Record your first meeting

Scalign builds everything from your meetings: the summary, the follow-up, the account playbook and your next moves. So the first thing to do is record one. There are two ways to do it, and each takes a few minutes to set up.

Two ways to record

• The meeting assistant joins your Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams meetings from your calendar, as a participant. There's nothing to install. Once it's set up, it shows up to your meetings on its own, and the meeting's host lets it in.
• The desktop recorder is an app on your Mac or Windows PC. It records the meeting from your own computer, so nobody new joins the meeting. It also records meetings that happen in a room.

You'll find both in Scalign under Settings → Assistant.

Which one should I use?

Use the meeting assistant when

• Your meetings are on Zoom, Google Meet or Microsoft Teams, and they're in your calendar with a meeting link.
• You want it to show up to your meetings on its own, and either you're the host or the host is happy to let it in.
• You're comfortable with a participant named after your workspace (for example "Acme Assistant") joining the meeting.

Use the desktop recorder when

• The meeting is in person.
• You'd rather nothing joins the meeting.
• Someone else is hosting, and you'd rather not ask them to let an extra participant in.
• The meeting isn't on your calendar, or the invite has no meeting link (a forwarded invite, for example).

Use both if you want a backup. They work side by side, and if both record the same meeting, Scalign combines them into one meeting and keeps the better transcript.

Option 1: Record with the meeting assistant

1. In Scalign, go to Settings → Assistant.
2. Under Connect your calendar, click Connect and choose Connect using Google or Connect using Microsoft.
3. Sign in with your work account and allow calendar access. Scalign only reads your calendar and never changes your events.

1. Under Choose which meetings it joins, switch on Join external meetings (meetings with anyone outside your company), Join internal meetings (only your colleagues), or both. Both start switched off.

That's it. From now on, the assistant joins those meetings about two minutes before they start and records them.

Let the assistant into the meeting

When the meeting has a waiting room, the assistant waits there until the person who set up the meeting (the host) lets it in, the same way they'd admit any guest. If it's your meeting, admit it when it shows up. If a customer or someone else sent the invite, they're the one who lets it in, so give them a heads-up that Acme Assistant (or whatever your workspace calls it) will be asking to join.

If nobody lets it in within 10 minutes, it leaves and the meeting isn't recorded. You can send it back in with Join Meeting (below), or record that meeting with the desktop recorder instead.

Using Outlook and Teams? Some companies require an IT admin to approve Scalign once before your calendar can connect. See Connect Microsoft: Teams and Outlook.

Record a meeting that's already started

Open the meeting in Scalign (from Calendar or the home page) and click Join Meeting. The host still needs to let it in from the waiting room. Anything said before it joined isn't recorded.

Keep it out of one meeting

Open the meeting in Scalign and switch Assistant will join off. That only changes this one meeting. It works the other way too: switch it on for a meeting it wouldn't normally join.

Option 2: Record with the desktop recorder

You need a Mac with Apple silicon (M1 or later) on macOS 13 or later, or a Windows 10 or 11 PC (64-bit).

1. In Scalign, go to Settings → Assistant. Under Add the desktop recorder, click macOS or Windows.
2. Install it. Mac: open the download, drag Scalign Assistant into Applications and open it from there. Windows: run Scalign-Assistant-Setup.exe.
3. In the app, click Sign in and sign in with your Scalign account in the browser window that opens.
4. Mac only: allow the three permissions the app asks for: Accessibility (to notice when a meeting starts), Microphone (your voice) and System audio (everyone else's voices).
5. Join your next meeting as usual. When the Meeting detected notification pops up, click Start recording.

Prefer not to click anything? Switch on Record automatically under Add the desktop recorder in Scalign (it's called Auto-record in the app), and it records every meeting it detects.

For a meeting in a room, open the app and click Record in-person instead. See How do I record an in-person meeting?

Finalize the recording

Desktop recordings need one quick check before Scalign analyzes them. Once the recording is processed, it shows as Needs finalizing under History in the app. Open it, confirm who was in the meeting and who each voice belongs to, and click Finalize meeting. More in Wrong or missing speaker names: how Finalize works.

The full setup, including troubleshooting, is in Install the desktop recorder.

After your first meeting

Once the recording is processed, open the meeting in Scalign. You'll find:

• A summary of what was said and agreed.
• Suggested Moves: the next steps to move the deal forward, ready to act on from the same page.
• A follow-up email written from the meeting, if you've connected your email.
• The company and the people you met, added to Scalign automatically.

Good next reads: Follow up after a meeting and Ask anything about a meeting.

Common questions

Do I need both?

No, one is enough. Using both gives you a backup, and Scalign combines the two recordings into one meeting.

Will people see that I'm recording?

With the meeting assistant, yes: it joins as a participant named after your workspace. The desktop recorder doesn't join the meeting, so tell people at the start that you're recording.

Who can see my recordings?

See Who sees your recordings for the default and how to make a recording private.

The assistant didn't join my meeting

Usually the calendar isn't connected, the switch for that kind of meeting is off, or the invite has no meeting link. The assistant didn't join my meeting walks through every reason.

Still stuck? Email support@scalign.ai.