How to set up and use Manager 1-on-1 meetings

Manager 1:1 meetings allow you to create meeting agendas between managers and their direct reports, track action items, take notes, and more. You can sync your 1:1 meeting schedule with the respective event within Google or Outlook calendars, or use Assembly’s scheduling system.

The manager 1-on-1 feature depends entirely on each employee’s profile data having a direct manager and/or at least 1 direct report. If an employee does not have a direct manager, or if a manager does not have at least 1 report listed in Assembly, then they will not have access to the feature

Who can use this feature?

• Manager 1:1 meetings are a paid add-on feature; they are not part of the standard feature base

• You can reach out to your account manager to do a trial and enable the feature for your Assembly

• Once enabled for your Assembly, you can designate which people within your company have access to this feature (in case you don’t want everyone to use it, and/or you want to do a trial of the feature with a select group before opening it up to others)

What to expect?

• Once enabled, the employees you have given access to use 1:1s will see 1:1s appear in the home page navigation menu

• Both managers and their direct reports within the selected permissions will have access to this feature

Currently, only direct managers and their direct reports can set up 1:1 meetings within Assembly; at the moment you cannot use this feature to set up 1:1s with any other person within your organization

Configuring 1:1 feature access

Once you have enabled the 1:1 feature for your Assembly, you can determine who you want to give 1:1 access to.

1. Go to https://admin-app.joinassembly.com/meetings/settings

2. Choose who you want to give 1:1 access to

   1. Admins - only Assembly admins and their direct reports will have access to the feature

   2. Everyone - everyone in your organization (all managers and their direct reports) will have access to the feature

   3. Custom - all managers and their direct reports within the custom selection will have access to the feature

3. Enable the toggle to turn the feature on, turn it off to disable it

   1. When disabled, all employees will lose access to the feature; it will no longer appear in the home page navigation menu

Setting up your 1-on-1s

• Once the feature is enabled for your Assembly, and you have configured the access permissions, all managers and their direct reports will see the feature appear in their navigation menu

• Within the 1:1 navigation menu, they will see their team appear in the list

• From here, managers or direct reports can set up the schedules for their meetings or choose to meet on-demand, without a schedule

• When a meeting is scheduled you will receive a reminder email 24h before your 1:1, reminding you to fill out your agenda ahead of your meeting

Synch your 1:1 with your Google or Outlook calendar

You can sync your 1:1 meeting in Assembly with the corresponding event in your Google or Outlook calendars. To synch your 1:1 with your calendar:

1. From https://app.joinassembly.com/a , click 1-on-1s from your left navigation menu

2. From the 1:1 navigation, select the person you want to set up your schedule with

3. From the meetings overview page, click Set up schedule

4. Select Outlook or Google

5. If this is your first time connecting to your calendar within Assembly, you will be taken into an authentication flow within Outlook or Google

   1. If you already connected before, you will not be asked to authenticate again

6. Upon successful authentication, you will then select which event in your calendar you want to sync

   1. We have implemented a smart detection to show only the events you have in your calendar where you and the other person are the only attendees, you will not see any group meetings in the list of events to select from

   2. If you do not have an existing 1:1 event in your calendar with this person, you will need to create one and refresh your page in Assembly to select the event

7. Click Link event

Once the calendar event is linked, all of your upcoming meetings will display in the ‘Upcoming meetings’ list.

When your 1:1 is linked to a calendar event, any changes to your calendar event directly within your calendar (i.e., cancel event, reschedule), this change will reflect automatically in Assembly. You cannot modify your schedule within Assembly, it can only be done directly within the calendar itself.

Schedule your 1:1 manually

If you do not use Google or Outlook calendars, you can schedule your 1:1 manually:

1. From https://app.joinassembly.com/a , click 1-on-1s from your left navigation menu

2. From the 1:1 navigation, select the person you want to set up your schedule with

3. From the meetings overview page, click Set up schedule

4. Select manual schedule

5. Choose your schedule

6. Click Save

Once the schedule is set up, all of your upcoming meetings will display in the ‘Upcoming meetings’ list.

