becomes a task for its owner when you publish.
3. Off track and at risk: late milestones, overdue invoices, open issues, goals behind.
4. The numbers: each against the last period, with a small trend of the periods before it. Every figure links to the records it was counted from.
5. Goals, done and slipped, last time's decisions and what they became, and next period.

Health (On track, At risk, Off track) is worked out from the records, with the reason beside it. Nobody picks it. Your judgement goes in the note beside each section.

Four kinds

Those are the periods a series runs on and a template starts with. When you ask Rople for an update, it can cover any period (below). A sales update is one with only Winning work and Clients switched on.

Making one

Open Updates (in the sidebar under My work, or the Updates tab on a phone) and say what you need the way you'd say it to a colleague: "sales performance for the year so far, for Tuesday's meeting", "a board update for Q3", "where the Greenfield project stands, for the client". On Pro and Custom, Rople builds the deck with you:

1. Rople reads your request and the workspace through your access: who it is for, what the meeting should leave with, the period, what it covers and the records it needs. It never reads anything you can't already see.
2. It asks only if it must, then carries on (below).
3. It shows you the storyline before it builds anything.
4. It builds the deck, slide by slide, and you review and change it.

• On a schedule. Set up a series once (kind, what it covers, the day it is due, who reads it). On the day, Rople makes the draft with every figure filled, and it is waiting in Updates, under Recent and in Yours to write in All updates: "ready for your words". If it is not published in time, it is marked Missing, and a working day later your manager is told. Nothing is ever published for you.
• From a template. Prefer a template?, under the box, offers the four kinds (weekly, monthly, project status, board) to start one by hand, with no Rople AI needed.

The periods Rople understands

Say the period in your own words. Rople works out the dates itself; it never guesses them.

Trends show weeks for short periods and months for long ones; a week or month still in progress is marked as part of one. A series still runs weekly, fortnightly, monthly or quarterly.

When Rople asks

When Rople can't settle something from your words and your records, it asks a short question with its best suggestion already picked, never an error. At most three questions at a time, most important first; Plan it with these takes every suggestion, and Something else… lets you say it your way.

• The period, when your words could mean two things or name a period that hasn't started: "Which period do you mean?" with, say, Year to date: 1 Jan – 3 Nov 2026 picked.
• What it covers, when a name could be more than one thing you can see. Rople only uses what you can see, and asks the same way whether a name doesn't exist or isn't yours to see.
• The meeting day, when you name today's weekday: "Which Tuesday is the meeting?" with Today or Next Tuesday picked (today before 3pm, next week after), or No meeting, I'll send it.
• Your company's look, once, and only if you haven't given it (below). It never counts towards the three, and Not now hides it for 30 days.

The storyline

Before anything is built, Rople shows the deck as a list of slide titles in order. Read only the titles and they should tell the whole story. Each row shows the slide's layout and the records it uses; figures in a title come from your records.

• Reorder, remove or add a slide (pick a layout and say what it should show).
• Change it in words: "make it more about pipeline". Redo the storyline is free.
• Shorter or Longer, and Presenting or Sending to read.
• What I couldn't use lists what the request needs that you can't open, and leaves it out.

Nothing is spent until Build the deck, which says how many Rople AI credits it uses. While it builds you see each slide arrive; Stop at any point and nothing is spent. A build is charged only when the deck is saved.

Reviewing and changing the deck

The draft opens as the deck, with the slides down the side and the speaker notes under the slide. On a phone you see the real slide, with Read as a card to switch.

• Change it yourself: edit a headline, the words or the notes; reorder or delete slides; Change layout to another layout that fits what the slide holds.
• Ask Rople to change it: one slide ("show this as a trend") or the whole deck ("make it shorter", "add a slide on cash", "make it for the board"). Rople shows what will change, before and after, before it changes anything, and the figures stay as they were read unless you choose Refresh the numbers.
• Rople's drafts. Where Rople suggests a decision you need, or a highlight or lowlight, it is marked Rople's draft, confirm, with a suggested owner from the records. Accept, edit or remove each one; the deck can't be published while any is still open.

