Using AI Builder

AI Builder is the fastest way to create a flow in JAMS IMES. You describe what you want to monitor in plain English; JAMS IMES drafts the flow and asks you to confirm any missing details before saving.

It's especially useful when you're not sure which trigger type or settings to pick β€” the AI handles the structural decisions.

Before you use it

AI Builder needs an OpenAI API key configured for your tenant. Without one, the page falls back to "heuristic mode" β€” basic pattern matching that catches the common cases but isn't anywhere near as good.

Set the key once at Dashboard β†’ User menu β†’ OpenAI Key. It's a tenant-wide setting, not per-user. Costs a few cents per flow drafted β€” typically under $1/month for most teams.

Why isn't this just "use JAMS IMES's key"? Each tenant pays for their own AI usage so we don't have to charge a flat monthly markup and we don't see your prompts. The key is encrypted at rest before storage.

Opening AI Builder

Click AI Builder in the sidebar (or hit the "+ New flow" button on the Flows page and pick AI Builder).

You'll see a chat-style interface. The first message asks you to describe your alert in plain English.

Prompts that work well

The more specific you are, the less back-and-forth you'll have. Two examples that work cleanly:

Email-triggered alert:

Alert me by SMS and call when an email arrives in monitoring@mycompany.com with "CRITICAL" in the subject. Send to the on-call group. Escalate after 2 minutes.

JAMS job failure:

When a JAMS job called "Nightly ETL" fails, call my phone and SMS the data team. If no one acknowledges in 3 minutes, also email the team lead.

JAMS IMES parses the prompt into a draft flow β€” trigger, recipients, channels, escalation β€” and shows you what it built. If anything is missing (an email connection you haven't created yet, a Team Group that doesn't exist), it'll ask for it inline.

Prompts that won't work yet

AI Builder can't yet do things JAMS IMES doesn't support natively. Some examples:

  • Conditional logic across flows β€” "if A fails AND B is offline, alert; else just log." Each flow is independent.
  • Time-based scheduling of the alert itself β€” "every day at 2am, send a status SMS." Flows react to triggers, not the clock. Use a cron job that calls your webhook for this.
  • AI summarization of payload β€” "include a 1-sentence summary of the error in the SMS." The message body comes from the trigger payload as-is.

After the draft is created

AI Builder takes you to a review screen showing the flow it built. Before saving:

  • Verify recipients β€” most common edit point. AI Builder picks reasonable defaults but might not know your team structure.
  • Verify escalation timing β€” defaults to 5 minutes; tighten to 1–2 minutes for production-critical alerts.
  • Check the trigger details β€” for webhook flows, JAMS IMES shows the URL + API key after save. For email flows, confirm the right mailbox is selected.

Save β†’ the flow is live. Test it (see Getting Started step 5).

Editing flows AI Builder created

Once saved, flows from AI Builder are no different from manually-built flows. Edit them at Flows β†’ click flow name β†’ Edit. The AI doesn't "own" them β€” they're regular flows.

If you want to recreate something similar with a tweak, easiest path is copy a working flow from the Flows list (Actions menu) and edit the copy.

When AI Builder says "Heuristic mode active"

That's the fallback β€” OpenAI couldn't be used. See troubleshooting for the fix (usually means OpenAI key isn't set, isn't valid, or hit a rate limit).

The heuristic mode catches the most common patterns (webhook + SMS, email + call), but anything beyond that needs a real LLM. Set the key and try again.

Tips

  • Be specific about channels. "Notify me" defaults to SMS. If you want a phone call, say so explicitly.
  • Name recipients by group, not individual emails. "On-call team" or "data team" works if you have those Team Groups; raw emails work too but are less reusable.
  • Set up prerequisites first. If your flow needs an email connection or a Team Group, create those at Connections and Team Groups before running AI Builder. Otherwise it'll keep asking inline.