Updates

Skej Public Beta 1.91 Released

November 25, 2024

🚦 Buffers. Are. Here.

You asked. We listened.

Skej now supports buffer time between meetings. You can choose from two flavors:

Buffers between blocks of time
Buffers between every meeting

We recommend using the "Blocks of Time" setting. Here’s how it works:

In this example, after any 2-hour block of meetings, Skej would automatically add a 30-minute buffer before and after.

Skej will also ensure you don't exceed the maximum block of time without a break. Using the same example, if you already had 1.5 hours of back-to-back meetings, Skej wouldn't book another meeting adjacent to that block unless it could maintain the buffer before and after.

Want to try it out? Visit the Buffers page of the Skej dashboard.

🛑 Daily Meeting Limits

You can also set a daily cap on how much total time you want to spend in meetings.

For example, if you set a 4-hour daily limit, once you hit that threshold for a given day, Skej will look to other days instead. And if you have a block approaching the limit, Skej won’t book a meeting that would push you over.

Set your daily limit on the Buffers page of the Skej dashboard.

💪 Overrides

For when you need to make an exception, Skej has you covered. If you clearly state specific availability in an email, Skej will prioritize your instructions over its default logic.

For example:

"Skej, I am available Tue, Nov 26 at 11am."

Skej will offer that time instead of applying its normal buffers and limits.

You can also always force book a specific date and time, which overrides all of Skej's normal settings.

"Skej, book this for Tue, Nov 26 at 11am."

Skej Public Beta 1.9 Released

November 22, 2024

Free/Busy on your calendar

Skej now recognizes events marked as “free” on your calendar as being available. Previously, all events were treated as conflicts, regardless of their free/busy status.

This makes it even easier for Skej to know your availability directly from Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar using your existing workflows.

Looking 30 days ahead

Ever ask Skej to find time next week, only to get a response suggesting a date 6 months from now? We fixed that.

Skej will now limit its search to 30 days from your initial target range. If it can’t find a time within that window, it’ll simply let you know rather than endlessly searching.

Random bugs

We pushed a ton of bug fixes. A couple of my favorites:

• Skej was sporadically having trouble scanning Calendly links. Now it's working consistently.

• Sometimes Skej needs more information from you, but it wouldn't tell you exactly what it needs. Now if Skej needs some clarification, it will ask specific and relevant questions instead of vague requests.

Skej Public Beta 1.8 Released

October 25, 2024

⚡️ Autobook with Your Team

With everyone’s calendar connected, Skej will automatically find mutually available times with your coworkers— it’s like the meeting schedules itself!

🤝 Team Accounts

From there, you can add specific people or your entire team to your Skej account. They’ll receive an invitation to join Skej and connect their calendars.

🤵‍♂️ Admin Roles

You can assign different roles to team members. Admins can manage the team, plan, billing, and more, while members have limited access.

Skej Public Beta 1.7 Released

September 16, 2024

📅 Daily Agenda

Starting today, you’ll receive a Daily Agenda in your inbox each morning before your day begins.

Easily manage your day by letting Skej reschedule, modify, or cancel meetings. Simply use the inline links to send auto-filled instructions to Skej, making changes just a click away.

Note: These actions are only available for meetings booked via Skej.

⏰ Meetings Reminders

Stay on top of your schedule with Reminder emails sent 10 minutes before a video call (or 30 minutes for in-person meetings). The reminders include your meeting link, so you can jump right into your calls without fishing around for the URL.

You can also modify, reschedule, or cancel the event directly from the Reminder email.

Note: Reminders are available for any meetings booked from today onward.

If you’d prefer not to receive Daily Agendas or Meeting Reminders, you can easily toggle them off in your Account Settings.

Skej Public Beta 1.6 Released

July 2, 2024

Reply vs. Reply All

Sometimes, a person will reply to Skej only instead of hitting reply all. Maybe you have done this yourself!

For instance, let's say that Skej has sent your availability to a group of 3 people.

One of them replies only to Skej and says, "None of these times work for me."

Previously, Skej would reply all to the whole group with new times.

But if you were one of the other people on that email, it seemed like Skej was replying to no one.

It's like that meme–

Introducing: Threads

With threads, Skej now understands the context and norms around when to stay in a 1:1 or smaller group, and when to reply all to everyone.

In the above scenario, Skej will now reply back to that person, 1:1, to offer more times, without spamming the whole group, until finding a match that will be surfaced to the others.

Skej can now email multiple people in parallel, in different threads, to build consensus and find the perfect time to meet.

And when Skej does need to relay information to the larger group, it provides better context so that everyone understands why it's seemingly replying out of nowhere.

For example, if you tell Skej in a 1:1 reply that you need to reschedule a meeting–

Skej will reply all, explaining to the group why new times are being sent.

Going forward, conversations will feel much more natural and less jarring.

This is all in pursuit of Skej being able to "read the room" the same way a human assistant would.

Preserving Privacy

Another unique feature is that Skej will never divulge the specifics of what was discussed privately in a thread to others in the group.

So if you say, "Cancel this meeting because I hate Paul," Skej will simply pass on that you need to cancel the meeting, but it will not say why.

Our unique architecture is built in such a way that there is no chance of 'leaking' that data from one thread to another.

What you say to Skej, stays with Skej.

