If the Read Assistant didn’t join a meeting, this article will help you figure out why and make sure it joins next time. If you’ve gone through this article and still aren’t sure why Read didn’t join, contact the Read Support Team (see How do I contact the Read Support Team?).
We’ll start with the basic requirements for Read to join your scheduled meetings automatically, then cover less common problems. If the Read Assistant did join but you didn’t get a report, see Why didn't I get a meeting report? instead.
Basic requirements for Read to join
The calendar your meeting is on needs to be connected to Read
- Read supports Google Calendar, Zoom Calendar, and Microsoft Outlook. After you connect your calendar, your upcoming meetings are listed on your Calendar page. See How do I connect my calendar to Read?
Your meeting needs to show up on your Calendar page
- If your account has more than one calendar, make sure you’re syncing every calendar you want.
- Meetings without a valid video conferencing link are hidden by default. To see them, change the Has video conferencing drop-down at the top of your Calendar page.
- Email protection tools (like Mimecast or Safe Links) and scheduling apps (like Calendly) can change meeting links so Read doesn’t recognize them. These meetings show up under No video conferencing, and Read won’t join them automatically.
- Read joins Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet meetings. For other platforms, use the Read desktop app. See What meetings does Read join when I connect my calendar?
The meeting needs to have “Add Read?” turned on in advance
- You can find this toggle on your Calendar page.
- Your auto-join preferences in Account Settings > Meeting Recording decide which meetings have “Add Read?” turned on by default, but you can always turn it on or off before the meeting.
- For more details, see What meetings does Read join when I connect my calendar?
For Zoom meetings, you need to connect your Zoom account and be in the meeting
- Read can’t join a Zoom meeting unless you’ve connected your Zoom account to Read and you’re in the meeting, signed in to that same Zoom account. See Upcoming Changes to Zoom Meetings.
If all of the above are true, Read will try to join your meeting automatically a few minutes before the scheduled start time. If the meeting starts more than ten minutes late, you’ll need to add Read to the meeting manually.
If Read tries to join and record but doesn’t produce a report, check your Incomplete reports page for an explanation of what went wrong.
Potential issues
Even if you’ve checked everything above, you may run into some less common problems.
The meeting is marked “Opt Out” on your Incomplete reports page
- An external invitee may have opted out of recording ahead of time through Advance Notice. When this happens, Read won’t join the meeting. See Advance Notice and Opt Out of Meeting Recording.
Read wasn’t admitted, or nobody joined
You may see the meeting on your Incomplete reports page with a message like “Read not admitted to the meeting within 10 minutes of scheduled start time” or “Read left after no participants joined the meeting within 10 minutes of scheduled start time”:
- “Read not admitted…” means someone joined, but nobody who can admit Read accepted its request to join.
- “Read left after no participants joined…” means nobody joined within 10 minutes of the start time.
- Read doesn’t always need to be admitted. The host’s meeting settings decide whether guests can join on their own and, if not, who can admit them.
- Some platform settings can make it harder for Read to join, or stop it from joining:
- Zoom: First make sure you’ve met the Zoom requirements above. If the host doesn’t see Read’s request to join or record, see How do I allow unauthenticated users to join Zoom?
- Microsoft Teams: See Why is Read not joining all my Teams meetings?
- Google Meet: See Why is Read not joining all of my Meet meetings?
“Add Read?” isn’t turned on by default, even though auto-join is on
- If you didn’t create the meeting and your email isn’t on the invite, “Add Read?” won’t turn on by default. Read won’t join meetings you aren’t invited to on your behalf.
- Meetings from a shared calendar (like a shared group calendar in Google) never have “Add Read?” turned on by default.
- For recurring meetings, if Read fails to join and generate a report for 3 meetings in a row, “Add Read?” turns off for the rest of the series. You’ll get an email when this happens.
- In any of these cases, you can turn “Add Read?” on manually from your Calendar page.
If you couldn’t add Read manually
There are several ways to add Read to a meeting manually. All of them can run into the same issues described above. See How do I manually add Read to a live meeting?