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Family user guide for parents and adults
Use projects, calendars, budgets and knowledge together, and help children navigate their own Grace interface.
This guide is for parents (family admins) and other adult family members. It also explains what children see, so a parent can help them get started.
What each person can do
| Capability | Parent / family admin | Other adult | Managed child |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start a project | Yes; setup saves as a private draft | Yes; setup saves as a private draft | Participate in projects shared with them |
| Import or subscribe to Google or Outlook calendars | Yes, for their own account | Yes, for their own account | Adult calendar connections are unavailable |
| Add an organization's knowledge and schedule | Approve access and complete checkout when required | Request parent approval | Use content made available to them |
| Add notes or sections to a knowledge base | Own notes, in writable knowledge bases | Own notes, in writable knowledge bases | Create personal notes; knowledge-base writes are unavailable |
| Manage budgets and event costs | Family and permitted project budgets | Their private budget and permitted project budgets | Adult budgets and cost controls are unavailable |
Plan a project without losing your setup
Open Family Projects and start a new project. Grace saves an adult's setup as a private draft, including information entered before finishing the guide. Wait for Private draft saved; if saving fails, retry before closing. Return to the project marked Private draft · Continue setup to finish later.
Drafts are visible only to their creator, including when another member is a parent. Choose people, access groups and any additional knowledge bases as you finish setup. After setup, access follows the project's sharing rules.
Every project starts with an empty knowledge base and an ongoing chat. Use Project documents for uploads. From a chat response or your own note, choose Add to knowledge base and select Project: [name]. From a notes section's options menu, the same action copies all its nonempty notes into one searchable document. Copies are snapshots: editing the original note later does not change the saved document. Save a new copy when you want to update the knowledge, and remove an outdated copy if needed.
Follow the complete project walkthrough.
Use The Planner with the whole project
Open the project's chat to work with The Planner when that assistant is available to your family. It can use the current project schedule, tasks, permitted budget and costs, saved project material, and relevant knowledge-base content. Current project records take priority over older saved responses. If some material is unavailable or does not fit in the chat's context, ask a focused question and check the source records.
Try: “Plan our museum day around the events already scheduled. Compare the remaining budget with tickets and lunch, and look up current opening hours.”
The Planner can research current prices, hours and planning details when web search is available, and cite its sources. Published prices and suggested dates still need confirmation before booking. It can propose a schedule or budget change; use the event, task or budget controls to save it. A chat answer alone does not create an event, booking or reminder.
Personal calendar connections and an adult's private budget are not automatically included in project chat context. A project chat with child readers omits adult budget details, including when a parent asks the question.
Connect calendars and track costs
Both parents and other adults can use Schedules → Add calendar to import an .ics file or subscribe with a Google or Outlook calendar link. These connections are private to the adult who adds them. Imports are snapshots; subscriptions refresh while Schedules is open and have a manual Refresh action.
When creating or editing an event, use Attach cost item to enter the cost and its date. A project event's cost appears in that project's budget. Other event costs appear in the applicable family budget for parents or private budget for other adults. This is one linked entry: do not enter the same cost again manually.
Follow calendar connection and event-cost steps.
Fill in a year's budget from a spreadsheet
Open Budget and find Annual budget template under the monthly plan. Pick the year, then choose Download template. The file is a CSV with one row per budget line: the line's name, category, due day, its usual Monthly amount, and a column for every month of that year. It holds your current lines with each month filled in, or example lines when your plan is still empty.
Open it in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets. Change amounts, put a different figure under a month that differs from the usual amount (a once-a-year bill can have a monthly amount of 0 and a figure in one month), add rows for new lines and delete any example rows you do not want. Save it as CSV and choose Upload filled-in template for the same year.
A row whose name matches one of your lines updates that line; any other row adds a line. Nothing is archived or deleted, and the actual amounts and paid ticks you already recorded stay as they were. If any row has a problem, nothing is imported and the message names the rows to fix. A parent's upload fills the family plan; another adult's upload fills their private plan.
Request or approve organization knowledge
An adult who is not a parent opens an organization in Knowledge marketplace and chooses Request parent approval. The request covers use of that organization's knowledge base and schedule.
Parents review requests on Schedules, under Organization requests to review. Use Approve & add for free access, Approve & continue to checkout for paid access, or Decline. Paid access starts after checkout is confirmed; an approved request alone is not payment confirmation. Once access is active, the organization calendar can be linked from Schedules. The requester can follow progress under Your organization requests.
Parent walkthrough: help a child use Grace
Create a child account in Family members, choose the assistants and shared material they can use, and set daily limits and curfew. Children sign in at the family's address using their username and password. Their screen uses six bottom tabs:
| Child tab | How to use it |
|---|---|
| Home | Choose an available helper and check the time remaining today. |
| My chats | Reopen a conversation or start a new one. Type a question and send it. |
| Quests | View assigned work and rewards. Submit completed work for adult review; reward requests also need approval. |
| Family | Open a project shared with the child and use its chat or other permitted project features. |
| Notes | Write a note, save a helpful chat answer, group notes into sections and ask an available helper about a note. Shared notes are read-only. |
| Me | Choose an avatar and color. Ask a parent to change account details or reset a forgotten password. |
In a chat, show your child Give me a hint, Explain it a different way, the read-aloud control, and Save to my notes. After saving, Saved · Open takes them to the note. Voice input and picture attachments may also be available on their device and account.
Children can read knowledge made available to them, but cannot upload documents or add notes to knowledge bases, connect adult calendars, approve organization access, or manage adult event costs and budgets. A parent or assigned adult can open a child's notes from Family members for read-only support; that view does not provide a way to edit or export the child's notes into a knowledge base.
When a helper, project or action is missing, check the child's assigned access and time limits from your adult account. If a chat stops at curfew or the daily limit, help the child return when access resumes. Walk through the child's screens together.