Every slide has a footer with your company's name, the update, its period, how widely it may be shared (Internal, Confidential, Board only or Public) and the slide number; the cover carries your company's name.

Your company's look

Decks use your company's colours, typeface and logo when Rople knows them, and a clean, neutral look when it doesn't. Show Rople in whichever way is easiest:

• Brand guidelines or a past deck: upload a PDF, a PowerPoint file or template, or a design bundle.
• Your website: paste its address; Rople reads its colours and fonts.
• A few words: "dark green and gold, formal".

Rople shows a preview on two slides before anything is used. It keeps everything easy to read: a colour that would be hard to read is swapped for a safe one, and you are told which. If your font isn't one Rople can show, it uses the closest it can and names it.

Admins save the look in Settings › Your company's look, for every deck. Anyone else's choice applies to their own deck, and the admins are asked whether to use it for every deck. A published deck keeps the look it was published with. What you upload is read for its colours and fonts and is not kept.

Layouts

Rople builds every deck from the same seventeen layouts, in your company's look:

What Rople never does: type a number (every figure is counted from your records), state a date it didn't work out itself, use anything you can't open, put words in someone's mouth, or follow instructions written inside brand material.

The draft

The draft is the update exactly as readers will see it, with places to write. Its figures are live: Refresh reads today's records. Write the summary, a note where a number needs explaining, and the decisions you need. A board update needs at least one ask, or No asks this time.

Publishing

Choose the readers: people, or a whole department or team. Publish shows who will not see which parts, and why, before anything is sent: "3 of 8 readers won't see Money: they can't open Finance." That rule can't be overridden. Your summary, notes and decisions go to every reader, so keep figures they can't open out of your own words: where a slide's words name something some readers can't open ("Slide 4 says 'cash', and 3 readers can't open Finance"), Publish tells you, with a link to the slide, and you can still publish as it is.

Publishing freezes the update: every figure is kept as it stood, stamped "As of 3 Nov 2026, 16:05", so what people read and replied to never changes under them. Each reader gets a notification, and it is under Recent on their Updates screen.

After publishing you can:

• Fix wording: the summary, notes and the wording of a decision. The update shows Edited, and readers can see the earlier words.
• Correct it: a figure that was wrong becomes version 2, which shows what was previously reported and why. Version 1 stays readable, and readers are told.
• Add readers, with the same check of what each will see.
• Withdraw it if it went to the wrong people. Readers then see only that you withdrew it, and when.
• Attach it to a meeting as its pre-read. The meeting stays the record of what was decided.

Reading one

An update reads as a set of slides: a cover with your company's name, then the slides, each with the footer described above. On a phone the slides stack, one section each.

• Open it from the notification, from Recent on the Updates screen, or from For you in All updates, which tells you why it is there: a decision that is yours, a question for you, or an update you haven't opened.
• Answer a decision on its slide; everyone who reads the update sees your answer, and the task is closed.
• Reply to the whole update or a section, or ask a question the author answers.
• Press Seen to tell the author you have read it.
• Where a figure has moved since publishing, the slide shows Since published: now ₦44.0M beside the figure it was published with.
• A part you can't open, because it comes from a module you don't have, is one line saying so. Nothing of it is sent to you.

Present shows the deck full screen for a projector or a TV, one slide at a time. Arrow keys, Page Up and Page Down (most clickers), Space and swipe move it; B blanks the screen; Esc leaves. Presenter view shows you the current slide, the next one, your speaker notes, the time elapsed and the clock, and can open the slides for the room on a second screen. Present mode leaves out any slide some reader can't see.

Download .pptx gives a real PowerPoint file of the deck: the same slides and layouts, charts you can edit in PowerPoint, and the speaker notes in the notes pane. It contains only what you may see, like everything else in an update.

Print gives an A4 page to save as a PDF and forward. A project status has a Client copy that leaves out spending, internal replies, decisions and every name but the project lead's.

Who can do what

What an update shows a reader follows the same rules as the rest of Rople: a reader sees a part only if they could open the module it comes from. Pay, salary bands, reviews, ratings and feedback are never in an update.

See also My work, Meetings and tasks and Ask Rople AI.