Admins use this article to enable Kona Meeting Assistant for their organization and grant managers access. When complete, selected managers appear in the Kona Users group in 15Five and can begin scheduling Kona-assisted 1-on-1 meetings.
Note: Kona Meeting Assistant is available as an add-on for companies on Perform and Total Platform pricing packages. Contact your 15Five account representative to confirm access before beginning setup.
Before You Begin
- Your organization must have purchased Kona as an add-on. Confirm with your 15Five account representative.
- You must have Account Admin permissions in 15Five.
- To enable the Outlook Calendar global connection, your organization's Microsoft 365 admin must authorize the connection. See Connect Your Calendar to Kona Meeting Assistant.
- Managers must have an active account in 15Five to appear in the KMA selection list. Users with a pending status (invited but not yet logged in) are not visible during setup.
Steps
- Go to Settings > Features > Kona Meeting Assistant.
- Click Set up Kona.
- Select which managers should have access to Kona.
- All managers — grants access to every manager in your account. There is no option to exclude specific managers when using this setting. If you need to exclude anyone, use Specific people instead.
- Specific people — opens a list for manual selection.
- Click Next.
- If you selected Specific people, select each manager from the list.
- Click Next.
- Select how Kona joins 1-on-1 meetings.
- Auto join — Kona joins automatically when the calendar invite includes bot@15five.com.
- Manual join — managers send Kona to individual meetings on demand.
- Click Next.
- Connect your company Google or Outlook Calendar to grant company-wide calendar access for Kona Meeting Assistant.
- Click Next to complete setup.
Confirmation: The Kona Meeting Assistant toggle appears enabled in Settings > Features. Selected managers are added to the Kona Users group in 15Five.
What Happens After Setup
After setup is complete:
- Each selected manager receives an informational onboarding notification explaining what Kona is and that it has been enabled for them. No action is required from the manager when the admin has already connected the company calendar and configured auto-join.
- 15Five syncs calendar data approximately every hour. Kona checks for new eligible meetings and adds the bot to them approximately every minute.
- Managers will see Kona join their next eligible 1-on-1 meeting after the calendar sync completes.
- A manager's setup status is marked Completed once their seat is provisioned and at least one eligible meeting is found via the calendar sync. If a manager has no meetings on their calendar, their status remains incomplete until a meeting is added and the next hourly sync picks it up.
- For Kona to capture meeting notes, the meeting platform must have captions or recording enabled. If neither is enabled, Kona joins the meeting but captures nothing. See Does Kona Record Audio or Video? for platform-specific requirements.
If Something Goes Wrong
| Issue | Check | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Set up Kona button does not appear | Confirm Kona is included in your subscription | Contact your 15Five account representative to verify add-on access |
| A manager does not appear in the selection list | Confirm the user has a Manager role AND an active account (not pending) | Go to Admin > People, locate the user, verify their role is Manager and their status is active. Users who have been invited but have not yet logged in will not appear. |
| Outlook Calendar connection fails | Confirm your Microsoft 365 admin has not blocked third-party app authorizations | Ask your Microsoft 365 admin to authorize the Kona Meeting Assistant app in the Microsoft admin center |
| Managers do not appear in the Kona Users group after setup | Allow up to 5 minutes for group membership to sync | Refresh the Kona Users group page; if managers are still absent after 5 minutes, contact the 15Five Support Team |
| Kona joined the meeting but did not capture any notes | Confirm captions or recording are enabled on the meeting platform | Enable captions (Google Meet, Microsoft Teams) or recording (Zoom). See Does Kona Record Audio or Video? |
| Manager's setup status stays incomplete | Confirm the manager has at least one meeting on their calendar | The status is marked Completed only after the hourly calendar sync finds at least one eligible meeting. If the manager's calendar is empty, the status remains incomplete until a meeting is added. |
Related Articles
- Kona Meeting Assistant — Feature Overview
- Does Kona Record Audio or Video?
- Use Kona Coach in Zoom (Manager)
- Use Kona Coach in Microsoft Teams and Outlook (Manager)
- Use Kona Coach in Google Meet (Manager)
- Manage Kona Auto Join and recurring meeting settings
- Kona did not join the meeting
- I did not receive a Kona meeting summary
- Connect Your Calendar to Kona Meeting Assistant