Wise chat in Navisworks is a dockable AI assistant pane that answers questions about your published clash sets in plain language, updates clash statuses and assignments directly from chat, creates clash matrices conversationally, and drives Navisworks itself — selecting, isolating, and zooming to clashes on request.
Why use it
Instead of switching between Navisworks and the browser, you can manage published clashes without leaving your model: ask "what's outstanding on Level 2?", get the clashes back as interactive cards, set their status or contact with a click, and have Wise show any of them in the model instantly.
Who can use it
- You must be signed in to the plugin.
- You need a Clash Management plan (Pro, Business, or an active trial). The Starter plan does not include Wise chat.
- You need the Full Suite plugin installation. If you installed the Starter edition, opening chat shows: "ClashWiseAI Assistant is not installed. Download and install the latest full version of ClashWiseAI at https://clashwise.ai/download."
Where to find it
On the ClashWiseAI ribbon tab, in the Clash Management panel, click Chat (or press Alt+5). The button is a toggle — click it again to hide the pane. The pane (titled ClashWiseAI) docks on the right by default and can be resized or repositioned like any Navisworks pane.
How to start a conversation
- Click Chat on the ClashWiseAI ribbon tab (Alt+5).
- A welcome card appears — "Hi — I'm Wise" — with three tappable starters: What can you do?, Give me an overview of my clash sets, and How do clash matrices work?
- Optionally focus the conversation on one clash set. A picker card asks "Focus this conversation on a clash set? (optional)" and lists your published sets with their clash counts, matrix status, and analysis state. Pick a set, or choose No specific set — keep it general. Focusing a set also lists its first clashes as cards.
- Type your message in the composer. Enter sends; Ctrl+Enter starts a new line.
- Wise streams its reply live. While it works you'll see "Wise is thinking…", and any model or data operations appear as a checklist of progress rows.
Suggestion chips often appear above the composer — tap one to send it.
Clash cards — working with clashes in chat
When Wise returns clashes, each appears as an interactive card showing its viewpoint thumbnail, clash #number and title, the two elements involved, status and priority pills, and its location (level and grid).
- Click the card to show that clash in Navisworks — Wise selects the element pair, colors it, and applies the saved viewpoint.
- Click the #number to open the clash in the ClashWise web app (Open in ClashWise).
- Edit workflow fields directly with the card's chips: Set status, Set priority, Set contact (on sets with a matrix assigned), and Set due date (with a calendar and overdue indicators). A matched-rule chip lets you pick or clear the clash's matrix rule, or jump to it with Open in the clash matrix. These edits update the cloud record immediately.
- Clashes you've edited by hand show an analysis-locked chip — "Manually edited — analysis keeps these values" — so a future analysis run won't overwrite your changes.
- Comments: each card has an expandable comment list and an add-note box (up to 1,000 characters).
- Bulk edit: hover a card to reveal its checkbox, select several, and use the Status / Priority / Contact dropdowns in the selection bar to update them all at once.
- The card list footer offers refresh (pull the latest statuses, assignments, and rules), Show all in view, Select all in model, Save as filtered set, and Show next for paging.
Wise is also aware of which cards are currently on screen — you can say "assign these to mechanical" or "what do those have in common?" and Wise resolves "these" to the visible cards.
What Wise can do in your model
Wise can read your current selection and its properties, the active clash, model context (files, units, categories), and the state of Clash Detective tests. On request it can:
- Search model elements by property and select the matches, or find similar elements.
- Select, isolate (hide everything else and zoom), or focus (gray out context and highlight the selection) elements and clashes, and reset the view.
- Show a specific clash — selection, colors, and saved viewpoint applied.
- Create a native Navisworks search set from results.
- Export a report of its findings to a file (a Save AI Report dialog appears).
- Open the plugin's other windows for you: Publish, Update, Sync, Group Clashes, and Sets and Clashes.
Each operation appears in the chat as a progress row with a check (done) or cross (failed), so you always see exactly what Wise did.
Creating a clash matrix in chat
Wise can walk you through creating a web clash matrix without leaving Navisworks:
- Ask Wise to create a matrix (or click Create one in this chat on a set that shows the amber No matrix chip in the set picker).
- A property-mapping card asks you to "Select which properties represent the class and discipline for each source." Review and Continue.
- A matrix configuration card lets you name the matrix, review the element classes, edit disciplines (including a bulk find-and-replace), then click Generate Matrix.
- A Matrix created card confirms with Open matrix and Copy link buttons, and a live progress card tracks the analysis run through to "Analysis complete".
Conversation history and context
- Conversations are stored in the cloud. The collapsible history list shows past conversations by title and date; reopening one restores the messages, the record of what Wise did, the clash cards (refreshed to their live state), and the conversation's clash-set focus.
- Rename a conversation with the pencil icon (Rename conversation, up to 120 characters) or remove it with Delete conversation. Start a fresh one with Start new conversation (+), and use Refresh conversations to reload the list.
- Conversations you had with Wise in the web 3D viewer also appear here, listed as "Wise — {clash set name}".
- A scope chip shows the current focus: All clash sets or Focused: {set name} (click the ✕ to clear it).
- A selection chip — "Selection: {N} item(s)" — shares your current Navisworks selection with Wise as context. Untick its checkbox if you don't want the selection included.
Wise actions
Each message you send that does AI work counts as one Wise action against your plan's allowance. Editing cards, refreshing, and browsing history don't consume actions. When you've used 80% or more of your allowance, an amber chip appears in the pane showing how many actions you have left. See the "Wise Actions and AI Limits" article for allowances and what happens at the limit.
Tips
- Focus the conversation on one clash set for the most precise answers and cards.
- Use your Navisworks selection as context: select some elements, then ask "what clashes involve these?"
- Ask Wise to save useful result lists as a filtered set or a native search set so you can return to them later.
- Lead with clash numbers (for example "show me clash #42") — the #N is each clash's permanent identity within its set.
Troubleshooting
- "ClashWiseAI Assistant is not installed." — you have the Starter edition of the plugin. Download the Full Suite installer from https://clashwise.ai/download.
- "You do not have access to the AI Clash Assistant feature. Please contact support for assistance." — your account doesn't have an active Clash Management plan. Check your subscription, or contact support@clashwise.ai.
- "Connection to ClashWise failed" — a network issue interrupted the conversation. Dropped connections retry once automatically; if the error persists, check your internet connection and send the message again.
- "The assistant asked for too many model operations in one turn. Please try again." — the request was too large for a single reply. Break it into smaller steps.
- The set picker says you have no published clash sets — Wise works with published data. Publish a clash test from the ClashWise ribbon first (see the Publish, Update & Sync Clash Sets section).
Limitations
- Wise answers from your published clash sets. Clash results that only exist in Clash Detective and haven't been published aren't visible to Wise (though Wise can read your live selection and Clash Detective test counts as context).
- You can't attach images to a chat message.
- Wise does not run clash detection — detection stays in Navisworks Clash Detective.
Related topics
- Meet Wise — Your AI Assistant (this section)
- Wise Actions and AI Limits (this section)
- Publishing Clash Sets — see the Publish, Update & Sync Clash Sets section
- Creating a Matrix from a Clash Set — see the Clash Matrix section