The task library

Install CIS on your phone first. On Android, open CIS in Chrome, open the menu and choose Install app. On an iPhone, open CIS in Safari, tap Share and choose Add to Home Screen. Then, when you see a page or a LinkedIn profile you like, press Share on your phone and choose CIS. Pick which of your three brands it is for, add a line on why you want to contact them, and tap Save. You are then back where you were. Android shows CIS in the Share list; an iPhone does not yet, so there you copy the address, open CIS and share it from the browser instead. Nothing is sent to anyone, and each share saves one page or one person.

Open the person from your list, or open their full record. A bar at the top stays in view as you scroll: Call, Email, LinkedIn and Log what happened. Tap Call to ring them. If they have more than one number you will see each one labelled Mobile, Direct or Switchboard, and you pick which to ring; on a phone it opens your phone’s own dialler. Once you have called, tap Log how it went and choose what happened, so the record stays true. If there is no number, the button says Find a number: it first checks whether another of your own workspaces holds one for the same person, and if not it lets you request a search and shows you that the request is in. Nothing is saved until you tap an outcome. If a Connection Card has been made for the person, it is named under their details; a card sent by private link is named there but opens only from the link it was sent with.

Open Five to Connect. It picks five people worth a call this week, each with a reason and a way in, and it rebuilds itself each time you open it, so there is nothing to maintain. Someone who has just changed job comes first, because a move is the strongest reason to get in touch; someone whose details we know are out of date drops down and says so plainly rather than being dressed up as a warm connection. Up Next is a different list: it holds suggested stage moves and drafts for you to approve one card at a time, not a ranking of people.

Open Settings, then Automations. Each automation has three choices: Always do, Ask me first, or Never do. Anything that sends a message to someone, or that spends paid credits, always asks you first, so it never offers Always do. The workspace Owner or an Admin can change the choices; everyone else can see what is set. If you have not chosen, the standard setting applies, and the standard settings are the careful ones. Your choices are saved straight away; automatic runs start once the CIS team switches the schedule on for your workspace.

Open Connection flow. When your book needs checking, a panel at the top lists up to ten contacts worth verifying first: the highest-priority ones with no confirmed email or no company on file. Each has a Verify button that opens the contact so you can check the details and correct them. Where we hold only a LinkedIn profile for someone, the record says so, so you know that route is untested rather than assuming it works. A contact who has asked not to be contacted carries a clear mark and every contact button on the record is switched off.

Open Connection flow. When there is a real reason, the top of the page opens with a plain number, "This book is N/100 confidence", with a plain-English sentence explaining why. It is built from two separate questions kept apart on purpose: how many of your contacts can you actually reach at all, and of those, how many have been checked against a live source recently enough to trust. A book can look busy and still score low if most of it has never been checked — that is deliberate. The score is not massaged to look better than it is; a low number is telling you where to spend your next hour, not judging you. A healthy, recently checked book does not see the panel, and if a score cannot be worked out yet it shows no number rather than an invented one.

Open their record from Contacts, or from their card on Up Next. It pulls together everything CIS already holds on them in one place — their role and company, when you last spoke and what was agreed, and what CIS understands about what they need so far. Where something has not been captured yet, it says so plainly rather than guessing. It is built from your existing records each time you open it, so it is never stale and there is nothing to prepare beforehand.

Open your calling day. It puts today’s calls in front of you one at a time, in order, with everything you need for each: who they are, why now, an opening line, and a one-tap way to call or email them. Log the outcome and the next card is ready — there is nothing to prepare beforehand and nothing to look up between calls. It shows 20 people by default; adjust that between 10 and 50 for a shorter or longer session.

Start with the getting started guide — it walks you through your first hour with CIS as one clear sequence: setting up your workspace, bringing your network in, telling CIS who you want to meet, and seeing your first suggested connections. Follow it in order and you always know what comes next.

That is exactly what the getting started guide is for. It takes your first hour with CIS one step at a time — no need to figure anything out on your own — starting with setting up your workspace and ending with your first suggested connections.

