Focus Brief is a personalized, AI-generated brief that helps employees and managers focus on the most important priorities, patterns, and opportunities in their work. It uses information from 15Five and connected work systems to generate relevant insights and suggested actions on a recurring schedule. Focus Briefs are delivered automatically through Slack, Microsoft Teams, email, and the 15Five platform.
Focus Briefs are part of 15Five's connected AI system. They draw from the Context Layer, including data from Check-ins, 1-on-1s, Objectives, and connected work tools. See How 15Five AI works together for how data flows between capabilities.
- Required access to Agents Hub
- This article is relevant to admins, managers, and employees.
- This feature is available in the Perform and Total Platform pricing packages.
- At least one work system integration must be connected before Focus Briefs can be configured.
Note: To ensure the highest level of security, 15Five is continually investing in our overall information security program, resources, and expertise. To review 15Five's security documents, and how we handle your company data, see our Trust Website.
Feature Structure
Focus Brief consists of the following components:
Personalized insights Each Focus Brief is generated using information relevant to the recipient. The brief analyzes signals from connected work tools and from 15Five data, such as check-ins, 1-on-1s, objectives, performance reviews, and High Fives. Focus Briefs do not use engagement survey comments or compensation data.
Employee Focus Brief Employees receive a personalized brief that highlights current priorities, progress toward development goals, and areas that may benefit from attention. Each brief includes a suggested action based on the employee's recent work and growth areas. The brief can also flag goals as behind, at-risk, stalled, or abandoned based on progress pace and recent activity.
Manager Focus Brief Managers receive insights at both the team and individual levels. At the team level, the brief identifies themes, opportunities, and areas that may require attention across the team. At the individual level, managers can view insights for each direct report, including strengths, potential risks, coaching opportunities, and suggested actions or discussion prompts.
Welcome message Newly added users get a one-time welcome message before their first brief. It explains what the brief helps with, states that only the recipient can see it, and asks what they want help with. Users who were already receiving briefs do not get one.
Time off If a recipient was out for most or all of the period a brief covers, they get a short message instead of a full brief. When a direct report is out, the manager's brief says so in that person's section. See Why didn't I get a full Focus Brief this week?.
View Sources
Every insight in a Focus Brief includes supporting source information. Using View Sources, recipients can see the information behind an insight. Each source links to the item itself, including objectives and 1-on-1s in 15Five.
Sources may include:
- 15Five data, such as objectives, 1-on-1s, check-ins, and reviews
- Slack conversations
- Jira issues
- Documents and files from connected systems
- Salesforce deals, when your company has Salesforce connected
- Other supported integrations
Delivery and access
Focus Briefs are delivered automatically based on an admin-configured schedule. Recipients can access Focus Briefs through:
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- The Focus Brief page in the Agents section of 15Five
Privacy
Each Focus Brief is private to its recipient. Its content is never shared with anyone else in the organization. Managers do not see their direct reports' briefs, and the manager brief is not built from them. Sources stay visible only to people who already had access to them in the original tools.
A privacy statement appears with every brief: in the 15Five app home in Slack and Microsoft Teams, above the actions in the brief message, and under the date in the email version.
What You Can Do
Employees Receive personalized Focus Briefs, review your current priorities and development themes, view the sources behind generated insights, add and update your personal context, and access past Focus Briefs all within the platform.
Managers Review team-level Focus Brief insights, view Focus Brief insights for direct reports, identify coaching opportunities and potential risks, add and update team context, and access the sources behind generated insights.
Admins Configure Focus Brief settings, connect supported integrations, manage audience settings, configure delivery schedules and cadence, and add and maintain company context to ensure Focus Briefs are tailored, relevant, and delivered effectively to the right audience at the appropriate time. Audience options include all employees, all managers, or a targeted group using include/exclude rules for specific people or groups. See Set up and configure Focus Briefs (Admin) for setup steps.
Key Rules
- Focus Brief content is generated automatically based on available data and context.
- Admins control recipients, schedule, cadence, and data sources, but cannot edit the content of individual briefs.
- Admins can target Focus Briefs to all employees, all managers, or specific people and groups using include/exclude rules in the Agents Hub.
- At least one work system integration must be connected before Focus Briefs can be configured. See Set up and configure Focus Briefs (Admin) for setup steps.
- Each brief analyzes activity from a lookback window matching the configured cadence: 7 days for weekly, 14 days for bi-weekly. Agents retain full historical context, but each brief focuses on recent signals.
- The quality of insights depends on the data available from 15Five and connected integrations.
- Focus Briefs can be delivered through Slack, Microsoft Teams, or email.
- Every insight includes source information that recipients can review using View Sources.
- Additional company, team, and individual context can improve the relevance of generated insights.
- Context a person adds anywhere in 15Five shows in the My Context tab of Agents Hub.
- If your company has Salesforce connected, briefs show deal counts: deals won, deals opened, deals lost, and pipeline movement. Each count links to the deal in Salesforce.
- If a recipient was out for most or all of the period a brief covers, they get a short message instead of a full brief.
- Focus Briefs are available in the platform under Agents > Focus Brief.
- Focus Briefs read connected work tools coming into 15Five. They do not need 15Five MCP, which sends 15Five data out to your AI tools. See 15Five MCP: Feature Overview.