# Ask Shelly about your care flows
URL: https://docs.awellhealth.com/docs/improve-and-analyse/instant-care-flow-insights-with-shelly

> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.awellhealth.com/llms.txt).



**Shelly** is Awell's AI assistant in the CareOps portal. Ask a question about a care flow in plain English and Shelly
answers from the data, instead of sifting through dashboards or waiting for someone to write a query.

## Where to find Shelly [#where-to-find-shelly]

1. Go to the **Home** page of the CareOps portal.
2. Select **Improve** on the left.

## What Shelly can and can't answer [#what-shelly-can-and-cant-answer]

Shelly answers questions about **orchestrated** care flows by reading their data: last month's monthly
active patients, a breakdown of active care flows and their statuses, how many patients completed a flow.

Shelly reads what actually happened to patients, so it isn't a substitute for reading the care flow
design and it can't say what a care flow was intended to do.

## How to ask a question that gets a useful answer [#how-to-ask-a-question-that-gets-a-useful-answer]

Shelly has the data and none of the clinical context.

### Give enough context [#give-enough-context]

Shelly doesn't know the organization's business. If a step in the care flow signifies a tangible result,
say so in the question.

❌ "Give me the breakdown of my patients?"

✅ "How many of my patients completed the Diabetes care flow in the last month?"

### Specify which care flow [#specify-which-care-flow]

Most organizations run several. Naming the one in question avoids an answer that spans all of them
without saying so.

### Be specific, and avoid ambiguity [#be-specific-and-avoid-ambiguity]

"Recently" and "a lot" mean nothing to a query. Give a date range and a threshold.

### Be patient, and follow up [#be-patient-and-follow-up]

Start broad, then narrow with follow-up questions. If Shelly is unsure it asks for clarification, and a
short conversation usually gets there faster than one perfectly worded question.

## Check the definitions before acting on a number [#check-the-definitions-before-acting-on-a-number]

Shelly returns a number from the data. Sanity-check anything before acting on it, particularly where a
definition could differ: "active", "completed" and "enrolled" all have precise meanings in Awell that may
not match how a team uses them day to day. See
[Monthly active patients](/docs/data/monthly-active-patients) for one example.

## Next steps [#next-steps]

* [Flow Path](/docs/improve-and-analyse/flow-path) for a visual view of the same question.
* [Data & source control](/docs/data) if querying it directly is preferable.