Go to the sign-up page and enter your email address. CIS sends you a sign-in email with a link and a code — no password to create or remember. Click the link, or type the code, and your workspace is ready. It is free to start.

Go to the sign-in page and choose Continue with Google, or enter the same email address you used before and CIS emails you a fresh sign-in link. There is no password to remember. Google sign-in only works for an email that already has a CIS workspace or invitation; anyone else is told so and nothing is created.

Sign-in links are one-time use, so this usually just means the link was already opened (sometimes automatically, by your email provider’s own link-scanning) before you clicked it. Nothing is wrong with your account — go back to the login page and request a fresh link.

Open your account menu (the round initial in the top corner of your workspace) and choose Sign out under Account. You can also go straight to /logout at any time — either way, you're signed out and returned to the sign-in page.

If your session has lapsed, the next page you open in the main app takes you to the sign-in page; request a fresh sign-in link there. In the Control Centre views, the sidebar footer (bottom-left, where your name and workspace normally sit) reads "Not signed in" with a Sign in link instead, and never shows your name or workspace label unless you are genuinely signed in.

From your workspace, open Import. Upload your LinkedIn download (LinkedIn: Settings & Privacy → Data privacy → Download your data → Download larger data archive; LinkedIn emails you a link, a first file in about 10 minutes and the full archive within 24 hours; upload the zip as it is) or any contacts CSV. The numbered steps are on the Connectors page. CIS reads it straight away and starts mapping names, job titles, companies and LinkedIn profiles automatically — you do not need to tidy the file first. While it runs the page tells you how far it has got, and each batch of 300 people appears in Contacts as soon as it lands; a few hundred connections take about a minute and a few thousand a few minutes. Today then shows how many people are in your contacts. If the file is the wrong one, the page says which file to pick instead (the zip starting Complete_LinkedInDataExport, or Connections.csv), and nothing is saved until you confirm.

That's expected, not a fault. If a contact you bring in matches one already in your workspace (same email address or LinkedIn profile), CIS folds it into the existing record within a few seconds rather than keeping two — so you keep one richer record instead of a duplicate. Nothing is lost: any new detail on the incoming contact is added to the record that stays. This happens the same way whether the contact comes from an import or from a capture in Scout.

No. You can skip importing during sign-up and add contacts whenever you are ready — one at a time, or in a fresh import later. Nothing else in CIS depends on having imported everything first.

Yes. CIS works with whatever you bring — a handful of contacts or a full LinkedIn export. It gets more useful as your network and your history with CIS grows, but there is no minimum to get started.

CIS looks at everything it knows about your network — who you've spoken to, what they need, how long it has been — and ranks the people most worth your time today. You always see why a person is suggested; CIS explains its reasoning rather than just handing you a name.

Every contact sits somewhere on a journey from a first signal of interest through to an established, active relationship. CIS moves people along it as the relationship develops, so at a glance you can see who is just starting out and who is ready for a next step, instead of one flat contact list.

During setup — or at any time afterwards, from your workspace — answer a short set of questions in your own words: your ideal client or contact, what a strong connection looks like, anyone or anywhere that is a firm no, and any timing to know about. CIS uses your own answers, not guesswork, to judge what counts as a good match.

Yes. Every contact has its own chat you can use to ask things like “summarise what we know”, “what's the best way to open a conversation”, or “what did we last discuss”. It answers using that person's real record, not a generic script.

A connection partner is someone who has agreed to share visibility of their own professional network with CIS, so that good-fit introductions can be suggested from it. A partner always keeps control — they choose which introductions to say yes to, and nobody in their network is ever contacted without that agreement.

An introduction only ever happens with agreement on both sides. First, whoever holds the relationship agrees to make it, the person asking agrees, and the person being introduced agrees. Then John signs off every introduction, partner or not. The note is built from the partner’s own tap and the member’s own words, never a template and never written by a model, for that person to send in their own words. Nobody is introduced automatically, and no message goes out without a real person choosing to send it.

