Groupthink on iPhone

Groupthink on iPhone captures the conversations and notes that happen away from your desk (a hallway chat, a call in the car, a thought after dinner) and turns them into a record you can keep about the people in your work life. It runs on your phone and transcribes on the device. You sign in first, with Apple, Google or email, and everything you capture goes to your account.

The first time you open the app

A new install opens with four short screens before the tabs:

1. Remember the people in your life: tap Get started.
2. Sign in to keep your people in one place: sign in with Apple, Google or email, the same way you do on the web. New to Groupthink? Signing in with Apple or Google creates your account.
3. Your people: the people Groupthink already knows from your account, or Finding your people while it looks. Tap Continue.
4. Who do you want to keep up with?: the people you've been in touch with most, each with a cadence already chosen from how often you've been in touch. Tick the ones you want to keep up with (or Select all), change a cadence if it's wrong, and tap Keep up with and the number of people. Or tap Skip this step. This screen only shows when Groupthink has someone to suggest. See Setting cadences for several people at once.
5. Put your people on your Home Screen: the steps to add the Touch base widget. See The Touch base widget. Tap Done or Maybe later. If the widget is already on your Home Screen, this screen is skipped.

However you leave, the app opens on Interactions, ready for your first recording or note, and these screens don't come back. If you used the app on this phone before these screens were added, you won't see them.

The five tabs

The tab bar has five spots:

• Interactions: where you record, type, and paste, and where your recent interactions are listed. See Your recent interactions.
• Today: your day, with today's meetings and who's in them, and your tasks. Needs sign-in (see below). It used to be called Overview.
• The Advisor (the raised button with the sparkle, in the middle). Tap it to ask about the people you know. A row of four small buttons at the top, Record, Log, Plan and Add person, keeps a recording two taps from any tab. Plan opens Make a plan. See The Advisor on iPhone.
• People: the person-by-person view of who you know and what you've logged. Needs sign-in.
• Settings: permissions, sync, sign-in, and help.

Signed in, the app opens on Today, your day at a glance. The Advisor button is on every tab, so asking a question or starting a recording is always close.

Signed out, the app is a sign-in screen

Signed out, the app shows only its sign-in screen: Sign in to Groupthink, with Sign in with Apple, Sign in with Google and Sign in with email. There is no tab bar and nothing you recorded on the phone is shown, so someone else holding your phone can't read your notes.

When you sign out, the app asks whether to keep your notes on the phone or remove them. Keep them, sign back in to the same account and your recordings and notes are all there, and any note that couldn't reach your account while you were signed out is sent then. If a different account signs in on the same phone, it never sees yours. See Sync and signing in.

The Touch base widget

The Touch base widget puts the person you're most due to reach out to on your Home Screen, with why they're due. It needs sign-in; signed out, it says Sign in to Groupthink to see who to reach out to.

To add it:

1. Touch and hold an empty spot on your Home Screen until the apps jiggle.
2. Tap Edit in the top corner, then Add Widget.
3. Search for Groupthink, choose Touch base, and tap Add Widget.

The same steps are in Settings → Add the widget. It comes in a small and a medium size for the Home Screen, and for the Lock Screen.

On the widget:

• Call, Text or Met opens the app on Log interaction for that person, with that channel picked and today's date. Add a note if you like, then tap Confirm. Nothing is logged until you do, so a stray tap costs nothing: swipe the sheet away or tap Cancel. The small widget shows these buttons as icons. Once you confirm, the widget shows who is due next.
• Tap anywhere else on the widget to open Log interaction for that person in the app, for anything the buttons don't cover. The medium widget also has a Log… button for this, and Log someone else at the top to pick a different person.
• When nobody is due, the widget shows a short line about today instead, with a Log an interaction button (Log on the small widget). Tap the rest of the widget to open Today.

On the Lock Screen the widget shows the person and why they're due, and a tap opens Log interaction for them. It has no Call, Text or Met buttons there.

Your recent interactions

The Recent Interactions list on the Interactions tab shows different things depending on whether you're signed in.

It lists your whole Groupthink account, newest first: meetings, notes you logged on the web or desktop, desktop captures, and everything you filed from this phone. It's the same list as Past Interactions on the web. Each row says what kind of interaction it was, such as Meeting, In Person, Call, Text conversation, or Logged note.

A meeting row also says who else was there, under the meeting's name: "With Ana Lopez, Raj Patel", or "With Ana, Ben, Cy +2 more" when more people came. Guests without a Groupthink account are included, and you're never listed. Searching the list for someone's name finds the meetings they were in.

Captures that exist only on this phone stay in the list too, with a line saying why:

• Only on this phone: you didn't file it to anyone, so it isn't in your account.
• Not synced: you filed it to someone, but it didn't reach your account. Tap it to see why and try again.

Pull down to refresh the list, and tap Show older interactions at the bottom to go further back.

To see only your meetings, tap Meetings under the Recent Interactions heading. The list changes to meetings alone, newest first, and Show older meetings at the bottom goes further back. Searching while Meetings is on finds only meetings. Tap All to go back to everything.

Tap any row to open it: a note shows its whole text, and a meeting shows its recap and the people in it. Captures you made on this phone open as usual.

Text conversations with no name

A text conversation that isn't filed to anyone and is titled with a phone number or an Apple ID email address asks whose number it is, right under its row:

• When your iPhone's Contacts has a name for the number, or Groupthink has one from your texts or an earlier filing, the row says where the name came from and puts it one tap away, such as It's Karlie Shields or Add Karlie Shields as a contact. Tap Someone else to pick a different person.
• When there's no name to offer, the row has Add a name, which opens your people list. Pick a person, or type a new name. Groupthink asks you to confirm before it files anything.

