How To
Short, plain-English guides. Pick the one that sounds like you.
For businesses
You run the plant, shop, or office. Here's everything you do from your dashboard.
Sign up with your name, email, and your business name. Pick a short page name (like riverside-fab) — that becomes your public link, areweworking.org/riverside-fab. Choose a plan; the first 14 days are a free trial. You can add your logo from the dashboard.
On your dashboard, choose Open, Partially open, or Closed, add a short note (“Delayed start — 9 a.m.”, “Line 3 down, other lines running”), and save. Your public page changes right away — nobody has to refresh.
The note clears when you change the status, so an old reason never sits next to a new status.
Your dashboard shows your public link and a QR code. Print the QR code and post it at the time clock, the break room, or the gate — anyone can scan it and see the current status.
Employees tap Get alerts on your public page. Their request lands in Pending approvals on your dashboard, and no one is alerted until an admin approves them. That keeps strangers off your list. Approved people get an email each time the status changes.
You can have up to 3 admins and 20 updaters. Updaters can only change the status — they can't see subscribers or billing, so a shift lead can update the page from the floor safely. Invite someone by email from the Team card, or click the person-plus icon next to a subscriber's name. Invitations expire after 7 days.
There's a switch on your dashboard for being listed in search and AI assistants. Turn it off any time — your page still works for anyone who has your link.
Admins can open the billing portal from the dashboard to update a card, change plans, or cancel. If a subscription ends, your dashboard returns to the plan picker, but your public status page stays up.
For employees
Your employer uses Are We Working to tell everyone whether you're running today.
- Check the status: open the link or scan the QR code your employer gave you. It always shows the current status and when it changed.
- Get alerts: tap Get alerts, enter your name and email, and submit. Your employer has to approve you, then you'll get an email whenever the status changes. Text alerts are coming soon for businesses on plans that include them.
- Stop alerts: every email has an Unsubscribe link at the bottom. One click and you're done.
- Use your own AI assistant: see the next section.
Use your personal AI assistant
If you use an AI assistant, it can look up your workplace's status for you — no app to open, no link to hunt for.
Try asking it:
- “Is Riverside Fabrication open today?”
- “When did the plant status last change?”
- “Sign me up for email alerts from Riverside Fabrication.”
What it can do
- Look up the live status and note for any business that has chosen to be listed.
- Search for your workplace by name.
- Show recent status changes.
- Request email alerts for you — only after you've said yes, and your employer still approves you before anything is sent.
What it can't do
- Change a status. Only people logged in to the business can do that.
- Sign you up for text alerts. Text signup is done on the business's own page.
- Find businesses that have chosen not to be listed. Those owners can still share their page link directly.
How to connect it
Are We Working works with AI assistants that support MCP (Model Context Protocol) — a standard way for an assistant to use an outside tool. If your assistant has a place to add a “connector,” “tool,” or “MCP server,” add this address. It is free and needs no password or key:
https://areweworking.org/api/mcpMenus are named differently in every assistant, so we can't give one set of clicks that fits all of them. If yours doesn't support MCP, you can still paste your workplace's link — https://areweworking.org/your-page-name — into the chat, and many assistants will read the page. Plain-text and JSON versions are also available for assistants that prefer them: https://areweworking.org/llms.txt and https://areweworking.org/api/public/your-page-name.
We're still testing with specific assistants and will list the ones we've confirmed here, with exact steps.
Privacy
The assistant only sees what's already on the public status page. If you ask it to sign you up for alerts, it sends only your email address, and only after you agree. See our Privacy Policy.
Common questions
Your employer has to approve your request first, and alerts only go out when the status actually changes. Check your spam folder, and ask your supervisor to check their Pending approvals.
No — email alerts are unlimited on every plan. Texts are the optional upgrade.
Yes. Admins can remove any subscriber from the Subscribers card on the dashboard.
Email support@areweworking.org and a person will help.