Connecting Your Google Account to Sera

Connecting your personal Google account lets Sera work alongside your own inbox, calendar, and Drive. This is a per-user connection: it is yours alone, and it is separate from the shared capture inbox that an administrator sets up once for the whole team.

How to connect

In the dashboard, go to Settings, then Google Integration, and click Connect Google. You authorize once, and Sera remembers your account across sessions — you do not need to reconnect every time you log in.

What each permission allows

Saberra requests only the permissions it needs, and each maps to a specific, useful capability.

• Send email on your behalf (gmail.send) — when you ask Sera to write an email, she shows you the full message (recipient, subject, body) and sends it from your own address only after you explicitly say yes. She sends the ones you approve; she does not read or search your existing inbox.
• View and create calendar events with Google Meet links (calendar.events) — this powers meeting preparation and scheduling. Attendees are never auto-emailed; Sera prepares, you decide.
• Save files into a Sera-managed folder in your Drive (drive.file) — Sera can only ever see and touch folders and documents she herself created. She can never see, read, or touch your other Drive files.

Across all of these, the rule is the same: nothing is sent or shared without you asking. Sera prepares and saves, and only sends after you approve the exact message. Every one of these is a Sensitive scope only — there is no Restricted access and no ability to read your inbox — so the connection needs no special security review to work for your whole team.

If you connected earlier

If you connected your Google account before the newer capabilities were added, you may only have granted email access. Reconnect once from the same Settings, then Google Integration screen to grant the newer Calendar and Drive permissions. Without them, meeting prep and document saving will not work.

What happens when Sera saves a document

When Sera saves a document she creates a brand-styled Google Doc inside a folder called Saberra Documents in your Drive. She never scatters files across your Drive or touches folders you already have.

Every save is logged. In Settings you will find a What Sera did in your Drive activity list that shows every document Sera has saved, newest first, each entry linking straight to the file. Because Sera can only ever see folders and docs she created, this list can never expose your other Drive content — it is a complete and honest record of exactly what she touched.

Your personal connection versus the shared capture inbox

It is worth being clear about the difference, because they serve different purposes.

• Your personal Google connection is what this article describes. It is tied to your account, set up by you, and used to send email from your address on your approval, prepare and manage your calendar, and save documents to your Drive.
• The shared capture inbox (for example capture@yourorg.com) is team-wide and managed once by an administrator. It is where meeting recordings, transcripts, and forwarded email threads are sent so that Sera can process them into the shared institutional memory.

You use your personal connection to work with your own Google Workspace. You use the capture inbox — by forwarding a thread or letting meeting notifications flow to it — to feed the team's audited memory pipeline. Both can be active at the same time, and they never interfere with each other.

A quick mental model

Think of the personal connection as Sera as your assistant: she can send emails you approve, prepare your meetings, and save documents you create, always leaving the final decision to you. Think of the capture inbox as Sera as the team's memory: a shared front door where important conversations enter the structured record. Connecting your Google account switches on the assistant side, safely and reversibly, with least-privilege access throughout.

Key points

Connect your personal Google account in Settings, then Google Integration, by clicking Connect Google; you authorize once and Sera remembers you across sessions. The scopes are least-privilege and purposeful: gmail.send so Sera can send an email from your own address after you approve the exact message (she always shows it to you first and only sends on your explicit yes — she never reads your existing inbox); calendar.events to view and create Google Meet events for meeting prep and scheduling (attendees are never auto-emailed); and drive.file so Sera can only ever see and touch folders and documents she herself created, never your other files. Nothing is sent or shared without you asking. These are all Sensitive scopes only — no Restricted access — so the connection needs no special security review. If you connected before newer capabilities were added, reconnect once to grant Calendar and Drive. Saved documents become brand-styled Google Docs inside a Saberra Documents folder, and a What Sera did in your Drive activity list logs every save with a link. This personal connection is separate from the team-wide, admin-managed capture inbox.