How to build sections and use the section library

Sections are the parts a template is made of. Each one becomes a heading in your summary, and its prompt is the instruction Sally follows while writing it. That is where you decide whether a section stays a short overview or digs into every detail.

This article goes through everything a section can do: the types you can choose from, including tables, follow-up appointments and email drafts, how to write a good prompt, which data Sally draws on while writing, how to translate the title into other languages, what the output settings change, including small talk, private topics and sections that stay internal, and how the section library lets you reuse a section across all your templates instead of writing it again every time.

Quick navigation

1. Section types
2. Title and prompt
3. What Sally knows when generating
   1. What Sally knows
   2. What Sally does not know
   3. Tips for your prompts
4. Output settings
   1. Small talk and private topics
   2. Organization-internal section
5. Table, follow-up appointment and email
   1. Table
   2. Follow-up appointment
   3. Email
6. The section library

1. Section types

You edit sections directly in the template. Sally saves every change automatically, and nothing goes live until you publish, see Editing and publishing a template. Here is the way there, from the calendar to the list of section types:

1. Open Settings at the bottom of the left sidebar.

Figure 1: Open Settings

2. In the settings sidebar on the left, under Configuration, click Meeting templates.

Figure 2: Meeting templates in the settings sidebar

3. Click the card of the template you want to work on.

Figure 3: Clicking the card opens the template

4. Click Add section below the section list. The panel with the choices opens on the right, and its Standard tab splits them into two groups.

Figure 4: Free-form results at the top, fixed results below

Free-form result

• Custom list produces a list, one entry per point, each with a short label and an explanation.
• Free text produces running text.

Fixed result

• Summary writes a short overview of the whole meeting.
• Tasks pulls out the action items, with owners and due dates where they were mentioned.
• Topics lists what was discussed, in the order it came up.
• Decisions records what was actually agreed.
• Table fills a table with columns you define, for example open items with owner and due date.
• Follow-up appointment records an agreed follow-up meeting that you can create as an appointment or download as a calendar file.
• Email drafts a follow-up email. Nothing is sent.

All fixed results except Table already come with a prompt that you can adjust. How Table, Follow-up appointment and Email work in detail is explained in Table, follow-up and email.

5. Click the small info icon to the right of an entry when you want to know exactly what that section does.

Figure 5: Every section type has an info icon

6. An explanation opens with What it does and a small Example in a meeting, so you can see the result before you commit. Close it with the cross in the top right.

Figure 6: The explanation shows what the section produces

2. Title and prompt

The title and the prompt are the two things that make up a section. You set both in the panel that opens on the right when you open a section.

1. In the section list, click the pencil icon of the section. Its panel opens on the right.

2. Enter the title at the top. It becomes the heading in your summary, so keep it short and recognizable, for example Blockers rather than Things that are currently blocking us.

Figure 7: The title becomes the heading in the summary

3. Click the translation icon to the right of the title field when your meetings are held in more than one language.

Figure 8: The icon next to the title field opens the translations

4. The Translations window shows your original title at the top. Add language gives you a separate title for every further language. Only the title is translated, not the content: when a summary is written in one of the languages you set up, Sally uses the matching title, and for every other language the original one stays. Click Save afterwards.

Figure 9: One title per language, while the content follows the language of the meeting

5. Under Prompt, describe what the section should contain. Write it the way you would explain it to a new colleague: what belongs in there, what should be left out, and how detailed it should be. The prompt needs at least 50 characters, and the counter below the field tells you where you are. The arrows above the field undo and redo your last edits.

A prompt that works

Name the content, the structure and the boundary. For example: "List every blocker that was mentioned. For each one, say what it is about, who is affected and what is needed to resolve it. Leave out general complaints without a concrete blocker." The last sentence is the one that keeps the section clean.

Prompt help covers two cases: you do not want to start from nothing, or your prompt is already there and you want Sally AI to rewrite it for you.

6. Click Prompt help above the prompt field.

Figure 10: Prompt help is directly above the prompt field

7. The menu offers two routes, Use template and Optimize with Sally AI.

Figure 11: Two ways to get to a prompt faster

Use template opens a collection of ready-made prompts, sorted by area: sales, human resources, management, marketing, product and engineering, project management. Picking one replaces the current prompt of the section, so use it as a starting point rather than an addition.

