How To Use Glean? Step By Step Guide For Beginners

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Glean.com is a leading Work AI and Enterprise Search platform designed specifically for the workplace. It acts as a private, highly secure “Google for your company,” connecting with over 100 enterprise applications like Slack, Google Drive, Jira, Salesforce, and Microsoft Teams to help employees find information, summarize content, and automate multi step tasks.

Glean solves the problem of “information fragmentation” by unifying scattered data into one intelligent interface.

Enterprise Knowledge Graph: Glean builds a “graph” of your company by mapping relationships between people, projects, and documents. This allows it to deliver highly personalized results based on your specific role and team.

Permission-Aware Search: Security is a core pillar. Glean strictly respects your company’s existing access controls, if you don’t have permission to see a document in Google Drive, it will never appear in your Glean search results.

Generative AI with Citations: Unlike general AI, the Glean Assistant answers questions using only your company’s internal data. Every answer includes citations, allowing you to click through and verify the original source document.

Proactive Discovery: Beyond searching, Glean suggests relevant documents and “Experts” for specific topics as you work, helping you find the right people to talk to.

Pricing: Glean is a premium enterprise tool. Industry reports estimate pricing at approximately $50 per user, per month, typically requiring a minimum contract of 100 seats (~$60,000/year).

Glean Work AI platform dashboard showing AI Assistant and Agents for company knowledge management.

How to use Glean?

If your organization has already deployed Glean, follow these steps to get started:

Step 1. Initial Setup

Sign In: Visit app.glean.com and log in using your work account (usually via SSO like Okta, Google, or Microsoft).

Install the Browser Extension: This is the most important step for beginners. The extension enables:

Sidebar Search: Use the shortcut Cmd + J (Mac) or Alt + J (Windows) to search from any website without leaving your current tab.
New Tab Page: Optionally, Glean can replace your browser’s new tab page to show your daily calendar, recent documents, and trending team news.

Step 2. Mastering Search

Natural Language Queries: Instead of using just keywords, ask full questions like “What was the outcome of the Q3 project review?”.

Use Advanced Filters: Refine results by adding operators to your search bar:

app:slack – search only within Slack messages.
from:me – find documents you created.
updated:last-week – filter for recently edited files.

Step 3. Using the AI Assistant (Chat)

Summarization: Paste a long Slack thread or document link and ask Glean to “Summarize the key takeaways”.
Drafting Content: Use it to write first drafts. Example: “Draft an email to the security team based on the incident report in Jira”.
Deep Research: For complex topics, use the Deep Research mode to analyze multiple internal sources at once for a comprehensive report.

Step 4. Advanced Features

Go Links: Create short, memorable links (e.g., go/benefits) to share frequently used resources with your team.
Glean Apps: If your admin allows it, you can create custom, no code AI apps for specific tasks, like a “New Hire Bot” that only answers from the onboarding folder.

Integrating tools like Jira or Salesforce into Glean is a straightforward process typically handled by an administrator. Once connected, Glean can index your records, issues, and conversations, making them instantly searchable with full context and respecting all original permissions.

Step by Step Integration Guide (for Administrators)

To connect these specific tools, you must have administrative access to both Glean and the target application (Jira/Salesforce).

Navigate to the Admin Console: Go to app.glean.com/admin and select Platform > Data Sources.

Add the Application: Click the Add App button and select the specific connector from the list (e.g., Jira Cloud, Jira Data Center, or Salesforce).

Configure Authentication:

Jira: Use the “Central” authentication (recommended) or create a custom OAuth app in the Atlassian Developer Console.
Salesforce: Provide your Salesforce instance URL and authorize the connection via OAuth. Ensure the integration user has “View All Data” permissions for the objects you want to index.
Select Objects & Fields: Choose which data to index (e.g., Accounts, Opportunities, and Cases for Salesforce; Projects, Issues, and Comments for Jira).
Initiate Crawling: Click Start Crawl. Glean will begin fetching content, metadata, and permissions. This initial sync may take a few hours to several days depending on the volume of data.

How to Use the Integrations (for End Users)

Once the integration is live, you can interact with your data in several ways:

App-Specific Filtering: Use the app: operator to narrow your search. For example:

app:jira [[issue name]] – Search for a specific ticket.
app:salesforce [[account name]] status:”closed won” – View specific CRM records.

AI Actions (Glean Assistant): You can ask the assistant to perform tasks directly in these tools:

“Create a Jira issue for the bug reported in this Slack thread”.
“Summarize the last 5 cases for this customer in Salesforce”.

Embedded Experiences:

In Salesforce: Use the Glean Case Assistantto see relevant internal docs and similar cases right next to your active support ticket.
In Jira: Update issue statuses or add watchers directly from the Glean interface.

Important Prerequisites

Permissions: Glean mirrors your tool’s permissions. If you can’t see a record in Salesforce, you won’t see it in Glean.
Browser Extension: For the best experience, ensure the Glean Browser Extension is installed to enable sidebar search within these apps.