- From Read's website
- Through the Zoom app
- Through the Microsoft Teams app
- Through the Google Chrome extension
In a collaborative work environment, sometimes meetings happen without a calendar invite or advanced notice. Read makes it easy to quickly add the Read Assistant to any meeting in progress (as long as it's on one of the supported platforms). There are a few different methods to manually add Read to your meetings, and this article will walk through each of them. See the sections below for full step-by-step instructions.
⚠️ Before reading on, please note that Read strongly encourages you to connect your calendar and configure Read to automatically join your meetings in advance whenever possible and only use the manual option as a backup. This is because when you manually add Read to a meeting, Read will not link the report with any event information from your calendar. As a result:
- Meeting reports that are created from manually adding Read will not show up with the meeting title, and instead will be titled "[Zoom/Teams/Meet] Meeting"
- The actual meeting title and guest list (other than the person who added it) won't be included in any payload sent through an integration (e.g. webhooks or Zapier)
- Automatic sharing and distribution to other meeting participants will not work (only the person who added Read will get access to the report initially)
From Read's website
To quickly add the Read Assistant to a meeting:
- Sign in to your Read account
- In your Read account, look for the "Add to live meeting" button on the bottom of the left-hand navigation bar (or alternatively, bookmark this page):
- Click on "Add to live meeting" and paste in the URL of your in-progress meeting.
Finding the meeting URL
You should be able to copy the meeting URL, aka the "join link" from your calendar event description. If you're in the meeting, there should also be some option that lets you see and copy the join link.
For example, in a Teams meeting you can find it by clicking "More" > "Meeting info":
In Zoom, you can find it by clicking the ^ next to "Participants" and then "Copy Invite Link":
On Google Meet, you can just copy the URL from your web browser address bar.
Through the Zoom app
To manually add Read to a Zoom meeting, you can use Read's Zoom app (called "Meeting Recaps, Transcripts, Recording from Read"). Once you have added the app to your Zoom account, you should be able to find it and open it during your meeting from the "Apps" list:
After you click to open the app, Read will either:
- Join the meeting automatically if you are the meeting owner
- Allow you to paste the meeting link to add Read, if you are not the owner
If not the meeting owner, you'll see this window where you can paste the meeting link to add Read:
If you need to find the meeting link, click the ^ next to "Participants" and select "Copy Invite Link".
After you paste the link and click "Add Read Assistant", the Read Assistant will start to join your meeting. You or the meeting host may need to admit Read to the meeting before it can actually join, and the host may have to grant Read permission to record if they haven't done so previously.
You should then see Read join your meeting as a participant, and also be able to view the live Meeting Tools and Metrics in the side panel:
Common issues
- Zoom Apps (Read's included) only work in the Zoom desktop client for Windows and MacOS. This won't work when using Zoom on mobile or in a web browser.
- The meeting owner needs to have their Zoom settings configured properly for Read to work. If Read isn't able to join the meeting, or if it does but your report gets the "Restricted data" error, your meeting owner should review this support article.
- Read's Zoom app may be disabled by your organization. In this case, contact your organization’s administrator to enable the app.
Through the Microsoft Teams app
To manually add Read to a Microsoft Teams meeting, you can use Read's Teams app (called "Meeting Summaries from Read AI"). To open the app during your meeting, click the "Apps" button in the Teams menu. If you've already added the Read app in Teams then it should appear in your list, or you can search for it and add it now:
When you click the app, it will pop up a window. Click on "Save":
The app will then open in a side panel, where you'll see a text box and a button where you can paste the meeting link and click "Add Read":
If you need to find the meeting link, click on the three dot "More" button in the top menu and then "Meeting info". You can then click on the "Read Meeti..." button to get back to the Read app.
After you paste the link and click "Add Read", the Read Assistant will start to join your meeting. You or the meeting host will likely need to admit Read to the meeting before it can actually join and start recording:
After this, you should see Read join your meeting as a participant, and also be able to view the live Meeting Tools and Metrics in the side panel:
Common issues
- You need to have a paid Teams or Microsoft 365 account in order to use Teams third party apps
- You will need to have the organizer, co-organizer, or presenter role in a Teams meeting in order to add Read. The attendee role, which you may have in external meetings or meetings you don't host, is not allowed to add or remove an app.
- You cannot add Read when using Teams to "call" someone directly (either audio or video calls) as these are not meetings and don't have a link that you can use to add another participant.
- Read's Teams app may be disabled by your organization. In this case, contact your organization's administrator to enable the app.
Through the Google Chrome extension
You can manually add Read to a meeting using the Read AI for Gmail and Meeting Summaries extension for Google Chrome. After installing the extension and logging in to your Read account, you'll be able to add Read manually in two different ways.
Google Meet auto-prompt
Whenever you join a Google Meet, if Read has not already joined the call, you should see a pop up notification asking if you would like to add it:
After clicking "Yes, Add Read", the Read Assistant will start to join the meeting.
You or the meeting organizer (depending on the organizer's Google settings) will likely need to click "Admit" to allow Read to join and start recording.
Note that unlike the other apps, the Chrome Extension does not include the live Meeting Tools and Metrics panel. If you want to access the Meeting Tools and Metrics, you just need to enable the Meeting Chat option from your Account Settings > Reporting page and then click the link that Read sends to the meeting chat after it joins.
Pasting the meeting URL
You can also paste the meeting URL for any in-progress Meet, Zoom, or Teams call from the Chrome extension, just like you can do from Read's website. Just open up the extension and you'll see the box at the top:
See above if you need help finding the meeting URL.
Common Issues
- The Read extension is only available for Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, so you can't do this from other web browsers.
- The Read Extension should not be confused with the Read Meeting Notetaker app for Google Meet. The Notetaker app allows you to manually take notes collaboratively during a meeting, but is not integrated with the Read Assistant in any way. You can't use the Notetaker app to add Read to a meeting or otherwise get automated transcripts/summaries/reporting.