Multi-Skill Collaboration and Automated Workflows

A single skill solves one problem; multiple skills chained together solve a category of problems. Combined with scheduled tasks, you can let repetitive work run automatically. This case shows how to combine skills, connectors, and scheduled tasks into a complete workflow.

Why Collaboration Is Needed

Many real tasks aren’t completed in a single step. For example, “generate a weekly report and send it to the group every Friday” requires: pull Lansenger messages → summarize → organize into weekly-report format → generate Word → send to a Lansenger group. These five steps correspond to different skills and capabilities that need to be chained together.

Three Modes of Skill Collaboration

Mode 1: Sequential Chaining

The output of one skill is the input to the next. The most common workflow pattern.

Pull Lansenger group chat records → Extract agenda items and action items → Generate meeting minutes → Output Word + Excel
   (Lansenger chat)      (meeting-notes)          (meeting-minutes)   (docx + xlsx)

In a conversation, you don’t need to manually specify which skill to call for each step. Describe the complete need in natural language, and LanMate automatically breaks it down into steps and executes them one by one.

Pull the chat history from the "Project Group" for the last day, extract the agenda items, decisions, and action items from the meeting discussion,
and generate a meeting minutes Word document and an action-item list Excel.

Mode 2: Branching Parallelism

When the same task needs to process multiple independent parts, they can proceed in parallel.

Analyze this Excel data:
  ├─ Calculate sales and gross margin by product line (Excel analysis)
  ├─ Generate comparison charts (data visualization)
  └─ Identify anomalous records (data filtering)
Finally, consolidate into an HTML analysis report

Mode 3: Query-Then-Write

Fetch data first, then perform operations. The most common pattern in Lansenger collaboration scenarios.

First look up attendee staffIds (staff skill)
  → Then create a calendar event (calendar skill)
  → Finally notify the attendees (messaging skill)

LanMate follows the “query-then-write” principle: it fetches data first (look up contacts, check schedules), then performs writes (send messages, create events), and asks for your confirmation before write operations.

Building Automated Workflows with Scheduled Tasks

What Work Is Suited for Automation

Recurring: Done every day / every week / every month
Fixed process: Steps and rules are basically consistent
Predictable input: Data sources are stable (e.g., Lansenger messages, files in a fixed directory)
Standard output: Result format is uniform

Example 1: Daily Lansenger Group Digest

Automatically pull yesterday’s key discussion points from Lansenger groups every morning and generate a digest.

Create a scheduled task:
- Frequency: Every day at 9:00 AM
- Execution mode: New conversation
- Task instruction:
  Pull yesterday's chat history from the "Project Group" and organize the key discussion points and action items.
  Keep the digest under 500 words, categorized by topic, with key conclusions for each topic.
  If there are action items, list the owner and deadline (write "TBC" if it can't be confirmed).

Example 2: Auto-Generate Weekly Report Every Friday

Create a scheduled task:
- Frequency: Every Friday at 5:00 PM
- Execution mode: Fixed conversation
- Task instruction:
  1. Pull my Lansenger chat records for this week as source material
  2. Generate the weekly report with the following structure:
     - Main work completed this week
     - Work in progress and its status
     - Next week's work plan
     - Issues and risks needing coordination
  3. Summarize each work item in one sentence, with key results attached
  4. Output a Word document

Example 3: Periodic File Archiving

Create a scheduled task:
- Frequency: 1st of each month at 09:00
- Execution mode: New conversation
- Task instruction:
  1. Scan the files in the "Downloads" directory
  2. Categorize by type: Documents → Archive/Documents/, Spreadsheets → Archive/Spreadsheets/, Images → Archive/Images/
  3. Rename by date: YYYYMM_Type_Sequence
  4. Generate an archiving list in Excel
  5. Use preview mode first; execute after confirmation

Automation Notes

Note	Description
Keep the client running	Scheduled tasks depend on the local LanMate client — if the computer is off, the task won’t execute
Input data may change	Lansenger group names may change, file directories may move — periodically check whether tasks still run normally
Results need manual confirmation	Auto-generated content is a first draft — confirm before sending
Set a reasonable frequency	Don’t set overly high frequencies that waste resources — set them based on actual needs
One-time tasks auto-complete	A one-time scheduled task disappears from the list after execution; recurring tasks keep running

Acceptance Criteria

Workflow steps connect smoothly; the output of each step can be correctly used by the next step
Scheduled tasks trigger on time, and execution results meet expectations
Exceptional situations (missing data, network disconnection) produce alerts rather than failing silently
The “TBC” portions of auto-generated content can be identified and handled

Common Mistakes

Common Mistake	Why It Happens	Better Practice
Task instruction too vague	“Help me write a weekly report” doesn’t specify the source material and format	Be specific about each step: where to get data, what format to use, what file to output
Client not kept running	Shutting down the computer after work	Keep your computer on and LanMate running; missed tasks can be run manually with “Run Now”
Not checking results after automating	Assuming automatic means reliable	Periodically review execution records to confirm results meet expectations
Frequency set too high	Assuming more is better	Set based on actual needs — avoid meaningless resource consumption
Stuffing too many steps into one task	Trying to do everything at once	Split complex workflows into multiple scheduled tasks, each with its own responsibility