No. CIS never sends a message, makes an introduction, or takes any outward-facing action on its own. It prepares suggestions and drafts; a person always makes the final decision and does the sending.

Only if you choose to open it. The contacts you bring into CIS are private to your own workspace: they are never sold, never pooled with anyone else’s network and never matched against it. Other members never see your contact details or your notes. If you, or the owner or an admin of your workspace, switch on Introductions, other members see your name and how many people in your network fit what they are looking for, grouped by role; they see a person’s name only after you say yes to that person. If it is off, other members do not see you at all. Inside your own workspace, everyone sees the workspace’s shared contacts; on a team connections map, a colleague’s contacts show only as totals unless they choose to be named. Nobody is introduced until the person making the introduction has agreed and the person being introduced has agreed too, and John has signed it off.

CIS holds identity and contact details, professional information such as job title and employer, notes and summaries from real conversations, and a log of past contact so nobody is messaged twice by mistake. It does not collect sensitive personal information — it is built for professional, business contact data.

Email john@rethinkingwork.life and ask. Requests are honoured and responded to within one calendar month.

Yes. CIS is built around UK GDPR rights: you can ask what it holds about you, have it corrected, or have it erased, ask it to stop processing your data, object to processing — including an absolute right to object to marketing — or have your data handed over in a portable format. See the full detail, including how to complain to the ICO, on the data and privacy page.

Yes — data portability is one of your rights, covering your contacts and everything else CIS holds about you. There is no self-serve export button yet, so email john@rethinkingwork.life and ask for it in a portable format; requests are handled by hand and answered within one calendar month.

Click “unsubscribe” on any email — it's a genuine one-click opt-out that takes effect immediately. You can also just say “stop”, by reply, on a call, or in the website chat. Once you're opted out, you're opted out everywhere in CIS, for every partner, permanently — not just with whoever last messaged you. Wherever that record then shows up — a search result, Up Next, a contact's own detail page, the quick-view opened from any list — it stays visible (removing it would just make the view look quietly smaller) but carries a clear "Suppressed — do not contact" mark, and every call/email/LinkedIn/draft-message button on it is switched off rather than hidden, so nobody can reach out to you by mistake.

Open Contacts in your workspace and use the search bar to find anyone by name, company or role. People whose name matches come first; anyone found through their company or role is listed after, with a small line saying which ("Matched on company"), so a result never looks like a mistake. If it is a view you will come back to, save it as a List.

A voice profile is a short summary of how you write, so drafts sound like you and not like a template. Until you have one, CIS will not write a draft for you. The message links straight to the voice step: talk or type (at least 40 words), save, and you come back to the contact you were on.

It is where your uploaded LinkedIn connections show up, live and searchable — click a chip to filter by company, sector or seniority, ask a plain-English question to search your own contacts, click anyone to see their detail, and build your own lists. Colleagues who have also contributed show up as totals — never a name, unless that colleague has chosen to be named.

When CIS has done some homework on a contact, opening their detail shows an Intelligence panel underneath the usual company/position information: a score, a short read on what they likely need, an opening line to start the conversation with, and where the potential sits — each dated with when it was last checked. It only appears once CIS genuinely has something to say about that person; no panel just means nothing has been gathered yet, not that anything is wrong.

That is the same consent rule the rest of your map runs on, not a search limitation: your network is yours to search and share, and a colleague's contact never becomes visible to you just because it would answer your question well. If who you're after is well known across the team, ask a colleague directly.

A List is a saved group of contacts — a specific set you want to come back to, work through, or track separately from the rest of your network. Build one from a search or filter, or start one from scratch. Being added to a list is never undone by a do-not-contact flag: if someone on a list has opted out or been marked do-not-contact, they stay on the list — removing them silently would make the list look smaller than it really is — but their row carries a clear "Suppressed — do not contact" mark, so you can see they are there and know not to reach out to them.

CIS has three plans. Career OS is £29 a month or £79 a quarter; Member is £149 a month; Member Plus is £450 a month. The pricing section on the CIS homepage shows the same figures.