Skej Public Beta 1.5 Released

June 17, 2024

Connect Outlook Calendar

When you sign up for a new Skej account, you can now connect Outlook Calendar and authenticate with Microsoft.

Adding New Calendars to Your Account

If you already have a Skej account using Google, you can add additional calendars with Outlook on the Integrations page of the Skej Dashboard.

Important: If you want to email Skej from an Outlook-powered email address (either an outlook.com email or a custom domain that uses Microsoft as its email provider), then you should sign up for a *new* Skej account.

Currently, you can only email Skej from the email you originally registered with.

Teams Video and Skype

Skej now works with these 4 video services: Zoom, Google Meet, Team Video, and Skype.

After you connect your Outlook Calendar, go to Preferences to make sure that Teams, or whatever your video integration of choice is, has been selected as your default.

Welcome to the party, Microsoft lovers!

Skej Public Beta 1.4 Released

June 14, 2024

Zoom Integration

It's finally here!

Skej can now generate Zoom links for your meetings.

First, go to Video Integrations in the Skej Dashboard and click "Add Zoom".

Then, you will be asked to authenticate with your Zoom account.

Setting Zoom as Your Default

After that, go to Preferences and set Zoom as the Default Type for Virtual Meetings.

Now Skej will generate a new Zoom link for each meeting.

In Person Timezones

In addition, with Public Beta 1.4, Skej has better awareness of timezones as they relate to in-person meetings.

For a virtual meeting, it matters to keep track of both timezones if you are in Miami and the person you're trying to meet is in LA.

But if the LA person is going to be in Miami next week, and you're planning lunch, then Miami is the only timezone that matters.

Skej now understands the difference.

Bug Fixes

Various bugs and other issues have also been fixed in this release.

Skej Public Beta 1.3 Released

June 6, 2024

Coffees and Meals

Previously, if you asked Skej to book a coffee, lunch, or a happy hour, it would still call it a "meeting" and would use your default meeting duration, regardless of the type of event.

Now, Skej understands the difference between a video call and a coffee, and it will default to 1 hour for coffees, drinks, breakfast and lunch, and 2 hours for dinner.

These are the defaults, but you can always specify otherwise.

Skej will also properly refer to the type of event by calling it "breakfast" or "lunch" instead of the generic "meeting".

In Person Meetings

You can now set different default durations for in person meetings vs. virtual meetings in the Skej Dashboard.

Additionally, you can set an optional default location that Skej will use for in person meetings, unless you say otherwise.

Perfect for your office address or favorite coffee shop!

Fewer Errors

Skej Public Beta is still in... beta, and there are times when Skej hits a snag and sends a generic error message.

This release should significantly cut down on those occurrences, and our goal is to get it to zero.

Better Situational Awareness

Sometimes Skej does the right thing, but says something that doesn't quite sound right.

For instance, it might say, "That time isn't available, but here's another time." - even if you didn't offer a time.

Or it might say, "Since you're both available..." - even though there are 3 people on the thread.

We've improved Skej's situational awareness by giving it more context, which should yield more accurate and contextually relevant responses.

Modifying Meetings

If you make a change to an existing meeting like modifying the title or description, Skej will now confirm those changes more explicitly.

Bug Fixes

An issue where Skej was listing the current meeting time when suggesting new alternative times has been fixed.

An issue in the Skej Dashboard where the time picker was not aligned properly has been fixed.

An issue when multiple Skej users internally were scheduling a meeting with an external contact, Skej was omitting one of the internal users' names has been fixed.

Various other issues have also been fixed.

Skej Public Beta 1.2 Released

May 29, 2024

New Autobook Alternative Times

When Skej autobooks a meeting between Skej users, the booking confirmation now contains additional mutually available slots. If you prefer a different time than the one Skej chose for the meeting, it's easy to see when everyone is free to change it.

For rescheduling, Skej will provide mutually available suggestions as well.

"When am I free?"

You can now ask Skej for your availability on a given day or range of dates/times by asking, "When am I free?"

Skej can also tell you the availability that you and other Skej users have in common. With other Skej users on the thread, simply ask Skej, "When are we all available?"

This is useful when you want to surface availability but don't necessarily want to book anything yet. Of course you can then ask Skej to book any of the times.

Improved Calendly Workflows

The same capabilities you have with other Skej users are now available with Calendly users as well.

When booking with a Calendly user who has provided their link, Skej will book a time and also include alternative mutually available slots.

You can also ask Skej to tell you when you and a Calendly user are both free.

Calendar Integration 2-Way Sync

Previously, Skej was unaware if you manually modified a calendar event yourself in Google Calendar after Skej had created it.

Now, Skej will have the most up-to-date information about your calendar when you ask to modify or reschedule events.

Keep in mind that, currently, Skej can only modify or reschedule events that were created with Skej.

Bug Fixes

An issue where Skej was using lowercase letters for names in calendar event titles has been fixed.

An issue where Skej was saying that there were no times available instead of offering more suggestions has been fixed.

Various other issues have also been fixed.

Skej Public Beta 1.1 Released

May 14, 2024

Bug Fixes

Various issues have been fixed.

Skej Public Beta 1.0 Released

May 7, 2024

Skej is now available for all to try.

This page will be an ongoing log of future updates and releases.

In Memory of Simon Baumer

Contact

In Memory of Simon Baumer