With manual scheduling, you will need to manually reschedule or cancel any 1:1 meeting you have, directly within Assembly on your meetings overview page.

Unscheduled 1:1 meetings/Meet now

Whether you have a scheduled meeting, you can always have an ad-hoc meeting by clicking ‘Meet now’

1. From https://app.joinassembly.com/a , click 1-on-1s from your left navigation menu

2. From the 1:1 navigation, select the person you want to meet with

3. From the meetings overview page, click ‘Meet now’

4. This will create a blank meeting agenda for you to fill out live during your meeting

   1. If you fill out the meeting agenda partially but do not mark the meeting as complete and you leave the agenda, the next time you click ‘Meet now’ the agenda will save as a draft

Editing your meeting schedule

Editing calendar event

• When synced with Google or Outlook calendars, you cannot edit/reschedule an upcoming event within Assembly

  • You can mark a meeting as ‘Skipped’ within Assembly if you do not plan to meet

• If you edit your calendar event directly in Google or Outlook (cancel, reschedule a single event or event series), the event or event series will update in Assembly automatically

• If you cancel an event series, your upcoming meetings will no longer appear in your meeting overview page

  • You or the person you have a 1:1 with will need to set up a new schedule

If you have a different calendar event you would like to sync with, you can also change your synced event:

1. Go to your meeting overview page

2. Click ‘Edit schedule’

3. You should see all available events between yourself and that other person within your calendar

4. Select the new event

5. Click ‘Save’

Editing manually-scheduled series

• You can edit/reschedule/skip any upcoming meeting in Assembly when you use manual scheduling

To edit your schedule:

1. Go to your meeting overview page

2. Click ‘Edit schedule’

3. Edit your schedule

4. Click ‘Save’

Changing from manual scheduling to calendar schedule

If you previously had a manual schedule for your 1:1, you can change it from manual scheduling to a calendar schedule. To change to a calendar schedule:

1. Go to your meeting overview page

2. Click ‘Edit schedule’

3. Click ‘Connect your calendar’ in the banner towards the top of the modal

4. Select which calendar you want to use

5. If this is your first time connecting to your calendar within Assembly, you will be taken into an authentication flow within Outlook or Google

   1. If you already connected before, you will not be asked to authenticate again

6. Upon successful authentication, you will then select which event in your calendar you want to sync

   1. We have implemented a smart detection to show only the events you have in your calendar where you and the other person are the only attendees, you will not see any group meetings in the list of events to select from

   2. If you do not have an existing 1:1 event in your calendar with this person, you will need to create one and refresh your page in Assembly to select the event

7. Click Link event

Unscheduling/cancelling your meeting series

If you no longer wish to use any schedule, you can unschedule, or cancel your meeting series, you can do so by editing your schedule. You can always still meet by clicking ‘Meet now’, even without a scheduled series. To cancel your meeting series:

1. Go to your meeting overview page

2. Click ‘Edit schedule’

If connected to a calendar

1. Click ‘Unlink’ your event to remove the synced meeting

   1. You will need to select a new event if you want to restore the schedule, or change to manual scheduling

2. Or, if you want to unschedule all of your connected 1:1s, you can disconnect your calendar by clicking ‘Disconnect calendar’

If using manual scheduling

1. Click ‘Cancel this meeting from the bottom of the edit schedule modal

Disconnecting your calendar

Sometimes calendar can get disconnected because the authentication credentials change (i.e., your password changes, your IT team makes a security update), or you can also manually disconnect your calendar (as mentioned above)

• If a calendar is disconnected, all of your meetings that use calendar scheduling will no longer sync with the original calendar event, and you will need to set up your schedules again for each individual meeting

• You will not lose any past meeting’s data

Managing your meeting agendas

Upcoming meetings

When your 1:1 is scheduled, all upcoming meetings and meeting agendas will display in the ‘Upcoming meetings’ section. From here you can:

