How is this different from Apple Notes, Notion, or a doc per person?

Generic note apps store text and stop there. Confab is built around the manager-report relationship: notes are organized by person and meeting, and because the app understands what a note is, it can act on them, drafting 1:1 topics, surfacing sentiment, reminding you of follow-ups, and pre-filling performance reviews. Same five minutes of note-taking, far more out the other end. And because notes belong to the org, not a personal account, they survive a manager change instead of vanishing with it.

What happens to a report's notes when they get a new manager?

They transfer. In a personal notes app, that history is trapped in the previous manager's account and personal format, so the new manager starts blind. In Confab, notes live against the person and the team, so reassigning a report hands their full history to the new manager automatically, no re-interviewing the team to reconstruct what everyone's already been told. The inherited history is read-only, so the new manager can see everything but can't rewrite what came before.

We already use Lattice or 15Five. Why Confab?

Confab covers the core people-team workflows those tools do: reviews, 360 feedback, engagement signals, and 1:1s. Two things set it apart. First, where the data comes from: everything is drafted from the notes managers already take, or from automated meeting transcript summaries, and for engineering orgs it's grounded in real GitHub or Bitbucket activity. Second, who can see it: no notes of any kind are shared with HR, everything a manager writes stays private to that manager. Notes are encrypted at rest with each org's own AES-256-GCM keys, isolated from every other org, and stripped of names before Confab's AI ever reads them. Teams pick Confab when they want higher manager adoption and less HR busywork, at a fraction of enterprise pricing.

I write candid notes. How private are they?

As private as it gets. Every note encrypted at rest with your organization's own keys. No other organization can ever access your data, it is isolated by design. AES-256-GCM encryption (the same standard banks use). Keys rotate automatically every year. All names stripped out before Confab's AI ever sees your notes.

Do I have to change how I take notes?

No. Write notes the way you always have, whether during a 1:1, after a hallway chat, or straight from a Slack thread. Confab also imports meeting transcripts (from Zoom and Google Meet) onto the meeting for you, so even a conversation you didn't type up becomes a note. There's no rigid template to learn.

How hard is it to move off Notion or Obsidian?

Not hard. Export your notes as Markdown (both tools do this), zip them up, and Confab bulk-imports the whole set, each note filed against the right person automatically, no retyping and no manual sorting. And because you can export back to Markdown or PDF anytime, you're never locked in.

Will the AI topics actually be useful, or generic fluff?

They're based on your actual notes and meeting history, not templates. If someone mentioned burnout two weeks ago, you'll get a follow-up topic about it. Names are always anonymized before Confab's AI sees them, and you can regenerate or edit topics whenever you want.

I hate writing performance reviews. Will this actually help?

That's exactly why we built it. Confab drafts reviews from the notes you've already taken, plus action items, insights, and 360 feedback, so you start with a solid first draft instead of a blank page. Edit it, make it yours, and you're done in a fraction of the time.

Can my team tell I'm using the Solo plan?

No. Your reports can't log in and won't receive any emails from Confab. It's your private notebook to stay organized, prep for meetings, and write better reviews without anyone knowing how you do it.

Confab - Performance Management, Built Around Notes and Engineering Teams

The Engineering Manager's Notebook

Confab helps engineering managers turn the notes they already take into 1:1 prep, engagement signals, and review drafts, grounded in the code your team actually ships.

No credit card · 30-day free trial · Bulk-import your existing notes

The note is the foundation.

You already take notes. Confab puts them to work. Prep for the next meeting, early warning signs, follow-up reminders, a head start on reviews. Write them once, use them everywhere.

✍️ A note or call transcript → Topics & prep → Sentiment signals → Reminders → Reviews

Meeting & Ad-Hoc Notes

Capture notes during meetings or on the fly. Attach transcripts, organize by person or topic, full-text search across your whole history.

Per-Person Note History

Every note is scoped to a team member and meeting, building a structured timeline that powers topics, insights, and reviews.

AI Meeting Topics

AI generates conversation starters from your note history so every 1:1 is meaningful. Regenerate or edit any topic.

AI Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment scoring across notes, meeting transcripts, Pulse check-ins, and code activity produces signals for happiness, engagement, flight risk, trust, and more, with trend charts.

Team Pulse Check-ins

Recurring pulse surveys sent to your reports over email or Slack: three custom questions plus a mood score, on your cadence. Responses feed the same signals and trends.

Reminders & Action Items

Attach reminders and action items to any note. Email and in-app alerts, with progress tracking until they're done.

AI Performance Reviews

Drafts reviews from your notes, action items, insights, and 360 feedback into an editable first draft.

360 Feedback

Run feedback cycles with customizable templates, anonymous or named responses, and aggregated reporting with visualizations.

