Getting a Daily Briefing from Your CRM

Most people start their day by opening their CRM, staring at the dashboard, clicking around for 15 minutes, and still not being sure what they should actually work on. The information is all there — somewhere — but it doesn't surface itself.

DenchClaw flips this with a morning briefing: a daily digest delivered to your Telegram (or WhatsApp, or iMessage) that tells you exactly what needs your attention today. No clicking required. You read it in two minutes over coffee and walk into your day with a clear set of priorities.

Here's what it looks like, how to set it up, and how to customize it.

What a CRM Morning Briefing Actually Looks Like#

At 8:00 AM, your phone gets a message from DenchClaw. It reads something like this:

Good morning. Here's what needs your attention today:

Deals closing soon (next 7 days):

• Meridian SaaS — $24,000 — Close date March 31 ⚠️
• TechFlow Inc — $8,500 — Close date April 2

Overdue follow-ups:

• Sarah Chen (Acme Corp) — follow-up was due March 24
• David Kim — you said you'd send the proposal by EOD yesterday

New leads added yesterday:

• Lisa Park, Head of Growth, Stackwise (from LinkedIn)

Deals that haven't moved in 14+ days:

• Globex Corp ($45,000) — last updated March 10

Today's meetings:

• 10:30 AM — Intro call with Tom Hanson, Riviera Tech Note: You've spoken twice before. He's evaluating you against two competitors.

What do you want to tackle first?

That last line is important. The briefing isn't just a status report — it's the start of a conversation. You can reply "let's prep for the Tom Hanson call" and DenchClaw will pull up everything you know about him.

Setting Up the Heartbeat System#

DenchClaw's morning briefing is powered by the heartbeat system — a scheduled check-in where the AI agent reviews your CRM data and surfaces what's relevant.

To set it up:

1. Connect your messaging channel (Telegram, WhatsApp, or iMessage) if you haven't already
2. Configure your heartbeat schedule in DenchClaw settings:
   Copy

   heartbeat:
     enabled: true
     schedule: "0 8 * * 1-5"  # 8am, Monday-Friday
     channel: telegram
   

3. Customize your HEARTBEAT.md file — this tells the agent what to check and surface
4. Run a test: openclaw heartbeat --test to preview what you'd get

The HEARTBEAT.md file is plain text. You can edit it to change what the agent looks for:

## Morning Briefing Checklist
 
- Deals with close dates in next 7 days
- Follow-ups that are overdue (past next_contact_date)
- New contacts added yesterday
- Deals that haven't been updated in 14+ days
- Today's calendar events with CRM matches
- Any contacts that reached out recently

The agent reads this file and uses it as the brief for what to check. You control exactly what gets surfaced and in what order.

What Data Gets Surfaced#

The default briefing covers these categories:

Deals closing soon — Sorted by close date. Anything within 7 days gets flagged. Within 14 days gets a heads-up. This is the most actionable category — these deals need attention now, not next week.

Overdue follow-ups — Any contact where the next_contact_date field has passed. If you promised to call someone on Tuesday and it's now Thursday, they show up here. This is your accountability layer.

New leads — Contacts added since yesterday's briefing. Useful for knowing what came in overnight, especially if you have automated lead capture (website forms, LinkedIn connections, etc.) feeding into DenchClaw.

Stalled deals — Deals that haven't been updated in more than your configured threshold (default: 14 days). These are the deals that are quietly dying while you focus on the active ones.

Today's meetings — Pulled from your calendar, with CRM context attached. If you have a meeting with someone in your CRM, you get a brief summary of the relationship instead of just a name and company.

Recent inbound activity — If any contacts sent you an email or message recently that hasn't been logged yet, the briefing surfaces it as a prompt: "Looks like Sarah Chen emailed you yesterday — want to log it and set a follow-up?"

Customizing the Briefing#

The power of DenchClaw's briefing is that it's completely customizable. You're not locked into a vendor's idea of what's important. Edit HEARTBEAT.md and the agent adapts.

Some customizations teams use:

Priority accounts only: "Only surface updates on accounts tagged 'tier-1' or 'strategic'."

Shorter/longer lookback: "Deals that haven't moved in 7 days" vs. 14 days vs. 21 days — depending on your typical sales cycle.

Revenue threshold: "Only flag deals over $10K in the closing-soon section."

Weekly vs. daily: Some people prefer a weekly digest on Monday morning instead of daily. Change the cron schedule accordingly.

Custom sections: Add whatever matters to you. "Any contacts from our YC network I haven't spoken to in 3 months." "Any deals in the enterprise tier that moved stages this week." "Notify me if a contact I haven't spoken to in 6+ months reaches out."

Integrating with Your Calendar#

The calendar integration deserves special mention because it changes morning prep time dramatically.

When DenchClaw pulls today's meetings from your calendar, it matches attendees against your CRM and adds context to the briefing. For each meeting, you see:

• Company and role of each attendee
• Last interaction and what was discussed
• Any open deals with that company
• Notes from entry documents (pending commitments, known concerns)
• Whether there's a next action you said you'd handle before this meeting

This turns a calendar entry from a name and time into actual meeting prep. Instead of spending 10 minutes looking up the person before each call, the briefing hands you a summary automatically.

The 2-Minute Morning Routine#

Here's the full routine that works well for most people using DenchClaw:

1. Read the briefing (1 minute) — scan what needs attention today
2. Reply with your first priority (30 seconds) — "let's prep for the Meridian deal"
3. Get your action items (30 seconds) — DenchClaw surfaces what you need for that deal: next step, contact info, pending tasks

That's it. You have a plan before you finish your coffee. Everything else — follow-up drafts, reminder setting, note logging — happens throughout the day via Telegram as you work.

The briefing isn't about reading everything. It's about knowing where to start. Once you have that, the rest of the day flows.

Frequently Asked Questions#

Can I get the morning briefing on weekends too, or just weekdays? Entirely up to you — you configure the cron schedule. The default is weekdays only (1-5 in the cron schedule), but you can run it daily or only on the days that make sense for your workflow.

What if I want to change what time I get the briefing? Just update the cron schedule in your DenchClaw config. 0 7 * * 1-5 for 7am, 0 9 * * * for 9am daily. If you're using Dench Cloud, the cloud agent handles the timing regardless of your local machine's status.

Can the briefing mention specific dollar amounts and deal names, or is it generic? It's specific. The briefing reads from your actual DuckDB data, so deal names, values, contact names, and dates are all pulled from your real CRM records. It's not a template — it's a query against your data.

What if there's nothing to report? Do I still get a message? If there's nothing actionable, DenchClaw sends a brief "All clear — no urgent items today" message (or stays quiet, depending on your preference). You can configure it to only message you when there's something to act on.

Can I ask follow-up questions after the morning briefing? Yes. The briefing starts a conversation. After receiving it, you can ask "tell me more about the Meridian deal" or "draft a check-in for my overdue follow-ups" and DenchClaw will respond. The briefing is a starting point, not a final report.

Ready to try DenchClaw? Install in one command: npx denchclaw. Full setup guide →