For everyone · Answer · 5 min ·
The assistant didn't join my meeting
Why the meeting assistant skipped a call, how to send it in while the meeting is still running, and how to make sure it joins next time.
The meeting assistant joins calls from your connected calendar. When it doesn't show up, the cause is almost always one of the reasons below. If the meeting is still running, send the assistant in now; then go through the checklist so it joins on its own next time.
Meeting still running? Send it in now
- In Scalign, open the meeting from Calendar or from the home page.
- The banner at the top says Meeting is in progress and no assistant is in it. Click Join Meeting.
- The banner changes to Assistant is joining the meeting, then to Assistant is in the waiting room if your call has one. Admit it like any other participant, and it starts recording.
Join Meeting only appears while the meeting is in progress, and only for meetings on your connected calendar that have a meeting link. Whatever was said before the assistant joined isn't recorded.
Why it didn't join
Go through these in order. Everything here is checked on your own account: a colleague's settings never affect your meetings.
Your calendar isn't connected, or needs reconnecting
The assistant only knows about meetings on the calendar you connected under Settings → Assistant.
- Not connected: connect Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook.
- Needs reconnect: your calendar stopped accepting the connection, usually after a password change or an IT policy change. Nothing is scheduled until you click Reconnect. While this is the case, a Reconnect Calendar chip also shows at the top of Scalign.
- Needs IT approval: your Microsoft organization requires an administrator to approve Scalign once. See Connect Microsoft: Teams and Outlook.
Auto-join is off for this kind of meeting
Under Settings → Assistant → Choose which meetings it joins there are two switches: Join external meetings and Join internal meetings. Both are off until you turn them on. Onboarding suggests external only, so an internal meeting is skipped unless you switched the second one on as well.
An external meeting has at least one attendee whose email isn't on your company's domains. Your workspace admin sets those under Settings → General → Your company. If a domain is missing there, meetings with your own colleagues count as external; if a customer's domain is listed by mistake, their calls count as internal.
The meeting has no link
The assistant needs a meeting link in the calendar event. All-day events, room bookings and phone-only meetings have none, and some invitations only put the link in the description, where the calendar doesn't expose it. Open the meeting in Scalign before it starts: if the Assistant will join switch at the top right is missing, Scalign didn't find a link. Add the video-call link to the event in your calendar, or record the meeting with the desktop recorder instead.
It was switched off for this meeting
Anyone with access to the meeting in Scalign can switch Assistant will join off for a single meeting, which overrides your settings. Open the meeting before it starts and check the switch at the top right: it reads Assistant will not join when it's off. Flip it back on and the assistant is scheduled again, even for a meeting it wouldn't normally join.
The event was created or changed late
Scalign schedules the assistant when your calendar syncs, for meetings starting within the next three days, and the assistant joins about two minutes before the start time. A meeting created or moved minutes before it starts can miss that window. Use Join Meeting once the meeting is running. A small assistant icon on the meeting on your home page tells you a bot really is scheduled.
Nobody let it in
The assistant waits in the waiting room for 10 minutes and leaves if nobody admits it. It also leaves if nobody else joins the call within 10 minutes of its arrival. Either way there is no recording, and the meeting doesn't count toward your plan. If the host declined the recording request, or the call rejected the assistant, the banner on the meeting page says Assistant isn't recording this meeting. Ask the host to admit it, or send it in again with Join Meeting.
The meeting isn't on your calendar
The assistant can't be sent to an arbitrary link. If you were forwarded a meeting without being an attendee, or you joined from someone else's invitation, it isn't on your calendar and won't be joined. Add it to your calendar before it starts, or use the desktop recorder, which records any call from your computer.
If the meeting is already over
A meeting nobody recorded can't be recovered. For the next one, check the switches above, and consider turning on Record automatically for the desktop recorder under Settings → Assistant → Add the desktop recorder as a backup.
If the assistant was in the call but the recording shows Almost nothing was captured in this recording, the audio didn't come through or nobody spoke for long enough. That recording has no summary; see No summary, or the wrong language.
Still stuck? Email support@scalign.ai with the meeting's date and title.