This guide provides step-by-step setup instructions for every automation in our 16 Circleback Automations That Save Hours Every Week blog post. Each walkthrough was built by asking the Circleback Assistant how to set it up.

Before you start, make sure automations are enabled for your workspace. All automations follow the same core pattern: set a trigger → add an action → choose a destination → save.

For a general overview, see Getting started with automations.

1. Deal summary to CRM after every sales call

What it does: Automatically pushes a structured deal summary to Salesforce or HubSpot after every tagged sales call.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Add a trigger condition:

3. Option A: Filter by your Sales tag

4. Option B: Filter by meeting name pattern (e.g., "contains 'Discovery'" or "contains 'Demo'")

5. You can combine conditions with "and"/"or" logic

Step 2: Add an AI insights action

1. Select Generate insights with AI from the actions menu

2. Create a custom insight with structured fields:

3. Key Discussion Points

4. Objections Raised

5. Next Steps

6. Deal Stage Signals

7. Write a prompt describing what you want extracted — be specific about the format

Step 3: Push to your CRM

If using Salesforce: 1. Add Salesforce as a second action 2. Connect your Salesforce account 3. Choose to update opportunities (matches by invitee email → contact) 4. Select which meeting outcomes to include (notes, action items, insights)

If using HubSpot: 1. Add HubSpot as a second action 2. Choose to update deals 3. Select your meeting outcomes

If using another CRM: - Use Zapier or Make to connect to Pipedrive, Affinity, or other apps - Or use the Webhook action for custom integrations

Step 4: Save and enable

1. Name your automation (e.g., "Sales Call → CRM Summary")

2. Click Create

The automation runs automatically after each matching call — your CRM gets updated before you've left Zoom.

2. Competitive mentions to a dedicated Slack channel

What it does: Detects competitor mentions in sales calls and pushes a digest to your #competitive-intel Slack channel.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Filter by your Sales tag, or by meeting name pattern (e.g., "contains 'Discovery'" or "contains 'Demo'")

Step 2: Add an AI insights action

1. Select Generate insights with AI

2. Create a custom insight called "Competitive Mentions"

3. Write a prompt like:

Extract any mentions of competitors discussed in this call. For each mention, include: the competitor name, what the prospect said about them, and any context about how they're evaluating alternatives. If no competitors were mentioned, return "None."

1. Add structured fields: Competitor Name, What Was Said, Context / Evaluation Status

Step 3: Send to Slack

1. Add Slack as a second action

2. Select your #competitive-intel channel

3. For private channels, add the Circleback app to the channel first (Channel details → Integrations → Apps)

4. Include: insights, meeting name, attendees, and a link to full notes

Step 4: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Competitor Intel → Slack")

2. Click Create

Pro tip: Share this automation with your whole sales team so it runs on everyone's calls — go to the automation's … menu → Share → enable for your workspace.

3. Discovery call scorecard to Slack

What it does: Generates a structured scorecard after every discovery call with questions asked, pain points, budget signals, and more.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Filter by meeting name pattern (e.g., "contains 'Discovery'"), or by your Sales tag + name pattern for tighter targeting, or create a dedicated "Discovery" tag

Step 2: Add an AI insights action

1. Select Generate insights with AI

2. Create a custom insight called "Discovery Call Scorecard"

3. Add structured fields:

4. Questions Asked — key discovery questions the rep asked

5. Pain Points Uncovered — prospect's challenges and frustrations

6. Budget Signals — mentions of budget, pricing sensitivity, or spend

7. Timeline Indicators — urgency, decision timeframe, implementation deadlines

8. Decision-Maker Involvement — who's involved, who has final say

9. Overall Score (optional) — have AI rate the call quality 1–5

10. Write a prompt like:

Analyze this discovery call and score it across the following dimensions. Be specific and quote the prospect where relevant. If a category wasn't covered, note it as "Not discussed."