Figure 12: Ready-made prompts for common meeting purposes

Optimize with Sally AI rewrites your existing prompt for you. You say what should change, for example make it more structured, shorter or add a concrete example answer, and Sally suggests a new version.

Figure 13: You say what should change, Sally rewrites the prompt

8. Next to Prompt help, click Show variables. It lists the placeholders you can drop into the prompt: Meeting date, Meeting subject, Company profile name and Company profile description. Click one and it is inserted into the prompt as a small chip that Sally fills in for every meeting.

Figure 14: Variables put the meeting's own data into the prompt

Write prompts in English

We recommend writing prompts in English, because the AI follows English instructions more precisely. It does not change the language of your summary: Sally still writes the content in the language of the meeting, and the section title stays exactly as you entered it.

3. What Sally knows when generating

Sally writes every section from a fixed set of information about the meeting. Anything outside that set Sally cannot know, even if your prompt asks for it. When a prompt asks for it anyway, Sally has to fill the gap, and the result varies from run to run. So build your prompts around the lists below.

3.1 What Sally knows

1. From the recording: the transcript with speaker names and timestamps, the speaker names you confirmed in the transcript, and the length of the recording.
2. From the calendar, but only when the recording is linked to a calendar event: subject, date, start and end, planned duration, location, organizer, the invitees with name and email address, who declined in the calendar, and the agenda.
3. From Sally taking part in the online meeting: who was seen there.
4. From the settings: the output language, the industry profile and how strongly it applies, and whether small talk and private topics should be included. Per section, also the type, title, prompt, detail level, output format and the switches for timestamps, assignees and due dates.

3.2 What Sally does not know

• Anything that was only shown or written in the meeting, such as slides, the shared screen and the chat. Sally only knows what was said.
• Whether someone was present whom Sally did not see in the online meeting, for example people sitting at the same device on site, joining by phone or through a room system. That is why Sally only lists someone as absent who declined in the calendar and neither speaks nor was seen in the conversation, and then marks them as "declined".
• Calendar data for recordings without a linked calendar event, for example uploaded files or recordings from the Sally app. Linking the recording to a calendar event afterwards helps here.
• Earlier meetings or other recordings. Each section is based on this one recording only.

3.3 Tips for your prompts

• Only ask for information that exists. For everything else, tell Sally in the prompt to leave the field out.
• Set a fixed form through the section type, for example a table with fixed columns or the Tasks section, instead of describing it in the prompt. A format described in the prompt is a request, not a rule.
• Match the detail level to the prompt: Short for bullet points, Medium for a short paragraph, Long for detailed text.
• For a header without any AI, use the header in the PDF and Word download. The document settings show what it looks like.
• Do not expect identical wording. Two runs on the same recording never turn out word for word the same. The form stays most stable when the section type defines it.

Example of a minutes header

"Start with the meeting date, the organizer and the invited participants. If a value is not available, leave that line out. Do not guess." If the recording is not linked to a calendar event, this information is missing, and the lines are dropped instead of being made up.

4. Output settings

Scroll down in the section panel. There, Output decides how the result looks.

Figure 15: Three settings shape the finished section

• Detail level switches between Short, Medium and Long. Short is right for an overview someone skims, long for a section that has to serve as the record.
• Create timestamps adds the point in the recording each statement came from, so you can jump straight to it.
• Output format produces either HTML or Markdown. HTML is the right choice for the summary in Sally, Markdown if you pass the text on to another tool.

The Tasks section has one extra block. Detect assignees lets Sally assign each task to a participant, and Infer due date lets it turn phrases like by next Friday into an actual date.

Figure 16: Only the tasks section has task detection

4.1 Small talk and private topics

Small talk is the chat around the actual business, about the weekend or the weather. Private topics are personal matters such as family, health or vacation plans. Whether Sally writes either of them into the summary is set in the template, on two levels: one value for the whole template, and an exception for any section that needs one.

For the whole template

1. Open the template and click Settings in the top right.
2. Under Output for every section, turn on Include small talk, Include private topics or both. In a new template, both are off. Then click Save template.

