If you’re drowning in post-meeting “action items” or just tired of chasing people for updates, you’re not alone. Manually following up after meetings is tedious, and most tools either overpromise or take way too long to set up. This guide is for people who want a straightforward, working setup to automate follow-ups using Fireflies and Slack—without hours of wrestling with Zapier, AI bots, or yet another workflow tool.
Here’s the honest, step-by-step way to actually get this done.
Why Automate Follow-Ups? (And What to Ignore)
Most meetings end with “Let’s circle back on this,” which is code for “I’ll forget unless you remind me.” Automating follow-ups means less nagging, fewer dropped balls, and a better shot at moving projects forward.
You could spend days perfecting some elaborate reminder system, but honestly, the basics work fine:
- Automatically capture action items
- Send reminders where your team actually sees them (Slack)
- Don’t overengineer—keep it simple
Skip expensive “AI assistant” products that promise to think for you. They’re rarely worth the money or the hassle.
What You’ll Need
- A Fireflies account (the free plan works, but paid gives you more)
- Access to your team’s Slack workspace (standard user is usually enough)
- 20–30 minutes to set things up
Optional but helpful:
- Zapier or Make (for more advanced automations, but not strictly required)
- A willingness to tweak and experiment
Step 1: Set Up Fireflies to Capture Meeting Notes
First, you need a way to reliably capture what happened in your meetings—including who’s supposed to do what.
Fireflies is a meeting assistant that joins your calendar meetings, records them, and transcribes the conversation. It also tries to identify action items, which is handy (but don’t expect magic).
How to set it up:
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Sign up for Fireflies.
Go to Fireflies and create an account. Sign in with your work email to tie it to your calendar. -
Connect your calendar (Google or Outlook).
This lets Fireflies auto-join meetings you set up. -
Adjust meeting settings.
- Set Fireflies to join all meetings, or only those you invite it to.
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Pro tip: If you’re worried about privacy, set it to only join meetings you explicitly invite it to.
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Test it.
Set up a 5-minute dummy meeting, invite Fireflies, and watch it transcribe and summarize.
Reality check: Fireflies is decent at picking up action items, but it’ll miss things if you don’t phrase them clearly (e.g., “I’ll send the deck by Friday” is picked up; vague chat isn’t). You’ll still want to glance at the transcript or summary.
Step 2: Connect Fireflies to Slack
Now, you want those action items to show up where you and your team actually look: Slack.
Here’s how to hook Fireflies into Slack:
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Go to Fireflies Integrations.
In your Fireflies dashboard, find “Integrations” and select Slack. -
Connect the Slack workspace.
You’ll be prompted to sign in and pick a workspace. Authorize the connection. -
Choose a channel for notifications.
You can set Fireflies to post meeting recaps (and action items) to a specific channel—#meeting-notes, #follow-ups, or even DM them to yourself. -
Customize what’s posted.
- By default, you get the recap and action items summary.
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You can turn off “fluff” like attendance lists or transcript links if you want to keep things tidy.
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Test it.
Run a meeting, check Slack, and see if the summary and action items show up as expected.
Pro tip:
If you use private Slack channels, make sure you invite the Fireflies bot to those channels, or it won’t be able to post.
Step 3: Fine-Tune What Gets Sent (So You Don’t Spam Everyone)
Out of the box, Fireflies is a little “talkative.” Unless you want a firehose of notifications, take a minute to tune your settings.
What to tweak:
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Which meetings trigger Slack posts
Limit it to meetings where action items matter (e.g., project check-ins, sales calls). Otherwise, you’ll annoy people with lunch-and-learn recaps. -
Where recaps go
It’s usually better to post to a group channel for project meetings, but DM yourself for sensitive stuff. -
What content is sent
Most teams just want the action items, not the whole transcript. You can adjust this in Fireflies’ Slack integration settings.
Pro tip:
If you want even more control, you can use a tool like Zapier or Make to filter or reformat what gets sent, but for most folks, Fireflies’ built-in Slack integration is more than enough.
Step 4: (Optional) Use Zapier or Make for Smarter Automation
If you’re the type who likes to tinker—or you need more advanced routing—Zapier or Make can help.
Why bother?
Maybe you want to:
- Only send follow-ups if the meeting includes a certain keyword
- Route action items to different Slack channels based on the project
- Log action items in a task manager (Asana, Trello, etc.) as well
How to do it:
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Set up a Zap (or Scenario) to watch Fireflies.
Use Fireflies’ webhook or email integration as the trigger. -
Filter by keywords or meeting titles.
Add logic so only the right meetings trigger Slack messages. -
Send formatted messages to Slack.
Zapier’s Slack integration lets you customize the message, pick the channel, and even @mention people. -
Test thoroughly.
You don’t want to accidentally spam everyone at 2am.
Warning:
This takes more time and tech know-how, and Zapier charges for multi-step automations. Unless you have a specific workflow in mind, stick with the direct Fireflies-to-Slack integration.
Step 5: Make It Useful—Not Annoying
The difference between a helpful automation and a useless one is whether people actually use it. Here’s how to make sure your setup sticks:
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Ask the team where they want follow-ups.
Some teams like DMs, others prefer a shared #follow-ups channel. -
Keep messages short.
Nobody wants a wall of text. Trim summaries to just the essentials. -
Review and adjust.
After a few weeks, check if people are acting on the follow-ups. If not, tweak the format or frequency. -
Don’t rely 100% on automation.
Sometimes you’ll still need to nudge people manually. Automation is a helper, not a replacement for basic human follow-up.
What Works, What Doesn’t, and What to Skip
What works:
- Letting tools do the busywork (recording, summarizing, notifying)
- Putting action items where people already work (Slack, not email)
- Keeping the process dead simple
What doesn’t:
- Expecting Fireflies (or any AI) to perfectly catch all action items—review the summaries, especially for big meetings
- Overloading Slack channels with too much info
- Setting and forgetting—these tools only help if you check in and improve the workflow
What to ignore:
- Fancy “AI accountability” dashboards—you’ll spend more time setting them up than you save
- Email notifications—most people ignore them anyway
Keep It Simple and Iterate
Automating follow-ups isn’t about having the fanciest setup—it’s about making sure nothing slips through the cracks. Start with Fireflies and Slack, see what actually moves work forward, and don’t be afraid to trim or tweak as you go. You’ll save time, dodge tedious reminders, and maybe even get people to do what they said they would. Not bad for 30 minutes’ work.