Run a playbook
Pick a ready-made recurring job from the playbook catalog and set it up in Chat. Know what each playbook reads, keeps, and brings back to you, and pause or stop it.
What a playbook is
A playbook is ready-made recurring work, such as a morning briefing or a weekly competitor check. Your lead sets it up with you in Chat, and a squad member runs it from then on.
Setting one up adds its method as a skill for one squad member. If the playbook runs on a schedule, a job named after it goes on the Calendar. Setup also creates any doc and tables it keeps between runs.
Each run ends with something you can act on: a ticket, a suggestion, an updated doc, or stuck work moving again. A run with nothing worth doing says so and stops. Every scheduled run is a task on Tasks, except the Morning Brief, which posts one message in your lead's chat.
A run uses credits only for the research lookups it makes, such as web searches and page reads. The Morning Brief makes none. See What SquadRoom costs and what uses credits.
The catalog
Open Skills, then the Playbooks tab. It holds 13 playbooks.
Start here shows Morning Brief and Week Plan, the two most teams set up first. Once both are set up, it reads Featured. All playbooks lists the rest. To narrow the list, select a category or type in Search playbooks....
| Playbook | Category | How often | Who runs it | What comes back |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morning Brief | Leadership | Every morning | Your lead | One Chat message: a recommended answer per open ask, a fix per stuck task, and today's one to three moves |
| Week Plan | Leadership | Weekly, start of week | Your lead | Last week scored against your Company Goal. This week's plan as one decision: up to five tasks, each with an owner and what done looks like |
| Unblock Sweep | Leadership | Daily or three times a week | Your lead | Fixes on stuck work, and one decision with a recommended choice (unblock, reassign, or close) for the rest |
| Owner Desk | Leadership | On every message | Your lead | Each message to your lead answered with a recommendation and its reasons, or handed to a named squad member with what done looks like |
| Social Pulse | Content | Daily, most runs pass | Content, Marketing, or Growth | One or two post drafts to approve on days with something worth posting about, nothing on quiet days |
| Publishing Loop | Content | Weekly | Content or Marketing | Up to three angles (ways to approach a topic) to pick from. Then a draft with sources in your voice, ideas to reuse it, and an approval to publish |
| Ship Log | Content | Weekly or every two weeks | Product, Content, or Marketing | Your changelog (your list of product changes) updated, a release note draft, and an approval to publish it |
| Support Desk | Customers | On a steady review rhythm | Support, Customer Success, or Activation | Each new request as a reply draft, a case marked for you with a recommended fix, or a note that it needs no reply |
| Customer Voice | Customers | Weekly or every two weeks | Product, Customer Success, or Support | Customer themes ordered by how many customers mention them, with quotes, and one suggested change for the top complaint |
| Inbox Triage | Owner | Once or twice daily | Your lead, Activation, or Sales | Reply drafts to approve, notes on actions only you can take, and the replies you still need to send |
| Market Watch | Research | Once or twice weekly | Research, Marketing, or Product | A log of competitor moves with sources, and a draft response to approve for each move that matters |
| Pipeline Builder | Growth | Weekly | Sales, Activation, or Growth | Good-fit prospects (possible customers), each with a dated reason to contact them, then a draft for each one you pick and a follow-up plan |
| Search Radar | Growth | Weekly | Research, Marketing, or Content | One brief for the page or search with the most to gain, and a check on whether earlier briefs worked |
"Who runs it" lists squad member roles in order, best fit first. If none matches, or two squad members fit equally, your lead asks you during setup.
A playbook card
Each card shows what the playbook does, how often it runs, and the first role that runs it. Once set up, it also shows a status:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Installed | Set up and running |
| Setup in progress | Setup started in Chat and hasn't finished |
| Setup incomplete | Setup stopped before it finished. Start it again from the card. |
| Needs attention | 3 runs in a row failed, so SquadRoom paused it |
| Not running | You stopped its job on the Calendar. Its button reads Set up again. |
Select a card for its details. You see the steps of one run under Each run, with your own steps marked. You also see what it may and may not do, and who runs it.
Set up a playbook
Open the playbook
In Skills > Playbooks, select the card. Read Each run, and the line beside the lock: what it may do without asking you.
Select Set up
Select Set up. Chat opens with your lead, and a message such as "Set up the Morning Brief playbook." goes out for you.
Answer your lead's questions
Your lead asks one question at a time, and only what it can't find itself. It looks in your company notes, Company Goal, docs, and connected apps, which it only reads. For some playbooks, it also looks at public web pages.
For a playbook on a schedule, it asks when to run, unless you already said. For the Morning Brief, it asks what time it should arrive each day and offers 9:00 AM. It uses your browser's time zone, and each playbook's results go to a fixed place.
Where a playbook has a default, your lead uses it instead of asking. Support Desk reviews at most 25 new requests per run. Pipeline Builder prepares at most 10 prospects a week.
Check that it worked
Your lead confirms in Chat. The card shows Installed, and its button reads View skill. A scheduled playbook's job shows on the Calendar, and its doc and tables show in Docs.
If setup doesn't finish, your lead says why in Chat, and the card shows Setup incomplete. See If something goes wrong.
