Board portals for meetings are technology that helps streamline meeting-management processes. Unlike nascent software that only provided access to board books modern portals provide more features. When you’re trying out demos from different portal vendors, you’ll want to have a list of questions you should ask.

What are the primary features of a board-portal?

Effective meeting management starts before the meeting, with board portals allowing you to create agendas and then distribute them along with the relevant documents. Portals also offer an easy way to track action items, voting, and resolutions.

Boards can make comments on documents and collaborate in real time, regardless of the device or platform, during a meeting. Security-focused portals can even provide electronic term limits for non profit board members signatures to speed up document signing, which can prevent sensitive information from falling into the unintentional hands of.

The portal will automatically generate meeting minutes, eliminating the necessity for secretaries to manually take notes during the meeting. This lets your board spend more time on strategic issues and less time working on administrative tasks.

Ask about the ease of use when looking at a new portal for your board or enhancing an existing one. Board members are busy and don’t want to spend time learning about a new system. Look for features that will ensure adoption including how-to videos, FAQs, remote training sessions and a single contact for technical assistance. Think about how the pricing structure of your vendor is a good fit into your organization’s budget.