User Manual

Getting Your Account

Agenda Beacon is invitation only. An organization administrator (or the Agenda Beacon team) sends you an email invitation. There is no public sign-up form.

1. Open the invitation email and click the invitation link.
2. Create your password if this is your first Agenda Beacon account, or sign in if you already have one.
3. Complete two-factor setup when prompted.
4. You land in your Board Workspace for the organization that invited you.

Invitation links are single use and tied to your email address. If a link has expired, ask an administrator to resend the invitation.

Setting Up Two-Factor Authentication

Every account must use an authenticator app. This is required and cannot be skipped.

1. On the setup screen, open your authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, 1Password, Authy, and similar all work).
2. Scan the QR code, or type the setup key manually. The account will appear as "Agenda Beacon".
3. Enter the six-digit code shown in your app to confirm.
4. Store your recovery information somewhere safe.

Lost your device? An organization administrator can reset your two-factor enrollment from the Sign-In Activity log, after which you will be prompted to enroll again.

First Ten Minutes By Role

Board member: open the Board Workspace, choose an upcoming meeting, and review the agenda. Attachments and internal notes appear inline on each item.

Moderator or secretary: confirm you are assigned as the moderator on the meeting, then use Run Meeting on meeting day to walk the agenda and record votes.

Organization administrator: visit the admin area to invite people, set roles, upload your logo, choose what appears on printed agendas, and configure the public portal.

Where Things Live

• Board Workspace — meetings, agendas, minutes, and voting for your organization.
• Account — your name, photo, bio, and two-factor settings.
• Admin — people and permissions, boards and rosters, organization settings, public portal, logs.
• Public portal — the outward-facing site at /org/your-slug that residents, parents, or the public can browse.

Your Profile

Open Account from the header. From there you can update:

• Display name — used across agendas, votes, and the public roster.
• Profile photo — shown on the public board roster when your organization enables photos.
• Biography — a short paragraph shown on your public board member page, when enabled.

Photos and bios only appear publicly if your organization has turned those options on in the public portal settings.

Two-Factor Authentication

Two-factor settings live under Account. You can view your current enrollment and re-enroll a new device.

1. Go to Account and open the security section.
2. Choose to reset or re-enroll your authenticator.
3. Scan the new QR code with your new device and confirm with a six-digit code.

Re-enrolling replaces your previous device immediately. Complete the process on the new device before discarding the old one.

Sign-In Activity And Lockouts

Administrators can review the Sign-In Activity log for their organization. It shows successful and failed sign-in attempts and administrative actions.

Accounts lock automatically after three failed sign-in attempts within five minutes. Lockouts clear on their own after a short period, and administrators can reset two-factor enrollment from the same log if someone is genuinely locked out of their authenticator.

The Meetings List

Your Board Workspace lists meetings grouped into Upcoming, Recent, and an Archive by calendar year. Search by title, or filter by year and board, then select a meeting to open its workspace.

Administrators see action buttons at the top of the list to schedule a new meeting, manage agenda templates, or import past meetings. Administration tasks such as people, boards, and public portal settings live on the Board Workspace.

Meetings brought over from a previous system carry an Imported badge. See the Importing Past Meetings chapter.

If you belong to more than one organization, each has its own workspace and you can switch between them.

The Meeting Page

A meeting page is split into two columns.

• Main column — tabs for Agenda, Attendance, Minutes, and Documents (files for the meeting as a whole, such as an agenda or minutes PDF). Tab labels show counts so you can see at a glance what has been filled in.
• Information rail — meeting date, time, location, status, moderator, template actions, and print options.

Editing controls appear only for people with permission to edit. Board members see a clean read view.

Edit Mode Versus Run Mode

Building the agenda and running the meeting are deliberately separate.

• Before the meeting, the agenda tab is for authoring: sections, items, attachments, and notes.
• During the meeting, Run Meeting provides the live flow with motions and voting.
• After the meeting, recorded votes appear read-only on the agenda tab.

Sections And Items

Agendas use a two-level structure. Sections are numbered (1, 2, 3) and items inside them are lettered (A, B, C).

1. Open the meeting and go to the Agenda tab.
2. Add a section and give it a title, for example "Call To Order" or "New Business".
3. Inside the section, choose Add Agenda Item.
4. Give the item a subject, choose its type, and fill in the description.

New items are always appended to the end of the section, so adding an item never disturbs the order of what is already there.