Email john@rethinkingwork.life and ask. There is no self-serve cancel button yet, so it is actioned by hand as soon as it is seen.

Email john@rethinkingwork.life with the details and it will be sorted out directly. There is no automated billing dispute or refund process yet.

Tap the Tell us button in the header next to your account icon on the main app, or near the top of the page on a team connections map, and it opens a small panel. Pick what kind of note it is (Something is wrong, Idea or Question) if you like, then type what you like, don't like, or wish it did, or tap the microphone and say it, then check the words and click Send. You can also tap the thumbs up or thumbs down on a person, a suggested move or an answer in Talk; a thumbs down lets you add a line about what was off. It all goes straight to John and the team; there is no need to email separately. When John answers a note, his reply arrives in Messages on Today, and begins with the note it answers.

Tap What would you like to see? on Today, on the Getting started page, or in Talk, then say it or type it. You get an honest answer: if it is a question about your people you get the answer, if it already exists you are pointed to it, and if it does not exist yet you are told so and it goes to John and the team as a note. Open the Tell us button any time to see your own notes and where each one has got to: Received (until someone picks it up), Planned, Being built, Done or Not for now. A note that says something is working is Read and noted: we keep it, and it does not become a job. Several notes about the same page can share one job, so you may see them move together. Only you can see your notes.

Career OS is your own private job search, run inside CIS: a desk that ranks what needs your attention today, a place to log every role you're chasing, a fit score and a short read on why each one suits you, a CV vault, and application tracking — all built for you alone. It sits on the same underlying network CIS keeps for introductions, but your search itself is never shared with anyone.

Paste the job's own link into Career OS — either from the prompt on your first visit or the box at the top of the Roles tab — and it's scored automatically within moments: a fit score, a short read on why it suits you, and a suggested next action. There's nothing else to fill in by hand.

When it genuinely has one, yes — a role's dossier shows anyone your network already reaches at that employer, labelled plainly as a graph match to verify rather than a guaranteed relationship until the tie is confirmed. Career OS can also draft a short, personal note to that person (or a cold opener if there's no match yet) in your own voice — you copy it and send it yourself; nothing ever sends on its own.

Not today. A "help others get connected" option is designed for Career OS — switched off by default, always reversible, sharing only your willingness to help rather than your actual contact list, and built so every introduction still needs your specific yes before anyone is approached. Your own job search stays completely separate from that and is never visible to anyone else on either side. It has not shipped yet — this is the plan, not something live today.

Scout is a companion tool that sits alongside LinkedIn in your browser. It shows you CIS's record for whoever you're looking at, and lets you log a call, note or message without leaving the page. It's most useful once you're actively working a list of contacts day to day. Its Message tab writes a message in your voice, and now asks "why now" alongside the angle — pre-filled from the queue's own reason where there is one, always editable, and safe to leave blank (a blank reason means the draft simply says nothing about timing, rather than inventing one).

Yes, but it is off until switched on in the Scout popup, separately in each browser you use it in. Once it is on, and you and someone already in your CIS have agreed a day and time in the LinkedIn conversation you have open, Scout shows one card, for example “Book Fri 9 Oct, 10:00 with Sarah?”, with the date, time, length and email address ready for you to change. Nothing is booked or sent until you press the card’s button, and the button says plainly what it will send. For now, sending the calendar invite itself (with a video link, a private prep note in your calendar, and the meeting recorded against the contact) is limited to the account owner; anyone else gets a ready-to-send invite opened in their own calendar to review and send themselves, and nothing is recorded in CIS. If the time changes or the meeting is called off in the chat, Scout offers a card to move or cancel it, and again nothing happens until you press the button; this only works for a meeting booked from the same browser, because that is where Scout remembers it. To do that it keeps, on your computer only, the time, the contact’s name and the email address you sent the invite to. Scout reads the conversation in your browser only to spot an agreed time: the words of your messages are never sent or stored by this feature, and it stays quiet in group conversations and while Career OS mode is on.

