Tired of paper board packets or scattered email trails to manage your board? More boards are using digital board meeting portals to simplify every aspect of board meetings – and to save time and money.
See the benefits of using software, standout features, and practical insights to enhance board collaboration, security, and overall governance. Read on to learn more about meeting management software and how it can support your board.
Or skip ahead to specific sections:
- What is meeting management software?
- 7 benefits of meeting management software
- How does board software compare to traditional paper or email-based approaches?
- Top used features of Aprio’s board meeting software
- How to choose the right software
- Evaluating security and compliance
- How Aprio’s board software compares
- Want help evaluating the best tools for you?
What is meeting management software?
Meeting management software refers to specialized technology designed to streamline, enhance, and optimize the entire process of organizing, conducting, and managing meetings. This software goes beyond basic meeting scheduling, document sharing and collaboration tools to offer a comprehensive suite of features that cater specifically to the needs of corporate and board governance processes.
Board meeting software can be used by diverse organizations including corporations, government, healthcare and financial institutions and more, to run better board meetings, keep directors up to date, and keep company information secure.
7 benefits of meeting management software
Board management software offers a number of benefits that lead to more efficient, productive and organized board meetings and improved overall governance processes.
Here are the top key advantages:
1. More productive meetings.
For board members, a secure board portal provides a convenient, one-stop location online to access board materials, annotate documents to prepare for productive conversation on core challenges at the meeting, and pose questions or table additional topics to the board chair or other directors. Board members can participate in meetings and access materials remotely, accommodating busy schedules and geographic constraints.
2. Safeguards security and compliance.
Security features help protect sensitive meeting materials and discussions from unauthorized access. This includes multi-factor authentication, granular user access and remote data wiping.
Board software can also help organizations adhere to governance regulations and requirements by facilitating proper documentation and tracking. An automated digital audit trail of all board activities is also useful for regulatory compliance as well as internal reviews.
3. Saves time and effort.
Meeting software drastically reduces the time and administrative effort it takes for board administrators and governance specialists to prepare for board meetings. Creating agendas, distributing board documents and taking meeting minutes takes less effort with the help of board software.
“Aprio is a much more efficient method of distributing board agendas and other documents important to the business of the board. It is also appreciated that the Aprio Library allows directors to find the documents they need quickly, on their own schedule, without the necessity of staff assistance. This saves time for everyone.” – Williams Lake & District Credit Union
4. Reduces costs and environmental impact.
Over time, boards that replace their paper-based processes with specialized software save thousands each year on reduced printing, delivery and administrative costs. And by reducing both paper and delivery costs, meeting management software helps reduce their environmental footprint.
5. Improves communication and decision-making.
Improved access to information and collaborative tools can lead to more informed and effective decision-making. By ensuring everyone has equal same-time access to information, board management software allows for real-time discussions about strategic plans and meeting documents, fostering better communication among board members.
“Aprio was quick to set up and easy to use for both our administrators and directors. Our directors particularly like the ability to view and access documents immediately, no matter where they are.” – Vancity
6. Increases accountability and transparency.
Action items, decisions, and responsibilities can be clearly tracked and assigned within board meeting management software, promoting accountability. Reporting features provide transparency into insights including board engagement, meeting attendance, and board decisions over time.
7. Real-time updates from anywhere.
Participants always have access to the latest agenda, documents, and updates, minimizing confusion caused by outdated information. Version control also ensures that everyone is working with the most up-to-date documents, reducing the risk of errors.
How does meeting management software compare to traditional paper or email-based approaches?
While many organizations continue to rely on paper-based or email-based approaches for managing their communication, there are many ways these traditional approaches fall short. If your board processes are facing any of these challenges, it may be time to consider meeting management software.
- Time-consuming and inefficient: Paper-based meetings involve manually compiling agendas, printing documents and distributing them, consuming valuable staff time and resources. For boards using email to distribute board materials, trying to find the right file version and sifting through email threads can consume a lot of directors’ time.
- Security concerns: Physical documents can be lost, damaged, or accessed by unauthorized individuals. Email communications are also not secure, leading to potential breaches.
- Lack of control of where your documents end up: Whether it’s physical documents sent to directors or emailed documents they’ve downloaded to their devices, both scenarios decrease or negate any sort of risk management.
- Delayed updates: Changes to meeting details or documents might not reach all participants in a timely manner, leading to confusion and missed opportunities.
- Limits collaboration: Traditional methods hinder interactive collaboration since participants can’t easily share feedback or annotations on documents, or keep easy track of comments over email.
- Difficulty tracking changes and record-keeping: Keeping track of revisions, comments, and decisions on paper or through email can be challenging and can result in errors. Maintaining records of past meetings, decisions, and documents also becomes cumbersome with physical files or scattered email threads.
- Less insightful reporting: Extracting insights from physical documents or scattered email threads is less efficient compared to software-generated analytics and reports.
Top used features of Aprio’s meeting management software
While meeting management software offers organizations large and small several benefits and advantages including security, collaboration and faster-decision making, what features do board members and admins use the most? Here are some of Aprio’s most-used and valued features:
Agenda Builder
A good agenda can make or break a board meeting. With Aprio’s Agenda Builder, you can create the meeting agenda you need in minutes and then share it in one click with all board members.
Automatically build an agenda based on your meeting materials by importing folders and documents, or reusing an existing template. Plus add new topics and sub-topics in just a few clicks. Need to keep your meeting on track? Assign a time limit and presenter to agenda items.
