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Meetings

Status: Complete

Schedule one-off or recurring meetings on any channel, RSVP, get reminded before they start, and join from the channel or a shareable link. If your server has email configured, attendees also receive a calendar invite they can add to Google Calendar, Outlook, or Apple Calendar.

Opening the Meetings Panel

Open a channel and click the Meetings icon in the channel header. The panel lists upcoming and past meetings for that channel, each with its time, RSVP counts, and a join link.

Who Can Schedule

Scheduling, editing, and cancelling meetings requires the moderator role or higher (moderator, admin, or owner) in the channel's community. Any channel member can view meetings, RSVP, and join.

Scheduling a Meeting

  1. In the Meetings panel, click Schedule meeting.
  2. Fill in:
  3. Title — shown in the channel, the invite, and attendees' calendars.
  4. Description (optional) — visible in-app to channel members. For privacy, the description is never sent in email invites or the calendar file (see Privacy).
  5. Start time and duration.
  6. Timezone — the meeting's reference timezone; each attendee's calendar app converts it to their local time.
  7. Reminder — how long before the start to notify attendees (for example, 10 minutes).
  8. (Optional) Turn on Recurring and choose the cadence (see Recurring Meetings).
  9. Click Schedule. The meeting appears in the panel, and — if the server has email enabled — invites are sent to the channel's members.

Recurring Meetings

Turn on Recurring when scheduling to repeat a meeting on a fixed cadence (for example, a weekly standup). Recurring meetings:

  • Appear as a single series in the Meetings panel.
  • Produce a recurring event in attendees' calendars — the calendar file carries the recurrence rule, so one calendar entry covers every occurrence.
  • Can be edited or cancelled as a series.

RSVP

Each attendee can set their response from the Meetings panel or the meeting card:

  • Going
  • Maybe
  • Not going

RSVP counts are visible to the channel so everyone can see who plans to attend. You can change your response at any time.

Reminders

Attendees are reminded before a meeting starts, using the reminder lead time chosen when it was scheduled. Reminders arrive in-app, and as a push notification if you have notifications enabled and the app is in the background.

Joining a Meeting

When it's time, join from either:

  • The Join button on the meeting card in the channel, which connects you to the channel's voice/video call, or
  • The shareable link on the meeting (also included in the email invite), which opens the meeting and connects you to the call.

Add to Your Calendar

Every meeting can be added to your personal calendar:

  • Download the calendar file (.ics) from the meeting card to import it into Google Calendar, Outlook, Apple Calendar, or any calendar app. Recurring meetings import as a recurring series.
  • If your server has email enabled, you also receive the invite by email automatically — accepting it from your mail client adds it to your calendar the same way.

Email Invites

If the server operator has configured outbound email, Chatalot emails a calendar invite to each human channel member when a meeting is scheduled, updated, or cancelled:

  • The email carries a standard calendar attachment (.ics, METHOD:REQUEST), so your mail client offers to add it to your calendar.
  • Updates re-send an updated invite; cancellations send a cancellation that removes the event from attendees' calendars.
  • Bot and automation accounts are never emailed.
  • If the server has not configured email, meetings still work fully — you simply use the in-app panel and the manual calendar-file download instead.

Privacy

Meetings are built to share the minimum outside Chatalot:

  • Your description stays in-app. The free-text meeting description is shown to channel members in the app but is never included in the email invite or the calendar file — it stays behind the join link.
  • The attendee list is never disclosed. Each recipient's email invite lists only the organizer and themselves as attendees, so no one can see the other invitees' email addresses from their copy of the invite (per-recipient roster suppression).
  • No message content is emailed. Email invites carry only the title, time, organizer, the recipient, and the join link — never message history or end-to-end-encrypted content.

For how an operator enables and secures outbound email, see Email / SMTP.