Item Types

Each item carries a type that tells the board what kind of business it is:

• Information — presented for awareness, no action expected.
• Discussion — the board talks it through, no formal action.
• Procedural — routine business such as approving the agenda.
• Action — the board is expected to act.
• Action - Vote — a formal vote is expected.
• Action - Consent — part of a consent agenda approved as a group.

Selecting Action - Vote or Action - Consent automatically turns on "Requires a vote" for that item. You can still toggle it manually if your practice differs.

Responsible Person

Each item can name who is bringing it forward. Use the picker to select from your directory or type a name manually.

• Choose from board members, staff, or anyone flagged as available for selection in the directory.
• Type a free-form name for guests and outside presenters.
• If your organization enables presenter titles, the person's title is appended automatically, for example "Ryan Brenneman, President".

The word "presenter" appears only in the item editor. Printed agendas and the public portal simply show the name.

Internal Notes And Attachments

Internal notes are visible to signed-in board members and staff only. They never appear on the public portal, in printed public agendas, or in downloads made by the public. Use them for background, talking points, or sensitive context.

Attachments can be added to any item. Files inherit the visibility of the meeting and item: anything not marked public is served only to authorized users through short-lived secure links, and every download is logged.

Reordering

Sections and items can be reordered from the agenda tab. Numbering and lettering renumber automatically, so you never have to renumber by hand.

Why Templates

Most boards run the same skeleton every meeting: call to order, roll call, approval of minutes, consent agenda, new business, adjournment. A template stores that skeleton so each new meeting starts prepopulated.

Creating A Template

1. Go to Templates in your workspace.
2. Create a new template and name it, for example "Regular Monthly Meeting".
3. Add sections and agenda items exactly as you would on a real agenda.
4. Save. Item types, requires-a-vote flags, and descriptions all carry over.

Using A Template

When you create a meeting, choose Start From Template and pick one. The full section and item structure is copied into the new meeting, where you can edit freely without affecting the template.

Saving An Existing Agenda As A Template

If you have built a good agenda from scratch, use Save As Template on the meeting to turn it into a reusable template.

Templates copy structure, not attachments, minutes, votes, or attendance.

What Gets Imported

Most boards arrive with years of history in another system, usually as two PDFs per meeting: the agenda and the approved minutes. Sometimes there are extra packets or exhibits. Agenda Beacon stores those as Meeting Documents — files attached to the meeting as a whole rather than to a single agenda item.

Imported meetings are created as completed meetings on the date they were held, marked with an Imported badge in the workspace so it is clear they did not originate here. You do not have to rebuild the agenda item by item; the original PDF is the record.

Importing One Meeting

1. In your workspace, choose Import Past Meetings.
2. Stay on the One Meeting tab.
3. Pick the meeting date and, if you use boards or committees, the board it belonged to.
4. Adjust the suggested title if you want something different.
5. Choose all files for that meeting — agenda, minutes, packet, exhibits.
6. Select Import Meeting.

File names are used to guess each document's label (Agenda, Minutes, Packet, Exhibit). You can change any label afterwards on the meeting's Documents tab.

Bulk Uploading Many Meetings

If you can export a folder of files from your old system, the Bulk Upload tab groups them into meetings automatically using the date in each file name.

1. Choose Import Past Meetings, then the Bulk Upload tab.
2. Pick the board these meetings belong to, if any.
3. Select every file at once.
4. Review the grouped list — one row per detected meeting date, with its files listed beneath.
5. Correct any date or title inline, and remove rows you do not want.
6. Select Import Meetings.

Recognized date formats include 2024-01-15, 01-15-2024, 20240115, and "January 15 2024". Files with no readable date are listed separately and skipped; import those through the One Meeting tab.

Import in batches of a few dozen meetings at a time so you can review each group before it is created.

Managing Meeting Documents

Every meeting has a Documents tab beside Agenda, Attendance, and Minutes. There you can upload more files, relabel them, toggle whether the public can see them, download them, or remove them.

• Public documents appear in a Meeting Documents list on the public meeting page.
• Board-only documents are visible to signed-in members of your organization only.
• Downloads are always served through short-lived secure links and are recorded in your document access log.

Finding Archived Meetings

Both the workspace list and the public portal group meetings into Upcoming, Recent (the last ninety days), and an Archive broken out by calendar year, newest first.

• In the workspace, filter by year and board, or search by meeting title.
• On the public portal, visitors can filter by year and by board.

The Moderator / Secretary Role

Each meeting can have a moderator assigned. The moderator drives the live meeting: advancing through the agenda, opening votes, and recording results.