1. View/edit upcoming meeting agendas

2. Mark an upcoming meeting as skipped (if you don’t plan on meeting on a specific date)

3. Reschedule an upcoming meeting (only if you are using manual scheduling, not calendar integration)

4. To skip/reschedule a meeting:

   1. Click the ‘Scheduled’ tag

   2. Select ‘Skip’ or ‘Reschedule’

   3. You can always switch it back to ‘Scheduled’ if you skip it

Past meetings

Whenever a scheduled 1:1 meeting has passed, it will move to the ‘Past meetings’ section (even if you didn’t complete the meeting). From here you can:

1. View/edit your past meeting’s agenda

2. Mark the meeting as completed

3. Mark the meeting as skipped

4. To mark a meeting as skipped or completed

   1. Click the ‘Incomplete’ tag

   2. Select ‘Skip’ or ‘Reschedule’

   3. You can always switch it back to ‘Incomplete’

Agenda items

Within each meeting agenda, you can add agenda items to discuss with each other in an upcoming meeting. To add and manage action items:

1. From the upcoming meetings page, click edit agenda

2. In the agenda items section, click ‘Add agenda item’

3. Type in the agenda item

4. Hit ‘enter’

5. Before/during or even after the meeting, you can leave comments on the agenda item:

   1. Click the ‘comment’ icon

   2. Type your comment

   3. Click ‘Comment’ to post your comment

   4. To edit your comment (you can only edit agenda items you add yourself):

      1. Click the ‘…’ menu

      2. Click ‘Edit’

      3. Click the checkmark to save your changes, or the ‘X’ button to cancel the changes

   5. To delete your comment (you can only delete agenda items you add yourself)

      1. Click the ‘…’ menu

      2. Click ‘Delete’

6. To mark an agenda item as ‘discussed’:

   1. Click the green checkmark

   2. You can undo this action by clicking the green checkmark again

7. To edit the agenda item:

   1. Click the ‘…’ menu

   2. Click ‘Edit’

   3. Click the checkmark to save your changes, or the ‘X’ button to cancel the changes

8. To delete the agenda item:

   1. Click the ‘…’ menu

   2. Click ‘Delete’

Meeting notes

Within each meeting agenda you can add shared notes (visible to both of you) and private notes (visible only to yourself):

1. From within your meeting agenda, on the right side, when viewing the ‘Shared notes’ tab (blue), typing in your note and hitting enter will add a shared note

   1. Type in your note into the input

   2. Click ‘Done’

2. Click the ‘Private notes’ tab (grey) to add a private note

   1. Type in your note into the input

   2. Click ‘Done’

3. To edit your shared or private note:

   1. Click the edit icon next to the note

   2. Edit your note

   3. Click ‘Done’ to save the changes, ‘Cancel’ to cancel the edit and revert to your original note

4. To delete your shared or private note

   1. Click the delete icon next to the note

You can view all notes from all meeting agendas (future and past) in a single place from the ‘Meeting notes’ section

Action items

Within each meeting agenda, you can add action items to help you track your meeting takeaways and next steps. You can also add action items directly from the To add and manage action items:

1. From within any meeting agenda, in the action items section, click ‘Add action item’

   1. Or from the ‘Action items’ section on the meetings overview page

2. Type in the action item

3. Hit ‘enter’

   1. NOTE: action items will automatically be assigned to the person who created them, you can not reassign them

4. To mark an action item as complete:

   1. Click the checkbox

   2. To mark it as incomplete, click the checkbox again to remove the checkmark

5. To edit the agenda item:

   1. Click the ‘…’ menu

   2. Click ‘Edit’

   3. Click the checkmark to save your changes, or the ‘X’ button to cancel the changes

6. To delete the agenda item:

   1. Click the ‘…’ menu

   2. Click ‘Delete’

Action items that were created before we released our second phase of beta updates (November 19, 2025) will not be associated to a specific agenda, which is why you will not see a ‘View agenda’ button next to these action items.