Step 3: Send to Slack

1. Add Slack as a second action

2. Select your sales team channel (e.g., #sales-team or #discovery-calls)

3. Include: insights, meeting name, attendees, and link to full notes

Step 4: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Discovery Scorecard → Slack")

2. Click Create

Pro tip: Share this workspace-wide so it runs for your entire sales team. Managers can review scorecards async without joining every call.

4. Follow-up email draft after prospect meetings

What it does: Generates a personalized draft follow-up email after every prospect meeting, ready to review and send.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Filter by your Sales tag, or by meeting name pattern, or by attendee domain (exclude your company's domain to catch external meetings)

Step 2: Add a draft email action

1. Select Draft email from the actions menu

2. Configure the recipient:

3. To: Select "External attendees" so it auto-populates with your prospect's email

4. Write an AI prompt to generate the email body:

Write a professional follow-up email based on this meeting. Include: a thank you and reference to a specific topic we discussed, a brief recap of their key challenges or goals mentioned, any commitments or next steps we agreed to, and a clear call-to-action for the next step. Keep it concise, warm, and personalized. Don't be generic.

Step 3: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Prospect Follow-up Draft")

2. Click Create

The draft email lands in your inbox right after the call ends — review, tweak if needed, and send while the conversation is still fresh.

Pro tip: Pair this with a Slack notification so you get pinged when the draft is ready.

5. Sales meeting feed to Slack with pipeline context

What it does: Pushes structured deal intelligence to a #sales-pipeline Slack channel after each sales call, creating a running feed you can review anytime.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Filter by your Sales tag

Step 2: Add an AI insights action

1. Select Generate insights with AI

2. Create fields:

3. Deal Stage Signals — where this deal sits in the pipeline

4. Objections Raised — concerns or pushback from the prospect

5. Commitments Made — next steps, promises, follow-ups

Step 3: Send to Slack

1. Add Slack as a second action

2. Push to #sales-pipeline or similar channel

3. Include: meeting name, attendees, and insights

Step 4: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Sales Pipeline Feed → Slack")

2. Click Create

This gives you a running feed throughout the week — every sales call drops structured intel into Slack as it happens.

For weekly digests: On Fridays, use Circleback Ask: "What objections came up in sales calls this week?" or "Summarize all sales meetings this week, grouped by company." For a fully automated weekly rollup, route meeting data to a Google Sheet via Zapier and set up a scheduled Zap to compile and send the digest.

6. Auto-tag meetings by type

What it does: Automatically tags your meetings based on name patterns, attendee domains, or AI analysis of the conversation — so every other tag-based automation works reliably.

Option A: Build an automation

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Leave conditions blank (so it runs on all meetings), or filter to specific meeting types

3. Select Auto-tag from the actions menu

4. Map your tagging rules:

1. Name it (e.g., "Auto-tag Meetings")

2. Click Create

3. Share with your workspace so it runs for everyone

Option B: Use AI-powered auto-tagging

Circleback can also analyze meeting content and auto-apply tags based on what was actually discussed — not just the meeting title. This catches meetings that weren't named clearly but are obviously sales calls, interviews, etc.

Enable this in Settings → Tags → Auto-tagging.

Pro tip: Auto-tagging is powerful when combined with other automations. Tag meetings automatically, then use those tags to trigger downstream actions (Slack notifications, CRM updates, customer feedback extraction, etc.).

7. Meeting summary to the right Slack channel

What it does: Routes meeting summaries to the right Slack channel based on team or project tags. The most popular Circleback automation.

This automation is covered in full detail in the blog post, since it's the one most people build first. The short version:

Step 1: Create one automation per channel pairing

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Add a trigger (meeting name pattern like "contains 'standup'" or a team tag like "Engineering")

3. Add Slack as the action

4. Select the destination channel (#engineering, #marketing, etc.)

5. Include: summary/notes, action items, attendees, link to full meeting

Step 2: Repeat for each team

Step 3: Share with your workspace

Go to each automation's … menu → Share → enable for your workspace. For private channels, add the Circleback app first.

