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A surface is a page an agent builds and keeps up to date: a dashboard, a board, a report. The agent fills it from the systems it reaches with its skills. Xpander Chat also calls surfaces live surfaces in some labels, such as the Live surfaces card and the Live surface sharing switch; both refer to surfaces.

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The Surfaces page

Surfaces in the left column, between Workflows and Scheduled, lists every surface you can open: “Live pages your agents build and keep up to date.” The tabs All, Yours and Shared with you split the list, and a search box narrows them. Each row shows who can see it, such as Org or Only you, and when it was last updated.
Surfaces page with Dashboard, Board, Tracker, Report and Timeline templates and a list of surfaces with their visibility (Org)

The Surfaces page: templates under Make something new, the All, Yours and Shared with you tabs, and each surface's visibility. Shown with sample data.

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Start a surface

Choose New surface, or pick a template under Make something new: Dashboard (numbers and charts), Board (work by status), Tracker (rows that stay current), Report (a brief that updates) or Timeline (events as they happen). You can also turn a file into a surface: Make live on a document an agent produced in its workspace makes it a surface. An agent’s own surfaces are listed on its Live surfaces card. When an agent writes a report in a conversation, it presents the report as a surface.

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How a surface stays current

The agent regenerates a surface on a schedule, on a webhook, or on demand when someone asks it to. A regeneration updates the same surface rather than creating a new one, so its link stays the same. Between regenerations, the data blocks read live data each time the surface is opened.

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What a surface holds

A surface is built from blocks: text, metrics, charts and tables, plus a kanban board, a timeline, a card list, a record detail view, diagrams, HTML and images. Table columns are typed, so numbers, dates and statuses display as what they are. An agent can add images to a surface. When you export a surface as a PDF, the images are in it.

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Edit a surface in place

You can type straight into a surface’s title and into its text, diagram and HTML blocks. The surface keeps the history of its edits, so you can see what changed. When the agent next updates the surface, it keeps your changes.

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What each viewer sees

A surface reads its live data as the person viewing it, with that person’s own access to the systems behind it. Someone without access to a source sees a clear no-access state instead of someone else’s data.

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Who can open a surface

The Surfaces list shows who can open each surface, such as Org or Only you. A surface in a shared conversation follows that conversation’s share; see On a conversation. For surfaces an agent builds on its own, the agent’s Advanced settings carry the Live surface sharing switch: “Let this agent share its dashboards with the whole organization and include the link in results (Slack, email, chat). Any signed-in org member can open them.” Even then, each viewer sees the data their own access allows. Creating, updating and regenerating a surface is recorded in Platform > AI governance > Audit log.

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Next steps

To regenerate a surface on a fixed cadence, give the agent a recurring schedule on Schedules.