Prepare for a meeting
By the end of this guide, an agent writes a one-page brief for your next meeting from the invite, your recent email with the attendees, the CRM record and your Drive files, on request or every weekday before your meetings.
Who it’s for
- Account managers and sales reps who prepare for customer calls.
- Executives and their chiefs of staff who want a short note before each external or board meeting.
- Anyone who opens five apps before a call to remember where things stand.
What you’ll set up
| Piece | What it does | Needed? |
|---|---|---|
| Connectors | Let the agent read your calendar, email and CRM | Yes, for the full brief |
| Task | Writes the brief for one meeting | Yes |
| Skill | Keeps the brief’s sections and length the same every time | Recommended |
| Agent | Holds the skill, the connectors and the permissions | Recommended for the scheduled version |
| Automation | Writes tomorrow’s briefs every weekday | Optional |
Which apps you can use depends on what your organization has set up. Common ones are a calendar app (such as Google Calendar or Outlook), an email app (such as Gmail or Outlook) and a CRM (such as Salesforce or HubSpot). In the composer’s Connectors list, an app marked Ask an admin hasn’t been set up for your organization yet, so an admin has to turn it on. See Connector status.
The brief is written on request or on a schedule you set. An automation you create on the Automations page can’t start from a new calendar event, so to have a brief ready each morning, use a weekday schedule (step 8).
Steps
-
Connect your apps. In the composer, click the Connectors icon. Pick your calendar, email and CRM apps. If one shows Connect, click it and sign in. If it shows Ask an admin, ask your admin, and attach an export or notes from Drive in the meantime.
-
Gather your files. Keep account files in one Drive folder, for example “Juniper Outdoor Co.”, with past proposals, the last QBR deck and call notes. See Drive.
-
Open the composer and pick the output. Go to Home, pick a workspace, click Make and choose Document.
-
Write the brief. Name the meeting and say what you want out of it. For example:
Prepare me for tomorrow’s 10:00 call with Juniper Outdoor Co. Read the invite on my calendar, my email with the attendees from the last 60 days, the Juniper account and open opportunities in the CRM, and the files in @Juniper Outdoor Co. Write a one-page brief: who is attending and their roles, where things stand, open questions and promises we made, risks, and the three things I want to leave the call with. Cite where each point comes from. Save it to the Juniper Outdoor Co. folder.
-
Mention the apps and the folder. The apps you picked in step 1 are already in the brief as mentions. Type @ to mention the Drive folder.
-
Send it and answer approvals. Press Enter. Depending on the agent’s permissions, it may ask before it uses each connected app. Click Allow once, or open the menu beside it to allow more for this task. See Answer approvals.
-
Read the brief. Open it from the task or with Open in Drive. Check names, dates and numbers before the meeting. Reply in the task to change it, for example “Add the last three support tickets they opened.”
-
Run it every weekday (optional). Once the task gives a good brief, go to your workspace’s Automations and click Create automation. Under Agent, pick an agent that has your calendar, email and CRM on its Setup tab. Under Instructions, write for example:
Find my meetings tomorrow with anyone outside our company. For each one, write a one-page meeting brief using the Meeting brief skill. Save each brief to Drive > Meeting briefs, named ”
.docx”. Don’t send any email. Click Add trigger > Schedule, choose Weekdays and an afternoon time in your time zone. See Automations.
Make it a skill
Save the brief’s format as a skill so every brief reads the same. Follow Create a skill, then paste text like this into the body:
Code
Tips
- Start from a ready-made agent. Go to Agents > Starting points. “Chief of staff” works from your inbox and calendar and can write a prep note the evening before a meeting. “Account researcher” writes pre-call briefs from the invite, the CRM and public sources. Click Use to create your own copy, then add the Meeting brief skill. See Create an agent.
- Set permissions for reading, not sending. For the agent you schedule, open Permissions and allow Using connected apps so runs don’t stop to ask, or use Ask for apps for on-request briefs so it asks first. Agents that can send email can do it without asking on Full access, so check the preset before you share the agent. See Agent permissions.
- Say “Don’t send any email” in the instructions. The brief only needs to read.
- Check whose account the agent uses. Most apps make each person sign in, so the brief shows what the person who runs it can see. See Give a connector to an agent.
- Test as a task before you schedule. Check the first few weekday runs under Runs and fix the instructions with Edit.
Next steps
- Connectors: connect your calendar, email and CRM, and what each status means.
- Create an agent: set up a team agent with the right connectors and preset.
- Automations: run the brief every weekday.
- Connectors for admins: how an admin turns an app on for the organization and its workspaces.