Calendar, Zoom & Slack

Google Calendar, Outlook, and Zoom sync; Zoom and Google Meet transcript import; turn any Slack message into a note or action item.

Encryption & Code Insights

AES-256-GCM encryption with per-org keys, name anonymization before Confab's AI, plus GitHub/Bitbucket contribution analysis and Jira/Linear delivery metrics (cycle time, open tickets).

Bulk Import & Export

Import a zip of Markdown and plain-text notes in bulk, mapped to the right team member on import. Export to Markdown (per-note files) or a formatted PDF, on demand, for any team member or your whole team.

MCP Server

A built-in Model Context Protocol server exposes your notes, action items, agenda items, tasks, and 1:1s (plus team analytics for your reports) as read-only tools, all scoped to your org, so Claude and other AI assistants can query your Confab data directly.

One home for every conversation

The core of Confab. Capture a 1:1, a hallway chat, or a stray thought, filed by person and searchable forever. Goodbye Apple Notes, Notion docs, and that spreadsheet you keep meaning to fix.

Filed by person, not by chaos

Everything sits against the right teammate and meeting, so you never scroll a wall of text hunting "that thing they said." This running history is the context the rest of Confab feeds on.

Never wing a 1:1 again

No more "so… how's it going?" Confab reads your history and hands you tailored talking points, so every meeting picks up right where the last one left off.

Read the room

AI tracks sentiment as you write and flags who's disengaged or eyeing the door, well before it lands as a resignation letter.

Hear it straight from the team

Notes only capture what you see. Team Pulse asks your reports directly on a schedule you set, over email or Slack, so quiet frustration surfaces even when it never came up in a 1:1.

Nothing slips through

Made a promise mid-sentence? Drop a reminder or action item right where you wrote it. Confab nudges you at the right time, so commitments never fall between meetings.

Reviews that draft themselves

A year of context is the hard part of a review, and you've already captured it. Confab turns it, plus action items and feedback, into a first draft. You edit, not start from scratch.

See past blind spots

You only see one angle. 360 feedback pulls in peers, skip-levels, and partners you don't sit with, landing the full picture right where the rest of your context already lives.

Capture it where it happens

Calendar sync drops your 1:1s in, Slack threads become notes in a click, and Zoom or Google Meet transcripts arrive on the meeting automatically. Context lands in the right place, zero copy-paste.

Write candidly, sleep soundly

Everything's encrypted with your org's own keys, and names are stripped before Confab's AI ever sees a word. Plug in GitHub or Bitbucket for Code Insights you couldn't write down yourself.

Bring your notes

Switching from Notion, Obsidian, or a folder of docs? Confab imports them in one pass, no retyping and no re-sorting a year of history. Nothing's ever locked in: export any note, or a full person's timeline, to Markdown or PDF whenever you want.

Just ask your AI

Point Claude or any MCP-aware assistant straight at Confab. "What's open for Priya?" or "How's the team's mood trending?" gets answered from your real notes and 1:1s, read-only and scoped to your org, without you digging through a single page.

What your team is telling you

Confab reads the signal across everything it knows about a report, your notes and meeting transcripts, their Team Pulse check-ins, and their code contributions, and turns it into a live read on morale, engagement, and flight risk, so you spot who needs your attention before it becomes a resignation.

The performance toolkit you know, tuned for engineering orgs.

Lattice, 15Five, and Culture Amp cover the HR checklist. Confab covers similar ground, then adds what those tools can't see: the day-to-day context managers capture in their notes and the work engineers actually ship. The result is a running memory of your team, so no context is lost between 1:1s and no review starts from a blank page.

15 minutes. Zero pressure.

We'll show you how managers move off scattered notes and into one notebook that actually works for them, and where it saves the most time.

✓Bring your existing notes

✓Focused on your team's needs

✓You'll know in 15 minutes

The Engineering Manager's Notebook

The note is the foundation.

A notebook first. Everything else cascades from there.

One home for every conversation

Filed by person, not by chaos

Never wing a 1:1 again

Read the room

Hear it straight from the team

Nothing slips through

Reviews that draft themselves

See past blind spots

Capture it where it happens

Write candidly, sleep soundly

Bring your notes

Just ask your AI

Built by a manager who just wanted their notes to do more.

One place for every kind of note

Your notes, turned into signal

No more winging the 1:1

Context your notes can't capture

Capture it before you forget it

Everything you've written, two keystrokes away

Connects to the tools your team already uses

What your team is telling you

The performance toolkit you know, tuned for engineering orgs.

Reviews & 360 feedback

Engagement & retention signals

Engineering context, built in

Simple, honest pricing. Try everything free for 30 days.

15 minutes. Zero pressure.

Thank You!

Common questions. Answered.