What each playbook reads, keeps, and leaves to you
A playbook reads only what your squad can already read. It keeps notes in one doc and lists in tables, so each run builds on the last. Some also keep the rules agreed in setup in a doc named after them, such as "Social Pulse playbook".
| Playbook | Reads | Keeps in Docs | Waits for your yes on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morning Brief | Tasks, reports, tickets, suggestions | Nothing | Nothing. It only recommends, and can't create or change work. |
| Week Plan | Company Goal, tasks, suggestions, connected analytics | "Week Plan and Results" doc, "Week plan items" and "Weekly measures" tables | The plan. No task is created or assigned before that. |
| Unblock Sweep | Tasks, tickets, suggestions, task activity | Nothing | Closing, reassigning, or archiving anything |
| Owner Desk | Your lead's chat, tasks, your squad's status, Company Goal | Nothing | Anything that can't be undone |
| Social Pulse | Public conversation on your topics, company facts, results of past posts | "Social Learning Log" doc, "Posts" table | Every post, on its exact text |
| Publishing Loop | Your writing guide, your blog's index or sitemap (the list of your site's pages), what people search, public research | "Publishing Learning Log" doc, "Articles" table | The angle, and publishing the exact doc version |
| Ship Log | Done tasks, reports, finished work, earlier release notes | "Ship Log and Reactions" doc, "Shipped items" and "Release notes" tables | Publishing the release note, on the exact doc version |
| Support Desk | Your connected support inbox, support policy, customer history, product docs | "Support Desk Learning Log" doc, "Recurring questions" table | Every reply, refund, account change, and sensitive case |
| Customer Voice | Your feedback sources, public reviews, product docs | "Customer Voice Themes" doc, "Customer themes" table | The suggested change. Nothing is built, replied to, or published. |
| Inbox Triage | Your connected inbox and sent mail, your saved preferences | Nothing | Every send. It can't send, archive, or label mail. |
| Market Watch | Competitor sites, pricing pages, public changelogs, research docs | "Market Watch Log" doc, "Market moves" table | Publishing or changing anything. It never contacts anyone. |
| Pipeline Builder | Your ideal-customer notes, public prospect research, your connected CRM (the app where you track customers and sales) | "Pipeline Learning Log" doc, "Prospects" table | Who gets contacted, and every send |
| Search Radar | Your search data, the page you want to rank for each search, the pages that rank above yours | "Search Opportunity Log" doc, "Search opportunities" table | Nothing on your site changes. The brief stays a suggestion until you start it. |
When a table with the same name already exists, the playbook uses it instead of making a second one.
Pause or stop a playbook
A scheduled playbook is a job on the Calendar, named after the playbook. Open it there to run it now, change when it runs, pause it, or stop it. See Schedule work on the Calendar.
- Pausing keeps the skill and its docs. No run starts until you resume the job.
- Stopping the job removes the schedule. The skill stays in Skills > Your skills, and its doc and tables stay in Docs. The card shows Not running.
- Owner Desk has no schedule. To stop it, open its skill in Skills > Your skills and turn it off for your lead.
To run a stopped playbook again, select Set up again on its card. It runs the same setup as Set up a playbook, and your lead asks its questions again.
- It keeps using the doc and tables it already has, with what earlier runs saved.
- Its skill is rewritten from your new answers. Changes you made to the skill by hand are replaced.
What playbooks don't do
- A playbook never gets more access than your squad has, and can't read an app you haven't connected.
- It never posts, sends, publishes, spends, or changes a connected app on its own. Those come to you as tickets.
- You can't change which squad member runs its schedule after setup.
- While a playbook's job is on the Calendar, even paused, you can't set the playbook up again. You're told it is already installed. Change or pause its schedule on the Calendar instead.
If something goes wrong
You seeThe catalog is available, but setup is waiting for the workspace service to reconnect.
SquadRoom can't reach your workspace right now, so Set up reads Setup unavailable.
Wait a minute and open the page again.
You seePlaybook setup could not start.
Chat couldn't start the setup.
Select Set up again.
Your lead says setup did not complete
Your lead gives the reason in Chat:
| Reason | Fix |
|---|---|
| Another skill already uses the playbook's name, such as "publishing-loop" | If you no longer need that skill, open it in Skills > Your skills and select Delete Skill, then Yes, Delete. Then select Set up again. |
| A text doc already has the name of a table the playbook keeps, such as "Posts" | Rename that doc in Docs, then select Set up again. |
| Your workspace's jobs run in another time zone | All jobs share one time zone. Use a browser set to the workspace's zone. Or first save any job on the Calendar with your zone, which moves every job to it. Then select Set up again. See Time zones. |
| Anything else | Do the next step your lead names, such as trying again in a minute. |
The card shows Needs attention
The playbook's last 3 runs failed, and SquadRoom paused its job. No ticket opens.
Open the job on the Calendar and read the error on the failed runs. Then select Edit and Resume Schedule. The card shows Installed again after the next good run. See When a run fails.
Related pages
- The job a playbook puts on the Calendar: Schedule work on the Calendar.
- The skill a playbook adds: Add and manage skills.
- Approving what a run brings you: Answer questions and approve drafts.