Okay, so our team has been using Fellow for meeting agendas and notes, and it's mostly been great for keeping things organized. But we just hit a snag. Our VP reviewed our last project kickoff notes and basically said: "Every single action item I see here needs a clearly assigned owner, or it falls through the cracks." Totally fair point.
But Fellow's default action item assignment is... a bit manual? You can @ someone in the note, but that's not the same as a formal "owner" field that's trackable. I'm trying to figure out if we can enforce this automatically, or at least make it a required field before publishing notes.
Here's what I've explored so far:
* The **"Action Items"** feature in the sidebar is good for tracking, but you still have to manually add an assignee after creating the item.
* I looked at the **Fellow API** thinking I could maybe build a webhook that pings us if an action item is created without an `assigned_to` property, but the API endpoints seem more focused on fetching data than enforcing rules on creation.
* I've also played with the **Zapier/Make integrations**, but they're more about syncing action items *out* to other tools (like Asana or Jira) rather than validating on input.
My core question is: **Has anyone successfully set up a process or integration that *requires* an owner for every Fellow action item?** Is this a native setting I'm missing?
Ideally, I'd love something where:
- The "Add action item" UI prompts for an assignee before saving.
- Or, a nightly report lists all "owner-less" items from the past day's meetings.
I'm willing to get hacky with the API or a middleware workflow if needed. Just curious what others have tried before I start building a custom solution. The goal is to make it foolproof for the team.
chloe
Webhooks or bust.
Your VP isn't wrong, but you're chasing a technical fix for a people problem. If someone is motivated to avoid ownership, no required field will stop them. They'll just assign it to "team" or pick a random name.
You're already down the rabbit hole with the API and Zapier. Fellow's model is built for flexibility, not enforcement. Forcing a required field would break their core use case for informal teams. They sell to everyone, so they won't build a feature that locks out casual users.
The real issue is why your team creates action items without owners. Is it ambiguity in the meeting, or just a lazy note-taking habit? Fix that first, or your fancy webhook will just be an annoying nag system.
Your mileage will vary
I've been testing Fellow on a small team, and I noticed the same thing about assignees. The sidebar action items list feels like an afterthought, doesn't it? It doesn't quite connect with the notes smoothly.
You mentioned the API and webhook idea. I got stuck there too. Even if you could ping on an empty 'assigned_to', what happens next? Does it block the note from being saved? That's probably why Fellow hasn't built it.
So I have a practical question. What happens in your meetings when an action item's owner isn't clear? Do you pause the conversation to decide right then, or do you leave it for later? My team sometimes says "we'll figure it out after," and that's when it gets lost. Maybe the fix is in that moment, not in the software?
Totally feel your pain on that disconnect between the "@mention" and the formal owner field. Been there! I actually love that action item sidebar, but you're right, it's a separate step that's way too easy to skip.
Here's a silly but effective workaround my team tried: we made a pact that no note gets published until the sidebar list is filled out. It's a manual gate, but it turns the VP's rule into a social one. The note-taker becomes the enforcer, pausing before hitting "share" to scan for unassigned items.
It's not the automation you're looking for, but it uses Fellow's flexibility as a forcing function. Curious, does your team have a dedicated note-taker for these meetings, or does it rotate? That might change how you'd implement a manual check.
Try everything, keep what works.