1. An administrator grants a person the moderator role for the organization.
2. On the meeting page, assign the moderator for that specific meeting.
3. On meeting day, the moderator opens Run Meeting.

Walking The Agenda

Run Meeting opens a focused overlay that steps through the agenda one item at a time. Each step shows the item subject, its type, the responsible person or people, the description, and any internal notes.

Move forward and back through items freely; nothing is recorded until you take an action.

Opening A Vote

Items marked "requires a vote" show an Open Vote control. Items that do not show "No vote required", with an option for the moderator to open a vote anyway if the board takes unexpected action.

1. Choose Open Vote on the current item.
2. Confirm or edit the motion text. It defaults to the item subject.
3. Record who made the motion and who seconded it.
4. The vote dialog opens with the full roll call.

Recording Votes

The vote dialog is the roll-call screen. It lists every voting member with their attendance status and a running tally.

• Board members signed into the meeting can tap their own Yea, Nay, or Abstain.
• The moderator can record any member's vote on their behalf — useful for voice votes or members who are not signed in.
• Bulk shortcuts record All Yea or All Nay in one tap, then you adjust individuals as needed.
• Close the vote as Passed or Failed, or Table or Withdraw the motion.

Corrections And The Audit Trail

Mistakes happen. Votes can be corrected and duplicate motions can be removed, and both actions are recorded.

• Reopen a recorded vote to edit individual votes or the outcome.
• Delete a motion created by accident. You are asked to confirm first.
• Every change to a motion or a recorded vote is written to the motion audit log with who changed it and when.

Nothing is ever silently overwritten. The audit log preserves the original record alongside the correction.

After The Meeting

Once the meeting is complete, motion controls disappear from the agenda tab and results appear as read-only recorded vote cards. Clicking a result opens a non-editable view showing exactly how each person voted.

Capturing Audio

The Minutes tab supports two ways to get audio into the system:

• Record in browser — start a recording directly from the meeting page during the meeting.
• Upload a file — upload an existing recording in a common audio format.

Pasting a link to a streaming site is not supported. Upload the file or record in the browser.

AI-Assisted Minutes

Once audio is attached, Agenda Beacon can transcribe it and draft minutes. The draft is aligned to your agenda structure and uses your attendance records to resolve who is speaking where possible.

1. Attach or record audio on the Minutes tab.
2. Start transcription and summarization.
3. Review the draft, edit anything that needs correcting, and save.

AI output is a first draft, not an official record. Always review before publishing or presenting for approval.

Visibility And Attachments

Minutes have their own visibility toggle, separate from the agenda. Draft minutes can stay internal until the board approves them, then be published to the public portal.

You can also attach files to minutes — signed copies, exhibits, or supporting documents. Non-public attachments are served only through secure, time-limited links.

Minutes are never included in printed agendas. Print them separately.

Marking Attendance

The Attendance tab lists everyone flagged for attendance tracking in your directory — board members and staff alike — and lets you mark each person's status for that meeting.

1. Open the meeting and go to the Attendance tab.
2. Mark each person present, absent, or as your organization's other statuses require.
3. Save. Attendance feeds the roll call in the vote dialog and the AI minutes draft.

Who Appears In The List

People appear on the attendance list when their directory entry has attendance tracking enabled. Administrators manage those flags under People And Permissions.

Inviting People

1. Go to Admin, then People And Permissions.
2. Enter the person's email address and choose their role.
3. Send the invitation. They receive an email with a single-use link.
4. The person appears as pending until they accept.

If someone reports not receiving the invitation, check their spam folder and resend from the same screen.

Roles

• Administrator — full access to organization settings, people, agendas, and the public portal.
• Board member — access to the workspace, agendas, internal notes, minutes, and live voting.
• Moderator / Secretary — can run meetings and record votes on behalf of the board.
• Staff — directory entries for people who present or attend but do not vote.

Change a role at any time using the role dropdown next to the person's name. Changes take effect immediately.

Boards And Rosters

Organizations can maintain one or more boards. A roster determines who appears on the public board members page and in what order — administrators can reorder the roster manually.

Directory Flags

Each directory entry can be flagged for:

• Selection as a responsible person on agenda items.
• Attendance tracking on meetings.

Titles stored on directory entries can be appended automatically to agenda items when the organization enables presenter titles.

Removing Access

Removing someone from People And Permissions revokes their access to the workspace immediately. Their historical record — votes cast, motions moved, attendance — is preserved.

Organization Profile

Under Admin, organization settings hold your identity details:

• Name and public URL slug, for example /org/acpsmd.
• Logo, used on the site and on printed documents.
• Address, phone, website, and contact email.

