For governments, and their important meetings, a Board portal is a crucial piece of software to help streamline operations. Effective meeting management systems allow public sector organisations to run more efficiently, simplify more complex tasks and boost their transparency.
With many different Board portals on the market, it's important to establish what features will be most beneficial for your meetings.
There are many features you should consider when looking for a new Board portal for governments. We’ve collated the five most critical ones for your organisation to consider.
But first, what even is a Board portal?
What is a Board Portal?
A Board portal is a solution for running seamless meetings in the digital age.
Board management software utilises communication and collaboration tools to help simplify Board material preparation, reports, and many other meeting-related tasks.
Board portals also facilitate a secured environment for sharing confidential documents and information.
Board meeting software collapses the entire meeting process, aiming to elevate transparency, practise corporate compliance, and increase efficiency. It removes the need for tasks like printing documents, sending emails manually, and physically compiling annotations.
At Convene, our Award Winning Board portal is designed to help governments to run effectively and efficiently. Convene is here to assist in establishing good governance and communication in your committee meetings.
Features of a Board Portal
If you want to effectively manage different aspects of government, it is important to invest in the appropriate tools. Here are essential Board portal features that will assist you in achieving your objectives effortlessly.
1. Agenda Builder
This feature enables your team to be on the same page before, during, and after committee meetings.
An Agenda Builder allows you to drag and drop documents into the agenda and update Board packs instantly. This way you can find all the information needed for meetings at once.
Once the agenda has been created, meeting organisers can also choose which participants can access the agenda files. This helps to increase security and confidentiality.
Organisers can assign action items when creating the agenda. When adding the action, they can assign the designated person/s for the task and set the deadline.
With a feature like an Agenda Builder, your committee meetings can have a clear plan and schedule. This means that your meeting process is even more streamlined.
2. Annotations
Running remote meetings requires the ability to collaborate seamlessly with a range of annotation tools. Attendees should be able to make notes, highlight sections or draw on the Board papers.
Annotation tools should be easy to use for all participants. This not only aids the communication process, but also allows all in attendance to record their ideas within the Board portal.
Moreover, annotations offer an additional layer of accountability for your participants. Once a Board pack is annotated, you have a digital trail which helps track what was happening in particular meetings.
Annotations made on paper can simply get lost - especially when meetings are remote. This makes them a crucial Board portal feature for both accountability and productivity.
3. In-meeting Voting
Physical meetings often require travelling, accommodation costs, and significant amounts of time. For this reason, Board portals must be able to facilitate the decision making process.
A quality Board portal should allow you to create a survey which can be voted on during or prior to the meeting. The voting system should be a secret ballot, or a show of hands. This improves accountability as well as speeding up the decision making process.
Convene allows participants to vote anonymously as well as remotely, meaning that if a member cannot attend the meeting they can still participate.
4. Document Library
For any organisation, there will be a never ending amount of documents that might be needed in a committee meeting. With a Document Library, all meeting packs, Board documents, and meeting minutes are kept securely in the same place.
This helps keep your remote meeting on track and running seamlessly, while also improving accountability and transparency. With everything stored in one place, Board members can see all the documents they might need.
Convene has an inbuilt retention schedule if you need to ensure your records are compliant with specific corporate records management standards, further establishing your data security. Convene’s document library is protected by 256-AES bit encryption, which is the safest technology available.
Our Board portal also allows administrators to manage access rights during the meeting. This means attendees can only look at specific documents if they have the correct security clearance..
This is why a secure and efficient Document Library is another important feature of any Board portal.
5. Audit Trail
Automated Audit Trails are another way a Board portal promotes a culture of transparency and accountability within your committee meetings.
Audit trails make sure nothing goes unnoticed or forgotten, as every action is monitored and tracked. Tracking the actions of users means they cannot misuse any data or sensitive information, as they know that any breach or misuse can be traced back to them.
With a Board portal, audit trails are now easily automated and stored digitally. This saves admin time and allows for more storage of old audits, as well as enhancing security and transparency.
With Convene, administrators have access to an audit trail log, which keeps a record of user actions, such as login, creation, modification, exporting, or deletion, as well as the date and time at which these transactions occurred. Convene allows users to export the records from the system as a PDF report. Records that can be exported include meetings, review and approvals, and resolutions.
Audit trails are a critical way to ensure safety and transparency for your government, and having an automated system within a Board portal enables this security.
Enhance Your Board Portal Governance with Convene
Board portal software should simplify your meetings, not complicate them. Join hundreds of organisations around the world in embracing a smart, simple and secure future with Convene.
Every step of your meeting process should be as smooth as possible; with the right software that has the right features, the complex task of governance can be much easier.
Convene Board portal features include:
- A Document Library, with role-based access to ensure your sensitive documents are protected.
- A built-in Audit Trail, so you can be sure you are compliant with all regulations.
- Integrated Video Conferencing, so you can make the switch from remote to hybrid working seamlessly.
- Surveys, with the option for anonymity, so you can be sure you are aware of your employees' opinions.
- Action Items, so you can follow up on any tasks automatically.
- Accessibility Features, including text-to-voice, which makes us the leading accessible Board Portal.
- Fully GDPR-compliant security, including AES 256-bit encryption and ISO 27001 accreditation.
Convene also now comes fully integrated with Microsoft Teams, meaning that your meetings and Board portal features can all be consolidated in one place.
To discover how you can benefit from Convene, find out more about our features here, or book a free demo today.