Figure 17: One value for every section of this version

The value belongs to the version. A published version keeps the value it was published with. If you change it, the change joins the other unpublished changes and only applies once you publish, see Editing and publishing a template.

For a single section

1. Open the section through its pencil icon and scroll down to Output.
2. Small talk and Private topics each offer three options. As in the template follows the value of the template and shows it in brackets. Include and Exclude override it for this one section.

Figure 18: A single section can deviate from the template

A section that deviates shows its choice under its name in the section list, so you can see at a glance where the template is overridden.

Example

Leave both off for the template so the summary stays businesslike. Then set Private topics to Include for one section such as Relationship notes, where personal details help you prepare the next conversation.

What this does not change

The setting only affects what Sally writes into the sections of the summary. The transcript stays word for word what was said, and summaries that already exist do not change.

4.2 Organization-internal section

Some results are meant for your own team and not for the person you share the summary with, coaching notes on your own sales conversation for example. Mark such a section as organization-internal. Sally still writes it and shows it in Sally, but keeps it out of everything that goes outside.

1. In the section panel, turn on Organization-internal section under Sharing. The change is saved automatically. Publish the template once it should apply to your meetings.

Figure 19: The switch keeps a section inside your organization

This is what happens to the section in summaries made with the template:

• In Sally it shows up like any other section and carries a badge next to its title, so everyone knows why it is missing from documents later.
• Shared report: the section starts switched off in the Share panel. If you want a recipient to see it after all, switch it on there.
• Download: the regular summary leaves the section out. Only the extra summary row with organization-internal sections in the download menu includes it.

A section you insert from the section library takes this setting from the library entry as well.

5. Table, follow-up appointment and email

Most sections deliver text. Table, Follow-up appointment and Email deliver structured results instead, ones you can work with right away: a table with columns that are the same in every meeting, an agreed follow-up meeting that becomes an appointment or a calendar file in one click, and a follow-up email that is waiting as a finished draft.

You add them like any other section, through Add section in the Fixed result group, see Section types. Follow-up appointment and Email come with a ready-made prompt that you can keep or adjust. For the table you write the prompt yourself, because only you know which rows belong in your table.

5.1 Table

A table works for anything that fits into rows and columns: open items with owners and due dates, offers from different vendors, requirements with a priority.

5.1.1 Table prompt

Under Prompt, describe what a row is and what does not belong in the table. For example: "One row per open item that was discussed. Items that were only mentioned in passing do not belong in the table." The prompt needs at least 50 characters.

5.1.2 Variant

Under Table, Variant decides who sets the columns:

• I define the columns: you set the columns, and they are identical in every meeting. The prompt only decides what goes into the cells. Integrations receive a real table. This is the right choice when you want to compare or process results across many meetings.
• Sally picks the columns: Sally derives the columns from your prompt, so they can differ from meeting to meeting. For integrations, the table stays a block of text.

5.1.3 Columns

With I define the columns, you add every column under Columns with a name and a type. Add column adds another one, the cross on the right removes it.

Figure 20: Every column has a name and a type

The type decides how Sally captures the value and how it is shown in the summary. There are seven types:

Type	Good for
Text	Descriptions, outcomes, topics
Number	Quantities, units, durations
Currency	Prices, budgets, offer totals
Percent	Discounts, progress, shares
Date	Due dates, delivery dates
Yes/No	Done, approved, confirmed
Person	Owners, contacts

Figure 21: Seven column types to choose from

For a column of type Person, Linking also decides what can be entered: Account or text, Only with an account or Text only. With an account, Sally links the person to a member of your organization.

Sally discards nothing

If a value does not match the type, such as "around 12,000 depending on quantity" in a currency column, it stays and is shown as text. Nothing that was said in the meeting gets lost.

5.1.4 The table in the summary

In the summary, the table appears with your columns. People are shown as small chips in the cell, and you pick dates from a calendar. Every cell can be edited directly. Add row and Add column below the table add what is missing, and you can remove single rows or columns again.

With the icons at the top right of the section you copy the table, download it on its own as PDF, DOCX, TXT, MD or ODT through Download the section, send it to an integration or delete it. In PDF, Word and ODT it is a real table, not text. If it runs across several pages, the header row with the column names repeats on every page, so each value keeps its column label.