Career OS runs a safety check on every CV before it can be attached to an application. It checks the CV’s text for the kind of thing that should never reach a real employer by accident — an unfilled placeholder note (like a bracketed reminder to add a detail later), a "to be confirmed" marker, a leftover template field, or text that has come out corrupted (garbled characters from a bad file). If it finds any of these, it blocks the attach or upload and tells you exactly what it found and roughly where, so you can fix the CV itself and try again. Nothing is ever silently sent through — the check only ever stops and reports, it never edits your CV for you.

It is the first thing you see when you open your workspace: the meetings you have today that CIS can match to someone it knows, each marked as someone we know, someone we have little on file for, or someone not in your contacts yet. It is built fresh from live data every time you open the page — never a stale digest from yesterday — and if nothing is prepared it says so and points you to connect your calendar.

Open a person from a list and the bar at the bottom stays in view. Your phone’s Back button, or a swipe in from the edge, closes the person and returns you to the same place in the list. To go on to the next person without going back, tap the arrows beside the count (for example “3 of 40”) or swipe left for the next person and right for the one before. The same arrows work in Connection flow, on the connections map and when you open a company.

Yes. Ask “how many directors do I know” or “how many people are in construction” and the number is counted exactly from your own contacts, not guessed from a short list. Ask who you last spoke to, or what is on your Five to Connect, and it answers from your own records. For a company it counts people the same way Reach and Companies do, so the three always agree.

Reach is a single search box: type a company name and it searches your own network for anyone already there or connected to someone there, ranked by how strong that tie really is and how many hops it takes to reach them. Where it finds a genuine door, you can ask for the intro directly from the result — nothing is sent yet, it only creates a pending request that still needs the agreement of the person making the introduction and John's sign-off. If your network has no door into that company, it says so honestly rather than forcing a weak result, and may suggest a company where you do have a strong one instead.

Nothing has been lost. Every page that loads a list now gives up waiting after a few seconds and says why, instead of sitting on Loading. Press Try again once. If the page has a search box, such as Reach, you can type a company name and search straight away without waiting for the suggestions. If it still does not load, reload the page, and if that fails too, tell us with the Tell us button and name the page.

Next is your queue of suggested actions — move someone to a new stage, draft a message, add a note, ask for fresher details on someone, or follow up on something gone quiet. Every card states, before you click, exactly what Approve will do (moved to a stage, or queued as a draft for your review — never sent automatically) and the plain-English reason it was suggested, with fuller evidence one click away. Skip needs no reason, though you can add one. Nothing acts on its own — the queue only ever offers a suggestion for you to decide on.

Your connected accounts page has a drag-and-drop area for exactly this — drop in a PDF, Word document, PowerPoint, text file or CSV and it stays with your own workspace, not buried in a shared drive. A PDF is read automatically and you get a short summary and status straight away; other file types are stored as-is for reference. A file that could not be read automatically says so plainly next to it, with the reason, rather than sitting there silently — it is still saved either way. Files stay capped at 10MB each.

Yes, once you have reconnected your own Google account with the extra permission on the connected accounts page. Every connected mailbox already gets a card on Next when a reply comes in on a thread CIS knows about. For John's own account, that card also reads the reply and adds a plain verdict — a genuine reply, a meeting request, an out-of-office notice, a polite no thanks, or an unsubscribe — and, for a real reply or meeting request, a short draft answer in his own voice sits right there to copy into Gmail and send. An unsubscribe request is handled automatically (the address is suppressed, no card needed). For every other connected mailbox nothing changes: the reply still surfaces a card, it just has no verdict or draft attached, because CIS only ever reads the sender/date on those, never the message itself.

It is a one-off question card someone in your network sent through CIS — the page shows plainly who it is from and why they are asking before you answer anything, and answering takes one click, no account needed. If you already have a CIS account for that workspace, the same question also waits for you under "Asks for you" inside the app, so you never have to hunt for the original link again. You can change your answer for a short window after submitting; after that, ask whoever sent it to resend if you need to correct it.