Contact email and phone are never exposed to anonymous visitors unless you explicitly enable contact display on the public portal.

Document Settings

Document settings control what appears on printed and downloaded agendas. You choose which of your organization details are included in the letterhead.

• Include or omit address, phone, website, and email.
• Print the logo only, for a clean letterhead with no text block.
• Center the logo, available when printing the logo only.
• Append titles to responsible-person names.

Slugs

Your slug is the public web address of your portal. You can enter it manually when the organization is created. If the slug is already taken, you will be prompted to pick another.

What The Public Portal Is

Every organization has an outward-facing site at /org/your-slug. It is the transparency face of your board: meetings, agendas, board members, and policies.

Private Organizations

Some organizations — often companies and nonprofits — do not want any public site at all. Turn on Private Organization in Public Site settings and the whole portal closes: anyone visiting /org/your-slug sees a sign-in screen instead of meetings, rosters, policies, or documents.

Private mode overrides every other public setting. Members continue to work normally in the Board Workspace after signing in.

Public And Private Boards

Each board or committee has its own Public / Private switch in Boards And Committees. The switch appears in the board list and in the new-board row, so you can set visibility when you create the board or change it later.

• A private board is hidden from the public site, along with its meetings and documents.
• New meetings filed under a board start with that board's setting.
• Any single meeting can be switched to Public or Private on its own from the Visibility card in the meeting workspace.

Visibility is layered: the organization setting wins, then the board, then the meeting, then each agenda item, document, and set of minutes.

Tabs You Can Enable Or Disable

• Board Members — the roster, shown first by default, as cards.
• Meetings — upcoming and past meetings with public agendas and approved minutes.
• Policies — a searchable policy library.
• Search — full-text search across public content.

Each area can be turned on or off from the public portal settings in the admin area.

Board Member Visibility

You control how much of each member's profile is public:

• Show or hide member photos.
• Show or hide biographies.
• Show or hide contact details.

Roster order is set manually by administrators, so your chair, vice-chair, and members appear in the order your board expects.

What The Public Can Never See

• Internal board-only notes on agenda items.
• Meetings, items, minutes, or attachments not marked public.
• Organization contact email and phone, unless contact display is enabled.
• Sign-in activity, audit logs, and member management screens.

Non-public files are never served by a direct public URL. Authorized downloads use short-lived secure links and are logged.

Two Print Formats

• Print Outline — a compact list of sections and items. Good for the podium and for handouts.
• Print Detailed — the full agenda including item descriptions and supporting detail.

Both are available from the meeting page. Printing opens a clean, print-styled view; use your browser's print dialog to print or save as PDF.

Page Headers

Printed agendas repeat the letterhead and meeting information at the top of every page. If pages are separated, page 5 still identifies the organization and the meeting.

Browser-generated headers and footers, such as the page URL, are suppressed so your documents look official.

What Is Not Included

• Minutes are never printed with the agenda — print them separately.
• Internal notes are excluded from public print views.
• Category is not repeated on each item in the detailed agenda; sub-items are indented under their section instead.

Sign-In And Access

I did not receive my invitation. Ask an administrator to resend it and check your spam folder. Invitation links expire and are single use.

My account is locked. Accounts lock after three failed attempts within five minutes and unlock automatically after a short period.

I lost my authenticator device. An administrator can reset your two-factor enrollment from Sign-In Activity, then you enroll again on your new device.

Accepting an invitation took me to a page that could not be found. Sign in first, then reopen the link; your workspace lives under the workspace area, separate from the public portal.

Agendas

Why does an item not offer a vote? The item is not marked "requires a vote". Set its type to Action - Vote, or toggle the flag manually. During a meeting the moderator can also open a vote anyway.

Why does my new item appear at the bottom? New items are always appended to the end of a section. Use reordering to move it.

Where did the presenter label go? Printed and public agendas show the name only. The label appears in the item editor.

Meetings And Votes

Open Vote does nothing. The vote dialog needs motion text; it defaults to the item subject, so confirm the dialog is not blocked by a browser pop-up setting and try again.

I opened two votes by mistake. Delete the duplicate motion and confirm. The deletion is recorded in the motion audit log.

A vote was recorded wrong. Reopen the recorded vote, correct it, and save. The change is logged.

Public Portal

A meeting is not showing publicly. Check that the meeting and its items are marked public.

Photos are not appearing on the roster. Enable member photos in public portal settings, and confirm the member has uploaded a photo under Account.