Everyday use
The interview
The interview is how you add and update things in Longtime. Say what happened in your own words, check the list of what it captured, and save. Nothing is kept until you do.
The interview is a short conversation that turns what you say into entries in your Space. "Had dinner with Priya and Sam on Friday at 7 at the new Thai place" becomes a connection on Friday evening, with both of them attached and the place filled in. "My cousin Mara moved to Denver, her new number is…" becomes an update to Mara.
It is how people and connections get into Longtime day to day — there is no blank form to fill in instead. A file import is the way to bring in many at once.
The interview does not make occasions. For a trip or a weekend away, make a new occasion from the Connections page; a weekend told to the interview becomes one long connection instead.
Starting one
The share button at the top of every page (on a narrow screen, the add button) opens a general interview in a panel at the side, headed "Tell me anything". Say who you would like to add, or a moment you would like to log, and it works out which.
When what you tell the general interview is about one person — "Mara moved to Denver" — and they could be someone already in your Space, it asks: "Is this Mara Lopez, who's already in your Space? Or someone new?" It holds the save until you answer. Say it is them, and the interview updates that person; say it is someone new, and it adds them. Until you save, you can change your answer by saying so. Someone who has died is marked as such, and two people with the same name are told apart by a detail.
Other buttons open an interview that already knows what it is about:
| Where | Starting from | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| A person's page | Asking what is new with them | Anything new about them |
| A person's page | Adding or updating a cadence | How often you would like to be in touch |
| A person's page | Logging a connection | A connection with them |
| A connection's page | Asking what is new | Changing or adding to that connection |
| A connection's page | Adding people | Who else was there |
| A timeline row | Updating that connection | The same, from a person's history |
| A suggestion | Refining it | Correcting a suggestion before you accept it |
Talking to it
Type the way you would tell a friend. Press Enter to send, and Shift+Enter for a new line. It may ask a follow-up question — a time, which of two people you meant — and you can answer, or ignore it and keep going. The one exception is when it asks who someone is: that needs an answer before you can save.
How much it asks is up to you. Choose the interview's style in your profile:
- Lean — asks only for what a save needs; everything else is up to you;
- Balanced — gently offers key details;
- Thorough — proactively walks through details such as a cadence, circles, a birthday or contact information.
The list of what it captured
As you talk, a list fills in below the conversation: one row per thing it understood. This list, not the conversation, is what gets saved.
Rows offer some of these choices — which ones depends on the row:
- Apply — save it with everything else when you save.
- Suggest — send it to your Suggestions inbox to decide on later.
- Dismiss — leave it out.
The pencil on a row opens a small form for correcting it by hand — the right person, an exact date and time, a full address. A corrected row is marked "Corrected" and set to apply.
A connection needs a type, a short title (the row called What) — like "Dinner at the Thai place" — and a date and time; a person needs at least a first name. Until a row has what it needs, it says so, and saving stays unavailable. An address it could not confirm also holds the save until you pick the right one, type it in, or dismiss it. Say it in the conversation or use the pencil.
People you mention at a connection are matched by name to the people already in your Space. If it matched the wrong person, use the pencil on their row to pick the right one. When the interview is about one person, it asks instead — see Starting one, above. Someone it does not recognize is marked as a new person, set to suggest. Accept them later in Suggestions, or switch the row to apply to add them now.
Saving
The line beside the save button tells you where things stand — "2 to apply · 1 to suggest", "Ready to save", or the first thing still missing, such as whether someone is a person you already have.
Save, and the rows set to apply are written; the rows set to suggest go to your inbox. Afterwards a slim bar asks how it went — a thumbs up or down helps us improve it — and, when something went to your inbox, offers to review it, with a count.
Nothing is saved until you save
The conversation never changes your Space by itself. Closing the panel without saving leaves everything as it was.
If something stops a save — usually a required detail that is missing — the interview tells you what and keeps everything in place. If you close it anyway, Longtime keeps that interview for 30 days: the next time you open one with the share button, it offers to pick up where you left off, with what was missing, or to discard it. An interview you close without trying to save is not kept.
At the Space's limit of 300 people, the interview can still update the people you have, but cannot add anyone new; someone new at a connection can still be sent to Suggestions to add later — see Spaces.
What happens to your words
The interview uses AI to turn your words into entries. Your words go with the context it needs: today's date and your Space's timezone, the names of your circles, the names of people already in your Space it thinks you might mean or the person you are logging a connection with, and — when you are updating someone or a connection — what is already on file about them. None of it trains anyone's models, and the companies that build the models never see it. What you save is what stays in your Space. The details are in the AI notice.
Details
Some rows start out set to suggest rather than apply, so that guesses do not slip in unnoticed: someone new it heard was at a connection, any mailing address for a person, any note about a person, a note on a connection that already exists, and a connection you mention while talking about a person — one with no date can only be dismissed until you give it one. Addresses are completed with a map lookup service, listed among our subprocessors.
A connection's type, title and time can only be applied — they are what the connection is. Someone already on a connection can be kept or taken off.
Until each part of a connection is filled, its row says "Needs a type", "Needs a description" (the title), "Needs a date" or "Needs a time".
You are on every connection you log. Your own row says so — "recording this connection" — and can be dismissed.
The type of an in-person connection follows who was there: with one other person it is One-on-one, and with two or more it becomes Social gathering. When you change who was at a connection you already have, or at a suggestion, the type follows, marked "Updated for who was there".
A matched person's row says how they were matched — on contact details, on a name, or because they were on an occasion on those days.
Everything about a person besides a first name — a nickname, a last name, a birthday, a cadence, a circle, an email address, a phone number — is optional. If you mention a circle that does not exist yet, it asks whether to make it; say yes and the row is marked "new", and the circle is made when you save.
The save button's wording depends on where you started.
Each Space has a fair-use limit on interview messages. If you go very fast it asks you to give it a few seconds; the daily limit resets within 24 hours.