Open the conversation and its screen says it isn't filed to anyone yet, with the same prompt. There the button with no name to offer is Attach to a contact.

After you answer, the row says who the conversation was filed under, with Not right? and Undo in case you picked the wrong person. These work the same way as Who is this? on Today. See Who is this?.

Fixing the date or channel of a logged note

If you logged a note with the wrong day, or want to say how you connected, open the note and tap the pencil at the top. Edit date or channel lets you change:

• Date: the day it happened. It can't be later than today, because a logged note is something that already happened.
• Lasted more than a day: turn this on for something that ran over several days, like a trip or a conference, and pick the last day under Through. The end can't be before the start, and a range can be at most 90 days.
• How did you connect?: Call, Text, Email, In Person, Other, or None, just a note.

Save stays greyed out until you change something. The note and its row in the list update as soon as it saves. The pencil shows on logged notes and desktop captures, not on meetings.

Searching your interactions

Pull down on the Interactions tab to show the Search interactions box. The list narrows as you type, matching titles, summaries, transcripts and note text, tags, and folder names. Capital letters and accents don't matter, and if you type more than one word, a row has to contain all of them, in any order.

The search looks through your whole account, not just the rows on screen: meetings, logged notes and captures from any date. Type at least two letters and pause. The list says Searching for “pricing”…, then shows what it found under Meetings, notes and captures containing “pricing”.

• Every word has to appear somewhere on a row, in any order. "sarah pricing" finds the meeting Sarah was in whose recap mentions pricing.
• What is searched: a meeting's name, summary, description and notes, and the names and email addresses of the people in it; a note's or capture's title and text.
• Part of a word counts. "lis" finds "Lisbon". Capital letters and accents don't matter.
• Not found by name: a calendar guest who has no Groupthink account and isn't one of your people.

With one letter, nothing is searched and the list says Type at least 2 letters to search. Tap Show older interactions at the bottom to page through more results. If nothing matches, the list says No meetings, notes or captures contain “pricing”. If the search can't run, you'll see a short message with Try again, and whatever was on screen stays. Clearing the search box puts Recent Interactions back the way it was.

Conversations: what reached Groupthink

When you're signed in, the Recent Interactions header has a Conversations link on the right. It opens everything that reached Groupthink, newest first: what you recorded, typed, or pasted, and what arrived on its own, like an email you forwarded to your Groupthink address, a text thread, a Slack thread, or a file you uploaded. It's the same list as Conversations on the web.

Use it to check that something you sent actually arrived, including things that weren't filed to anyone.

• Pick a source with the chips at the top: All, Voice, Typed & pasted, Messages, Email, Slack, or Files. Each chip shows how many items it has.
• Each item leads with what it is: the email's subject, the file's name, or a one-line summary of a long recording or note. Long text is cut to a few lines; tap Show more to read the rest.
• Under each item you'll see where it came from, when, and who it was filed to. Tap a Filed to name to open that person's page. "Unconfirmed" means Groupthink guessed who it was about. Not filed to anyone yet means it isn't on anyone's timeline.
• File an item to someone: under an item that says Not filed to anyone yet, tap Attach to contact and pick the person it's about. If they aren't a contact yet, type their name and tap Add. The item then says Filed to their name, and Groupthink adds what's in it to their page shortly after.
• A text thread whose number is in your iPhone's Contacts offers that name one tap away, such as It's Karlie Shields, the same as on Today. Tap Someone else to pick a different person. A text thread's own screen does the same.
• Filed to the wrong person? Under an item that says Filed to someone, tap Move to someone else and pick who it's really about, or type a new name and tap Add. The item then says Filed to the person you picked. A text thread's own screen has the same button.
• Moving a text conversation moves the number too. When the number was saved on the person the conversation was filed to, it moves to the person you picked, so the next texts from it are filed to them. The item says We'll match this number to them next time. with Not right? and an Undo button. Tap Undo to put the number back on the first person. The conversation stays where you moved it. The number doesn't move when it came from your Contacts, or when you put it on the first person yourself from another conversation, their page or Who is this?.
• Long-press an item and tap Copy text to copy what was captured.

Tap Show older at the bottom to go further back.

On iPad and iPhone Duo

The app also runs on iPad, and on iPhone Duo both closed and open. On a wide screen (an iPad, or the Duo's inner screen) a few screens use the extra room:

• People shows your relationship list on the left and the person you pick on the right. Interactions does the same for your recordings, notes and meetings. Until you pick something, the right side asks you to choose from the list. Tap another row and it replaces what's open on the right. The row that's open is highlighted in the list.
• Today splits into two columns: your day and its meetings on the left, and the lists to work through (tasks, projects, check-ins, what's coming up) on the right. On a day with no lists, your day takes the full width.
• The sign-in and first-run screens put their words on one side and their buttons on the other.

On the Duo opened like a book, the gap between the two columns sits on the fold, so nothing you read or tap is split across it. Fold or unfold the phone, or rotate the iPad, and the person or interaction you had open stays open; the screen just switches between one column and two. On every iPhone, the Duo's outer screen, and an iPad with Groupthink in a narrow slice of the screen, the app looks the same as on any phone. The tab bar is the same everywhere.

Headings and icons that used to stay one size now follow the text size you set on your device. The tab bar keeps its size; at the largest text sizes, touch and hold a tab to see its name larger.

Where to go next

• New to recording? Start with Recording conversations on iPhone.
• Want help with a relationship? Ask the Advisor on iPhone.
• Curious what stays on the device? Read Privacy and on-device permissions.
• Something not working? See Troubleshooting the iPhone app.

Questions? Email support@groupthink.com.