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Smart 1:1s
How to use Smart 1:1s
Overview: How Smart 1:1s work, and how to create them
Overview: How Smart 1:1s work, and how to create them

Smart 1:1s make it easy for you to automatically schedule, reschedule, and manage your one-on-one meetings.

Updated over a week ago

What are Reclaim Smart 1:1s?

Smart 1:1s make it easy for you to automatically schedule, reschedule, and manage your recurring one-on-one meetings.

Create a new Smart 1:1 in a few minutes, share a one-time invitation, and let Reclaim find the best time for both organizer and attendee to meet on a recurring basis around your preferences and timezones – with one-click rescheduling when conflicts come up.

Why use Smart 1:1s?

One-on-one meetings are often the highest-priority meetings on your calendar. Whether you're meeting with direct reports, managers, or cross-functional team members – one-on-ones are an important aspect of building and maintaining relationships.

But with things changing on your (and your colleagues') calendars all the time, it can be challenging to keep your one-on-ones scheduled at the right times.

Dynamic scheduling

Smart 1:1s dynamically move your 1:1 meetings as your schedule changes. For example, a last-minute customer meeting might come up that interrupts your normally scheduled time – your Smart 1:1 will automatically reschedule when overbooked by a non-Reclaim meeting, or a higher-priority Reclaim event.

Automatically reschedule or skip

When a conflict comes up, you don't need to send back-and-forth communications to find a new time to connect. Both the organizer and attendee of a Smart 1:1 can automatically reschedule the meeting to the next best time for everyone, or skip that meeting instance all together in just one click. Learn more about how to reschedule/skip Smart 1:1s here.

Smart Free/Busy controls

Smart 1:1s are initially scheduled as a Free event and will switch to Busy as your schedule changes to give maximum flexibility in your calendar – while still ensuring that you get the time you need with your attendee.

Smart 1:1s will automatically flip from Free to Busy when it's <24 hours ahead of their start time, or when there is only one slot remaining for the Smart 1:1 within the same day. You can additionally opt to lock your Smart 1:1s sooner to prevent them from rescheduling, which will also mark them as busy (learn about auto-lock settings here).

You can learn more about how Reclaim uses Free and Busy settings here.

Creating a new Smart 1:1

You can easily create a new Smart 1:1 in the Reclaim app to start automatically scheduling your recurring one-on-one meeting around your preferences:

  1. Navigate to your Smart 1:1s page in the app.

  2. Click the + New Smart 1:1 button in the upper right corner of the page.

  3. Fill out the scheduling rules requested in each field.

  4. Click Create to send your one-time invitation to the attendee and start scheduling the meeting across both people's calendars.

Converting existing one-on-one meetings to Smart 1:1s

You can also quickly convert detected one-on-one meetings on your calendar to a Smart 1:1. Select the 'Detected' tab from the Smart 1:1s page and click Review on the detected meeting you want to automate.

Reclaim will pull in the frequency of detected one-on-one meetings as well as their regularly-scheduled time and duration. You can edit these before finalizing the meeting.

Note: currently, Reclaim won't carry over the existing videoconference links for meetings when you convert them to Smart 1:1s, but you can edit the Smart 1:1 to add Zoom or Google Meet links, or just add a videoconference link to the event once it's created via Google Calendar.

Assuming Reclaim has access to the other attendee's calendar, the Smart 1:1 will start scheduling within a few seconds. If not, the 1:1 will be left in the pending state until the attendee has provided sufficient permissions.

Smart 1:1 scheduling rules

When you create a new Smart 1:1, you will see a form where you can fill out your scheduling preferences for how you want the event to schedule in the calendar.

Email

Enter in the email of the attendee to send a one-time invitation to get the Smart 1:1 set up. Reclaim will automatically detect whether the user needs to sign up for Reclaim in order to set up a Smart 1:1 with them.

Check out this doc for more information about who can be invited to a Smart 1:1.

Title

By default, Reclaim will use your name and the attendee's name pulled from the invitee's email to set the title of the 1:1. You can uncheck the Use recommended title box to enter in your own custom title.

Description

Add a description to the 1:1 that will be included in all recurring meeting events on the calendar. This is useful for a link to a rolling agenda or notes and also supports markdown formatting.