Minutes Builder
While recording and distributing meeting minutes may not be your favorite task, our Meeting Minutes Builder helps you get this job done faster than ever.
As soon as you’ve built your agenda, you’re halfway there to the meeting minutes! Use your agenda to get started on recording your minutes and add new sections as needed. Track motions and action items and assign an approver or a coauthor – all in Aprio. Plus, export your minutes as a PDF for easy distribution and add them as a quick link for the next meeting agenda.
Task Manager
The work before and after a board meeting is often as important as the meeting itself. Aprio’s Board Task Manager feature offers tools for assigning, tracking and managing action items resulting from a board manager.
Board members can see a list of all action items they are responsible for and can track their completion in the Aprio dashboard. Board admins can set task priorities and trigger reminder notifications to board members.
eSignature & online board voting
Streamline board governance by gathering board signatures and conducting board votes as easily outside of board meetings as meeting live. Sign off on contracts, non-disclosure agreements and resolutions with Aprio’s eSignatures. Use surveys and voting to get the board of directors’ input without the inconvenience or delay of follow-up emails and phone calls.
Virtual meeting integration
With remote board meetings the new norm, Aprio ensures it’s easy for board directors to join a virtual meeting without fumbling to find the meeting details or switch to a specific video conferencing solution. Get one-click access to remote meetings right from the dashboard. Plus, use presenter mode to ensure all attendees are following the same agenda.
Board reports
Get actionable insights into board activity, from meeting attendance to board engagement and voting outcomes. Aprio’s board reports help organizations adhere to governance regulations and requirements by facilitating proper documentation and tracking.
Search and self-serve document access
Aprio offers a centralized library where board members can access all board materials, including agendas, minutes, financial statements, and the next meeting’s board package. This prevents executives, board chairs or administrators from constantly having to re-share information with board members. Plus, communicating via the board portal eliminates the risks of using email, which is insecure, or distributing paper packets, which can get lost.
How to choose the right meeting management software
Not all board meeting software is equal. They differ on completeness of features, security, and pricing, as well as on support and training. Boards are wise to carefully evaluate board portal software and select the software that’s right for their unique organization’s needs.
Start by understanding your organization’s specific requirements and pain points related to your board meetings and board communication including asking about the needs of board administrators, board members, IT staff and other stakeholders. Identify the specific challenges you’re looking to address with the software and create a list of essential features you need.
For example, if agenda creation and distribution is your biggest challenge, search for and review meeting management solutions that best streamline that process.
While the functionality of some board portal software may be comparable, there is variation in pricing. In particular, some vendors have different product editions, some with “lite” features and some with full features. Other vendors charge extra for additional committees and administrators, training, or amounts of data storage.
When comparing the cost of board portal software, it’s important to get customized quotes to truly compare. Ensure you ask about starter fees and all possible add-ons. Better technology and service can come at a bit higher price, so be sure to consider your goals and all the features you need, not just grab the best deal.
Need more help comparing board portals? See our guide on the 10 things to consider when evaluating board management software.
Evaluating meeting management software security and compliance
Despite the claims, not all meeting management software offers the same level of security and compliance. When comparing board software, it’s worth evaluating security very closely.
Aprio offers a range of advanced security features for comprehensive protection for the storage, transit and access of your board materials. Our security certifications include:
- ISO 27001 certification
- AT 101 SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 3, HIPAA, and SSAE 16/ ISAE 3402
- Certifications under trusted Microsoft Azure cloud services
- Intrusion detection and Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) protection
We also help you control user access, protect against unauthorized use, and monitor director activity to stay on top of all cyber-security threats with advanced features. This includes:
- Role-based and granular access permission capabilities including document-level security
- Immediate erasing of data from a lost or stolen device
- Ability to lock out users from their account
- Multi-factor authentication and single sign-on capabilities
- Automatic time-out after periods of inactivity
Evaluating board portal security? See our step-by-step checklist of the key areas to review for board portal security.
How Aprio’s meeting management software compares
Aprio stands out in the industry for providing unmatched expert service and an easy-to-use, secure board portal that works the way a board actually works.
Aprio’s meeting management software offers all the features your board needs including:
- One central library to store board materials and documents
- Easy agenda creation and distribution
- Voting and survey tools to increase engagement and decision making
- Track board tasks to ensure action items are completed on time
- Meeting minute tool to draft minutes faster
- Annotations for board members to markup board documents and collaborate
- Video conferencing integration
- Mobile apps for any device
- Comprehensive board reports
In addition to a seamless fully guided onboarding experience, the Aprio board management platform provides unlimited on-demand training and ongoing expert customer support you can rely on at any time. We’re proud to lead the industry in customer loyalty and service satisfaction and have you fully protected with top-level industry-standard security.
“New directors who haven’t seen Aprio before are immediately impressed with how quickly they can get up to speed. Aprio keeps them looped in, easily, all year round, and they offer helpful support that’s flexible, no matter how tech-savvy a director is.” – Your Neighbourhood Credit Union
Want help evaluating the best tools for you?
Aprio helps organizations large and small efficiently run more effective board meetings, keep data secure and foster board engagement. Customers tell us they choose us for our user-friendly technology, unmatched service, security, and time-saving board management tools.
We’d love to learn more about your organization and how we can help streamline your meeting management. Get in touch with our sales team.
