Board portals for meetings are technology that can help streamline meeting management processes. Contrary to early software that allowed access to books for board meetings Modern portals provide more functions. When you’re trying out demos from different portal providers, you need to have a list of important questions to ask.
What are the essential characteristics of a board portal?
Effective meeting management starts before the meeting, with board portals that allow you prepare agendas and distribute them along with the relevant documents. Portals also allow for an easy method of tracking action items, voting, and resolutions.
Boards can add comments to documents and collaborate in real time regardless of the device or platform, during a meeting. Websites that focus on security can even offer e-signatures to speed up document signing, thus preventing sensitive information from falling into wrong hands.
Meeting minutes are automatically recorded in the portal, removing the necessity for secretaries to manually record notes as the meeting advances. This means that your board can concentrate more on strategic issues and less time on the administrative tasks associated with being a director.
Ask about the user-friendliness of the tool when contemplating a new board portal or a re-design of an existing one. Board members are busy and don’t have the time to spend time learning about a new system. Consider features that will make it easier for them to adopt like how-to videos or FAQs, remote learning sessions and a single contact for technical support. Think about how the pricing structure of your vendor will fit into your organization’s budget.