As many board members and executive staff who have worked closely with a board will know, preparing for a board meeting takes a significant amount of time. Often, the preparation takes up much more time and attention than the actual meeting. It’s easy to focus attention on the preparation leading up to a board meeting, and neglect the meeting itself. These details often get forgotten, but what happens during the board meeting is just as important— if not more—as the preparation leading up to it. 

But anyone who has served on a board already knows this issue exists. What is less common knowledge is how to fix it.

A board portal and its features, designed to ensure a smooth meeting, can be the missing tool to ease the preparation process and during-meeting facilitation needs. The right board portal will do the work for you— so you can participate in the meeting without any distractions.

There are many features that will make preparing for, and attending, your next board meeting easier. Automatic notifications, specifically, play a large role in that. With RSVP notifications, you can let the meeting organizer know if you plan to attend directly within the board portal app. You can also add comments if it’s a special circumstance, instead of just responding “Yes” or “No”. Meeting published notifications will alert you when a meeting goes live, so you can start reviewing meeting documents when it’s convenient for you.

Personalize your board portal in settings to choose whether you’d like to see your meetings open in a calendar format or a scrolling list. A side-by-side feature uses your app in wide-screen or landscape orientation to have the agenda and accompanying documents appear next to each other on your screen. This allows you to see the document being discussed without losing sight of the agenda, eliminating lost time searching for documents.

Want to remember specific discussion points during the meeting?

A board portal lets you easily add notes to the agenda directly within the app, without having to open, edit, and save a document to your device. You can also add annotations within documents for more detailed notes. If you know you need to make an important decision at the meeting, you can participate in agenda item discussions ahead of time with other directors who are using the app to prepare. Also, eSignatures and document approval features free up time spent signing or voting during the meeting, allowing more time for discussion.

It might be convenient to use one device at your office, another at home, and possibly another at the meeting. With an updated app utilizing Advanced Features, using different devices isn’t an issue because your notes and annotations will be available on them all. Switch between as many devices as you need, and your work will be saved for you.

A Load All feature allows you to access secure local copies of the meeting content on your device, even when offline. If there are ever any problems with the WiFi or internet connectivity at a meeting site, this feature enables the meeting to continue as planned since everyone’s documents will already be on their devices. If you have a large board and experience issues with everyone downloading documents at the same time, this feature would eliminate any delays.

Interested in testing out any of these features?

Learn more about the benefits of BoardPaq and how it can help you prepare for your next board meeting here.