Ask a question

Ask the way you would at home and get an answer from your calendar, chores, meals, shopping, birthdays and bill due days.

Plus Part of Ourstead Plus. What Plus includes.

Ask from the search box

1. On a computer, click Search in the sidebar, or press Ctrl+K. On a phone, tap More, then Search.
2. Type a question the way you would ask it at home, such as “When is the next dentist?” or “What’s for dinner Thursday?”.
3. Pause for a moment. The answer appears above the ordinary search results, with the records it came from underneath.
4. Tap a record to open the page it lives on.

On a computer, the quiet Ask button beside Week ahead at the top of Today opens the same question box. On a phone, the top of Today keeps just its two buttons, so ask from search. The box says Search or ask a question....

Questions it can answer

It is made for the questions a family asks about its own lists: when the next thing is, what is for dinner, whose birthday is next, what is on the shopping list, what chores are left, and what is on a day or at the weekend. It also answers when a bill or subscription is due, such as “When is the electric bill due?” or “What bills are due next month?”, with each bill’s name and day and nothing about the amount. It shows the records it used, so you can check the answer.

What is sent

Ourstead tries to read the question on your device first. When it cannot, it sends the reading service only the question exactly as you typed it, today’s date and time zone, and the list of its own lookups: calendar, chores, meals, people and birthdays, shopping and money. The reading service only chooses one lookup. It never sees your records, the names of people in your household, amounts, entries, balances or locations, unless you type them into the question.

Questions about amounts, what you spent or paid, or what you can afford are never answered here. They open Budget and the spending chat, with that chat’s own rules and checks. Which day a bill is due is the one money question the box answers itself: it reads your bills on this server, shows only the bills you can see in Budget, and sends nothing to the reading service.

Your agreement

The first time each grown-up asks a question, the box explains what is sent and asks for That’s OK. Ourstead keeps that answer and the version of the explanation it was given for. Nothing is asked again unless the explanation changes.

What is kept

Questions are not stored on Ourstead’s servers. For each question sent to the reading service, Ourstead keeps a record of which lookup it chose and whether it worked, not the text, for 400 days. An answer worked out on your device says Answered from your household’s own records; one that used the reading service says Read with help from the service’s name.

When it cannot answer

The box says so plainly and leaves the ordinary search results below, so the words you typed can still find something. Nothing is sent anywhere when the question can be read on your device.

Still stuck? Email support@ourstead.casa and say which device you use. A person reads every message.