Tips: Be specific with conditions — if "standup" appears in multiple teams' meetings, combine conditions (e.g., name contains "standup" AND attendee includes "@engineering.com"). Start with 2–3 core channels, then expand.

8. Action items to your project management tool

What it does: Pushes extracted action items with owners and deadlines to Linear, Notion, or any PM tool via Zapier.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Choose which meetings should push action items:

3. All meetings: Leave conditions blank

4. Specific teams: Filter by tag (e.g., "Engineering," "Product")

5. Specific meeting types: Filter by name pattern

Step 2: Connect your project management tool

If using Linear: 1. Add Linear as the action 2. Connect your Linear account 3. Select the team/project where tasks should land 4. Action items automatically become Linear issues with owners assigned

If using Notion: 1. Add Notion as the action 2. Connect your Notion workspace 3. Select the database where tasks should go 4. Map action items to your database properties

If using Asana, Jira, Monday, or others: 1. Add Zapier or Make as the action 2. Set up a Zap that creates tasks in your tool with owner + deadline fields mapped

Step 3: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Action Items → Linear")

2. Click Create

3. Share with your workspace so it runs for everyone

Pro tip: Create multiple automations to route action items to different places based on meeting type — engineering standups to Linear, marketing syncs to Asana, product planning to Notion.

9. Meeting notes to Notion or Google Docs

What it does: Automatically saves full meeting notes — summary, action items, transcript link — to a Notion database or Google Doc after every meeting.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Choose which meetings should save notes:

3. All meetings: Leave conditions blank

4. Specific types: Filter by tag or name pattern

Step 2: Connect your destination

If using Notion: 1. Add Notion as the action 2. Connect your Notion workspace 3. Select the database where notes should go 4. Map meeting data to your database properties (title, date, attendees, summary, action items)

If using Google Docs: 1. Add Google Docs as the action 2. Connect your Google account 3. Select the shared folder where docs should be saved 4. Each meeting creates a new doc with the full notes

Step 3: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Meeting Notes → Notion" or "Meeting Notes → Google Docs")

2. Click Create

3. Share with your workspace so it runs for everyone

Pro tip: Create multiple automations to route different meeting types to different destinations:

10. Customer feedback to a product channel

What it does: Extracts feature requests, complaints, and praise from customer calls and pushes them to a #product-feedback Slack channel.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Filter by your Customer check-in or Customer interview tag, or by meeting name pattern (e.g., "contains 'customer'" or "contains 'check-in'"), or combine tags with OR logic

Step 2: Add an AI insights action

1. Select Generate insights with AI

2. Create a custom insight called "Customer Feedback"

3. Add structured fields:

4. Feature Requests — what they wish the product did

5. Complaints / Pain Points — frustrations, bugs, friction

6. Praise — what they love, what's working well

7. Verbatim Quotes (optional) — exact words for extra impact

8. Write a prompt like:

Extract customer feedback from this call. Categorize into: feature requests (what they want built), complaints (what's frustrating them), and praise (what they love). Include direct quotes where possible. If a category has nothing, mark it "None mentioned."

Step 3: Send to Slack

1. Add Slack as a second action

2. Select your #product-feedback channel

3. Include: insights, meeting name, attendees, and link to full notes

Step 4: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Customer Feedback → Product")

2. Click Create

3. Share with your workspace so it captures calls from your whole CS/Sales team

Pro tip: After a month, ask Circleback Ask: "What feature requests came up most often in customer calls this month?" Patterns will surface fast.

11. Client-facing meeting recap

What it does: Generates a polished, client-appropriate recap email draft — no internal jargon — after external meetings.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Filter by tag (e.g., Sales, Customer check-in), or by meeting name pattern, or by attendee domain (exclude your company's domain to catch all external meetings)

Step 2: Add a draft email action

1. Select Draft email from the actions menu

2. Configure the recipient:

3. To: Select "External attendees" to auto-populate with your client's email

4. Write an AI prompt for a client-appropriate recap:

Write a polished meeting recap suitable for sending directly to the client. Include: brief thank you and meeting context, key topics discussed (clear, professional language — no internal jargon), decisions made, and next steps with owners and timelines. Keep it concise and professional. Do not include any internal notes, side commentary, or anything not appropriate for the client to see.