Priority

The priority at which you want Reclaim to defend the Smart 1:1 around your other events. By default, new Smart 1:1s are set to High priority (P2).

Learn more about prioritizing your Smart 1:1s in this doc.

Duration & frequency

This determines how long you'd like the meeting to scheduled for, as well as how frequently you'd like to meet. Reclaim will automatically keep track of when your last meeting was to ensure you get the proper amount of space between each 1:1.

Hours

You can choose in which time ranges you want to be available for Reclaim to schedule your meeting. Choose between your Working, Meeting, or Personal Hours (predefined in your Hours settings), or set Custom Hours for your Smart 1:1 with specific days you want the meeting to be scheduled on and/or multiple time ranges for a single day.

Reclaim will honor preferences between you and your attendee's meeting hours and only schedule events that fit those preferences. For example, if one of you doesn't like to meet on Wednesdays and has set that in your meeting hours settings, Reclaim won't ever schedule a Smart 1:1 on Wednesdays.

You can also manage hours for the invitee to resolve low-overlap meetings.

Ideal day & time

You can set your ideal day and time to meet, and Reclaim will schedule the 1:1s as close to that ideal time while staying within the overlapping hours between you and your attendee.

If you are flexible about what day you want to meet for your 1:1 - or have a very busy schedule - select the default 'Any day is fine' to create more availability. If you set an ideal day and time, Reclaim will attempt to schedule the 1:1 as close to your ideal preferences as possible while still honoring your mutual availability and preferences.

Tip: if you want to batch your Smart 1:1s on the same day, try using the same ideal day and Hours for all your 1:1s -- Reclaim will try to gather them around that day, but fall back to the next best day if it can't find time.

Starting

By default, Reclaim will schedule 1:1s ASAP, but you can override this value and have the 1:1 start scheduling later. You can also use this setting in the future to 'pause' your Smart 1:1 until a later date!

Other details

Videoconferencing / location

If your meeting is remote, you can add a Zoom or Google Meet. This will automatically generate and add videoconference link for all your recurring Smart 1:1 meeting events.

If you want to use a physical location you can also add it here. If you have a different videoconferencing link you want to use, you can also paste it in the location field.

If you want to opt for no videoconferencing or location, you can do so too.

Tip: you can also schedule the Smart 1:1 with no location added, and then add it afterwards via Google Calendar directly. Click here for more info.

Send a note?

This is an optional field to send a note to your attendee when the meeting invite is sent for the first time.

An invite will be sent to your attendee and the Smart 1:1 will be scheduled. You can also copy and send an invite link to them directly from the details page for the 1:1.

How Reclaim schedules Smart 1:1s

Prioritization

You can set universal Priorities for everything on your calendar from Critical (P1) to Low priority (P4). Reclaim will schedule your Smart 1:1s according to the priority level you set, around other events on the calendar.

Setting the priority level for your Smart 1:1s lets you drive smarter, more flexible scheduling for your busy calendar. Higher-priority Smart 1:1s will be prioritized first, and can overbook lower-priority Smart 1:1s, and Habits and Tasks so you always have time for your most important meetings.

You can learn more about Priorities for your Smart 1:1s in this doc.

Availability

After considering priority of your meeting and the other events you're making time for, Reclaim will schedule Smart 1:1s around when both attendees are available.

If you're finding that your Smart 1:1 isn't scheduling, it may be that your preferences aren't allowing for sufficient overlap between schedules. Read here for more info.

Timezones

Reclaim will automatically detect timezones for you and your attendee for Smart 1:1s and schedule across them. If you're having issues with your timezone, check out this doc for troubleshooting tips.

Does the invitee need to be a Reclaim user?

Smart 1:1s can be set up with anyone! The other person does not need to be a Reclaim user. Generally if your Smart 1:1 is with another member of your organization, they won't need to sign up for Reclaim in order for Reclaim to schedule the meeting.

Depending on their calendar privacy and whether you have access, your invitees might have to sign up. Learn more about who can be invited to a Smart 1:1 in this doc.

How Smart 1:1s show up on the calendar

Smart 1:1s will appear up on your calendar as normal calendar events. You can modify them, RSVP to them, and delete them as you would any other event. Reclaim will respond to those changes as inputs to reschedule or skip the Smart 1:1 event.

Here's an example of what a Smart 1:1 event might look like on your calendar:

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