Figure 22: The finished table in the summary

5.2 Follow-up appointment

The Follow-up appointment section checks whether another meeting was agreed and records it: the purpose, start and end under When, the Participants, optional attendees and a short description. Sally only records an appointment that was actually agreed, not one that was merely suggested in passing.

Every detail can be changed right in the section, for example when the time moved after the meeting. If no follow-up meeting was agreed, the section says so, and you can add one yourself with the button below the note.

The two calendar icons at the top right turn it into a real appointment:

• Create appointment opens the Create new appointment dialog, already filled in with title, time, attendees and description. Create Appointment saves it. The appointment is created in Sally, your Outlook or Google calendar is not changed.
• Calendar file downloads the appointment as an .ics file. Open it in Outlook, Google Calendar or any other calendar to add the appointment there and send invitations.

Figure 23: The follow-up appointment with the icons for appointment and calendar file

5.3 Email

The Email section drafts a follow-up email for the meeting: with recipients in To and CC, a subject and a body that sums up what was agreed and what happens next. Sally takes the tone from the conversation. Nothing is sent. You decide whether and when the email goes out.

You can change recipients, subject and body directly in the section. Next to To and CC, one icon adds all meeting participants at once, and another removes all recipients again.

This is how you get the draft into your email program:

• Open in mail app, the first of the icons at the top right, opens a new draft with recipients, subject and body in your default email program.
• As a file next to it downloads the draft as an .eml file. You can open it in Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and most other email programs.

Figure 24: The follow-up email draft with the icons for mail app and file

5.4 Good to know

• Older summaries stay readable. A table stores its columns with it. If you change the columns in the template later, summaries that already exist keep looking the way they did.
• Integrations such as Trello take over the sections with their structure, so a table with fixed columns arrives as a real table. How to pass content on to other tools is described under Integrations.
• Try it before it goes live: the Preview tab tests the current state of the template on one of your recordings, see Create a template.

6. The section library

If you want the same section in several templates, put it in the section library once. From then on you insert it instead of writing it again. An entry gets into the library in two ways.

From a section you already have

1. Open the section through its pencil icon, the way Title and prompt describes, and click the icon Save to library at the top right of its panel.

Figure 25: A section you already have can go straight into the library

From scratch

1. Open Settings at the bottom left, click Meeting templates under Configuration and switch to the Section library tab at the top.

Figure 26: The Section library tab is next to the meeting templates

2. Click Create section on the right.

Figure 27: Create section adds a new library entry

3. The dialog asks for the same things as a section in a template, so title, type, prompt and output, plus a visibility. A personal entry stays with you, a team or organization entry is available to your colleagues as well. Once everything is filled in, click Create in the bottom right.

Figure 28: A library entry carries its own visibility

4. The entry then appears in the table with its type and visibility. The icons on the right of the row edit or delete it.

Figure 29: Every library entry in one list

Inserting an entry into a template

To put a library section to work, you add it to a template.

1. Switch to the Meeting templates tab at the top and click the card of the template the section should go into.

Figure 30: Clicking the card opens the template

2. Click Add section below the section list and switch to the Library tab at the top of the panel.

Figure 31: The Library tab is next to the Standard tab

3. Click the entry you want to insert.

Figure 32: The Library tab holds your reusable sections

4. The section is added at the bottom of the list with a Library badge. Sally adds a number to the title when the template already has a section with the same title. The change is saved automatically. Click Publish once the section should take effect in real meetings.

Figure 33: The inserted section carries the Library badge

Inside the template that section is read-only. Its pencil icon is greyed out, and a note tells you it was adopted from the library. That is the point: you maintain the text in one place instead of in five templates. To change it, edit the entry on the Section library tab.

A change to the entry reaches every template that uses it, right away. That includes published versions: they pick up the new content without a new version, so the next summary from any of these templates already follows the changed entry.

Deleting an entry removes it from your templates

When you delete a library entry, every section inserted from it disappears from the templates that use it, and therefore from all future summaries made with them. Before anything happens, Sally asks for confirmation and lists the templates that are affected, including those that would be left without any section. If no template uses the entry, the dialog tells you that deleting it is safe.