Step 3: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Client Recap Draft")

2. Click Create

Pro tip: If you want to review before it's addressed to the client, change To to yourself. That way you get the draft, polish it, then manually add the client when you're ready to send.

12. Customer health signals to your CS team

What it does: Detects sentiment signals (churn risk, frustration, enthusiasm) in customer meetings and routes alerts to your CS channel.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Filter by Customer check-in or Customer interview tag, or combine tags with OR logic

Step 2: Add an AI insights action

1. Select Generate insights with AI

2. Create a custom insight called "Customer Health Signals"

3. Add structured fields:

4. Churn Risk Phrases — "evaluating other options," "not sure we'll renew," "too expensive," "looking at alternatives"

5. Frustration Signals — complaints, repeated issues, negative tone

6. Enthusiasm Signals — praise, expansion interest, referral mentions

7. Overall Sentiment — Red / Yellow / Green

8. Recommended Action (optional) — AI-suggested next step

9. Write a prompt like:

Analyze this customer meeting for health signals. Flag any churn risk language, frustration signals, and enthusiasm signals. Rate overall sentiment as Red (at risk), Yellow (some concerns), or Green (healthy). Include direct quotes where possible. If no concerning signals, note "No red flags detected."

Step 3: Send to Slack

1. Add Slack as a second action

2. Select your #customer-success or #cs-alerts channel

3. Include: insights, meeting name, attendees, and link to full notes

Step 4: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Customer Health → CS Team")

2. Click Create

3. Share with your workspace so it runs on all customer-facing calls

Pro tip: Create a second automation filtered to fire only when sentiment = Red, routed to a dedicated #churn-alerts channel or DM to the CS lead.

13. Send meeting recap to attendees automatically

What it does: Sends a clean meeting recap to everyone on the call within minutes of the meeting ending.

Quick setup: Use Settings (simplest)

Go to Settings → Emails and configure:

1. Who receives the email:

2. Myself — get a copy of notes after every meeting

3. Everyone invited — automatically send notes to all calendar invitees

4. What's included:

5. Notes are always included

6. Recording and transcript — toggle to include a link to the full meeting record

This works for a simple "send to all attendees on every meeting" setup. See Email sending preferences for details.

Advanced setup: Use an Automation (more control)

Use an automation when you need different behavior for different meeting types.

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Add conditions to match which meetings should send recaps:

3. All meetings: Leave conditions blank

4. Specific types: Filter by tag (e.g., Customer check-in, Sales)

5. External only: Filter by attendee domain

6. Select Send email from the actions menu

7. Configure recipients:

8. All attendees — everyone on the call

9. External attendees only — just clients/prospects

10. Internal attendees only — just your team

11. Select what to include: summary/notes, action items, key decisions, link to full record

12. Name it (e.g., "Send Recap to Attendees") and click Create

Alternative: Draft instead of send. Use Draft email instead of Send email if you want to review before it goes out. The recap lands in your inbox as a draft — review, tweak, then send.

Pro tip: Create separate automations for different audiences:

14. Executive summary for leadership meetings

What it does: Generates a concise executive summary — decisions, owners, open questions, strategic context — after leadership or board meetings.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Filter by meeting name pattern (e.g., "contains 'leadership'" or "contains 'board'" or "contains 'exec'"), or create a dedicated "Leadership" tag

Step 2: Add an AI insights action

1. Select Generate insights with AI

2. Create a custom insight called "Executive Summary"

3. Add structured fields:

4. Decisions Made — what was agreed, approved, or finalized

5. Owners Assigned — who's responsible for what

6. Open Questions — unresolved items needing follow-up

7. Strategic Context — key themes, priorities, or shifts discussed

8. Timeline/Deadlines (optional) — dates or milestones mentioned

9. Write a prompt like:

Generate a concise executive summary of this leadership meeting. Include: key decisions made (with context), owners assigned, open questions still unresolved, and strategic context. Keep it scannable — this is for busy executives who need the essentials fast.

