Slack Standup Summary. Summarize Async Standups
Turn async standup updates into one structured digest. See team progress, blockers, and priorities — without reading every individual message.
What is a Slack Standup Summary?
A Slack standup summary is an AI-generated digest of your team's async standup updates. Instead of scrolling through 8-10 individual standup messages every morning, you get one consolidated view of what the team accomplished, what they're working on, and what's blocked.
Async standups in Slack have become popular because they respect everyone's time and work across time zones. But they create a new problem: too many messages to read. A standup summary solves this.
A good standup summary includes:
- Yesterday's wins — What the team accomplished
- Today's focus — What everyone's working on
- Blockers — Issues raised (highlighted for attention)
- Help requests — Anyone asking for support
With Recal, you set up a daily recap on your #standup channel. Every morning after standups are posted, the AI generates a digest — making it easy to stay informed without the reading overhead.
Why Teams Love Standup Summaries
The benefits of async standups, without the reading overhead.
Save 15+ minutes daily
Reading 8 standup updates takes 10-15 minutes. Reading one summary takes 2 minutes. Do the math across a week.
Spot blockers instantly
Blockers get highlighted in the summary. No more missing that one person who mentioned they're stuck on a dependency.
Team-wide visibility
See what everyone's working on in one view. Great for distributed teams where you don't have constant visibility.
Zero ongoing effort
Set it up once. Summaries arrive automatically every day. No manual work, no remembering to check the channel.
How to Set Up Standup Summaries
Works with your existing standup workflow — no changes needed.
Connect your standup channel
Add Recal to Slack and point it at your #standup or #daily-updates channel. Works with any channel where team members post updates.
Set your summary time
Schedule the summary for after your standup deadline. If standups are due by 9am, set the digest for 9:30am. Skip weekends if you want.
Get daily digests
Every day, the AI reads all standup updates and generates a structured summary. Progress, blockers, and priorities — all in one place.
Works With Any Standup Format
Manual posts
Team members type their updates directly
Geekbot responses
Summarize bot-collected standups
Custom workflows
Any structured or unstructured format
What a Standup Summary Looks Like
One digest replaces 8+ individual updates.
What the team accomplished yesterday — wins and completions.
What everyone's prioritizing today — the team's collective agenda.
Issues raised by team members — highlighted so they don't get missed.
Anyone asking for support or collaboration.
Who Uses Standup Summaries
Any team running async standups.
Engineering managers
Get a daily digest of your team's progress without attending standup or reading 10+ messages. Spot blockers instantly.
Remote-first teams
When teammates span multiple time zones, async standups + summaries keep everyone aligned without synchronous meetings.
Cross-functional visibility
Product, design, and engineering teams can stay informed on each other's progress without joining every channel.
Leadership updates
Executives get high-level team summaries delivered as DMs. Stay informed without the noise.
More Slack AI Features
Explore other ways Recal helps teams get value from Slack.
Slack Standup Summary FAQ
Common questions about async standup summaries. Need more help? Reach out to us.
A Slack standup summary is an AI-generated digest of your team's async standup updates. Instead of reading through individual messages from each team member, you get a consolidated view of what everyone's working on, what's blocked, and what was completed — all in one quick read.
Teams post daily updates in a dedicated channel (like #standup or #daily-updates) instead of meeting synchronously. Each person shares what they did yesterday, what they're doing today, and any blockers. Recal can summarize these updates so managers and teammates get the highlights without reading every message.
Create a daily recap in Recal pointed at your standup channel. Set it to run after your team's standup deadline (e.g., if standups are due by 9am, schedule the recap for 9:30am). The AI will summarize all updates and highlight blockers automatically.
A standup summary includes: who posted updates (and who didn't, by inference), key accomplishments from yesterday, what each person is working on today, blockers or issues raised, and any requests for help. It's structured so you can scan the team's status in under 2 minutes.
Recal complements standup bots rather than replacing them. Tools like Geekbot collect the standup responses; Recal summarizes them. If your team already posts standups manually in a channel, Recal can summarize those directly. If you use a bot, Recal summarizes the bot's collected responses.
Most teams schedule standup summaries daily (weekdays), delivered shortly after the standup deadline. Some teams prefer a weekly digest of the standup channel on Monday mornings. Both approaches work — pick based on how closely you need to track daily progress.
The summary will only include updates from people who posted. If you're tracking participation, the absence will be visible when compared to your team roster. Some teams use standup bots for reminders; Recal focuses on summarizing what's been shared.
Yes! When setting up the recap, choose DM as the delivery destination instead of posting to a channel. This is useful for managers who want to review team status without posting the summary publicly.
Still have questions?
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Async Standups, Automatically Summarized
Keep the benefits of async standups. Eliminate the reading overhead. Set up in 2 minutes.