Step 3: Route to restricted channel or email

Option A: Private Slack channel 1. Add Slack → select your restricted channel (e.g., #leadership) 2. Add Circleback app to the private channel first

Option B: Email distribution 1. Add Draft email → set To as yourself or a distribution list 2. Review and forward to your exec list

Option C: Both — add Slack as first action, Draft email as second.

Step 4: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Leadership Summary → Exec Channel")

2. Click Create

Pro tip: Keep this automation private (don't share workspace-wide) so only designated people can trigger exec summaries. Sensitive meeting content stays controlled.

15. Cross-meeting themes with Circleback Ask

What it does: Surfaces recurring topics and patterns across all your meetings using Circleback Ask.

This automation works differently from the others — instead of triggering after a single meeting, it uses Circleback Ask to analyze patterns across many meetings at once.

On-demand approach (no setup needed)

Open Circleback Ask and try prompts like:

• "What topics came up most frequently across all meetings this week?"

• "What themes keep recurring in customer calls this month?"

• "What strategic topics have been discussed across leadership meetings in the last 30 days?"

• "What issues were mentioned in multiple engineering standups this week?"

Run it every Friday and drop the answer into your leadership Slack channel. Takes two minutes.

Automated approach (with Zapier)

For a fully automated weekly digest:

1. Build a per-meeting automation: Trigger on all meetings (or specific tags) → Generate insights with AI (key topics, recurring issues, strategic mentions) → Send to Zapier → Google Sheet

2. Create a weekly Zap: Schedule for every Friday → pull the week's rows → use an AI step to analyze themes → send the digest to Slack or email

16. Interview debrief to hiring channel

What it does: Compiles structured interview debriefs and pushes them to a private hiring channel.

Step 1: Set up the trigger

1. Go to Automations → Create automation

2. Filter by your Candidate interview tag, or by meeting name pattern (e.g., "contains 'interview'" or "contains 'panel'")

Step 2: Add an AI insights action

1. Select Generate insights with AI

2. Create a custom insight called "Interview Debrief"

3. Add structured fields:

4. Candidate Name — who was interviewed

5. Role — position they're interviewing for (if mentioned)

6. Strengths — what impressed the interviewer(s)

7. Concerns — red flags, gaps, hesitations raised

8. Specific Examples — concrete moments or answers referenced

9. Recommendation — hire / no hire / next round (if stated)

10. Interviewer — who conducted this interview

11. Write a prompt like:

Extract a structured interview debrief from this conversation. Include: candidate strengths (what impressed), concerns or red flags, specific examples or answers mentioned, and the interviewer's recommendation if stated. Use direct quotes where possible. Keep it concise and factual.

Step 3: Send to private hiring channel

1. Add Slack as the action

2. Select your private hiring channel (e.g., #hiring or #recruiting-team)

3. Add the Circleback app to the private channel first

4. Include: insights, meeting name, attendees, and link to full notes

Step 4: Save and enable

1. Name it (e.g., "Interview Debrief → Hiring")

2. Click Create

3. Share with your workspace so it runs for all interviewers

Pro tip: For panel interviews with multiple interviewers in separate sessions, each interview triggers its own debrief. The hiring manager sees all assessments land in #hiring back-to-back — no chasing required.

Related resources

• Getting started with automations

• Generate insights with AI

• Auto-tagging meetings

• Integrate with Slack

• Integrate with Salesforce

• Integrate with HubSpot

• Integrate with Linear

• Integrate with Notion

• Integrate with Google Docs

• Integrate with apps using Zapier

• Draft email action

• Email sending preferences

• Enable automations for your workspace