Getting started with Meeting Manual
Table of Contents
1. Why use a digital assistant to improve your Meetings?
1.1 Most people feel that meetings could be more productive
- Greater than 60% of the meetings are actually not required
- Most people think meetings are waste of time
- People who have back to back meetings are more stressed
- Participating in meetings that are not necessary to be present becomes unproductive
- A disorganized meeting leads in loss of interest
1.2 Tips for perfect meetings
- Have an Agenda
- Agenda items should be written in a form of question to be answered
- Meetings should not be scheduled for an hour. Use 55 minutes or 25 minutes as a best practice to give participants time between meetings, as well as yourself time to complete the meeting notes
- Send meeting documentation at least 24 hours before the meeting
- What is a perfect meeting name ‘ <Topic/clients/meeting type> : e.g. <Team | Bizaline | Weekly meeting: Business plan discussion>
- Who should be invited to the meeting, who needs to actually attend the meeting, who is optional and who needs to be informed?
- Is this meeting linked to a previous one?
- Were there outstanding actions from the last meeting and what is the status?
- If due dates arrive before the next meeting, find the person responsible for the action and get a status update?
1.3 Questions to take into consideration when organizing a meeting
- Do you actually need to talk to each other or can you send the information and have them respond without a scheduled meeting?
- Do you need to see the participants face to face or can you see them online?
- What should be the result of this meeting?
- Are your agenda points written as a decision or just to share information?
- Who will be making the decisions on the agenda point?
- How long will it take for the discussion around the agenda point and who is in the lead for the discussion?
- Is this a regular meeting with the same participants?
- Are there people that need to be informed of the results of the meetings but they may not be participating?
- Are there decisions that are made during the meeting that need to be documented?
- Is this a project related meeting or a departed meeting or a client meeting or a one to one meeting?
- Do you need to store the minutes/notes/summary of the meeting?
- Do you need to send the minutes to the participants for approval? Yes
- Are you setting up a meeting or are you writing up notes from the meeting?
1.4 Why use MyContractmanager?
MyContractmanager has an answer for each question above. It will help you not maintain the history of the meetings during the time and also stay organized by filling the agenda with the needed information. You will be able to take notes, decisions, set actions and there are plenty of other features that will help you monitor your agenda.
2. Get started with the Meetings Module
This manual assumes you already have access to MyContractmanager. If not please contact us info@bizaline.com and we will help you create your workspace.
First step: Go to your Dashboard page and open the meeting tile
Click on the company logo on the top-left corner and you will see the dashboard with different fast sections (tiles) that allow you to do more in a few clicks.
After opening the Tile, you will be able to see directly the meetings of today. General information is given, such as the date and time when the meeting will be held, duration, name of the meeting, attendees.
2.1 Schedule a Meeting
Inside the Meetings tile, the user can click on the plus blue button(
) on the top right corner (top bar) to Schedule a new meeting. Doing so, we display a popup with the following information: Name (mandatory field), date, time, duration, status and the action buttons ‘cancel’ and ‘create’.
2.2 Meeting status
Organizing a meeting can be seen as a mini-project. In particular when your meetings have a more formal character it is important to close off each phase of the meeting correctly. You start by making a draft agenda, which you share with your participants of the meeting or other stakeholders. You can offer them the opportunity to make suggestions. Then you publish your agenda to your invitees and other stakeholders. The same process can be adopted when you publish your meeting minutes: first you publish your draft minutes for review, then when all agree you can publish your minutes.
Status of the meeting is an optional field. The list allows you to choose the specific status
Statuses of a meeting are:
- AGENDA DRAFT
- AGENDA REVIEW (for comments/ suggestions)
- AGENDA PUBLISHED
- MINUTES DRAFT
- MINUTES REVIEW (for comments / suggestions)
- MINUTES PUBLISHED
- ACTIONS PUBLISHED
- ARCHIVED
Depending on the date, the meeting will be shown in the specific tab as explained below:
- Today: In this tab are shown all the meetings that have the today date
- Upcoming: Here are present all the meetings that have been scheduled for later today or a day bigger than today
- Previous: Are shown all the meetings that have happened before
- Recurring: In this tab are presented all the meetings that have repeated meetings
- All: Here we have all meetings listed inside other tabs (Today, Upcoming, Previous and Recurring) are listed here.
From the list you can add attendees and also upload an attachment if necessary. When adding an attendee, if the person you are searching is not listed, it is probably because this person is not added yet in your workspace. By clicking on “Create ” it is possible to create a new person or user directly from there.
2.3 See your Your Calendar View
Next to the ‘+’ button it is the calendar icon. By clicking on the calendar you are able to see all the meetings of the month/week and day in a very structured way.
2.4 List Page
You can find this Icon next to the ‘+’ and calendar Icon. This button sends you to the ‘Meetings list’ where you can add/delete or edit meetings.
2.5 Search by meeting tile & Icons of people
2.6 Add an attendee to the meeting
You can add an attendee in the meeting by searching the name registered in the software. When you start typing an attendee name, the autocomplete will propose a list of names so you can choose one.
In one meeting there can be as many attendees as you want.
2.6.1 Create a person/user
The creation of a person/user in the meeting can be done from the list of meetings, by hovering the mouse over the line, or in the detailed meetings.
2.6.2 Update information of an attendee in the meeting
You can change attendee information from the meetings list or inside a specific meeting.
This can be done by clicking on the name of the person, clicking in the arrow next to the person image and a small popup will appear.
For the specific attendee you can change the role, status, activate/deactivate ‘Minutes Reviewer’ or ‘Agenda Items Reviewer’
The attendee is initially required as a participant but you can change the role to:
- Chair
- Required
- Optional
- Non participant
Status is also ‘Accepted’ initially but also this is an information editable:
- Accepted
- Declined
- Delegated
- Needs action
2.7 Your Meeting in detail
There are plenty of other features that help you keep track of everything.
- Project: You can choose the project by clicking on the specific field and searching if the project exists or if not, you can create a new one.
- Attendance: From statistics most meetings are attended online and that is why we directly propose the attendance in ‘Video Conference’ by default. But you can choose where the attendance is held. The options are:
- At location
- Dial in
- Video Conference
- Company: You can choose which company this meeting is related to. Same behavior as the project. You can choose a company from the list, and if it does not exist you can create one directly from there.
2.7.1 Attendee roles
You are allowed to add as many members as this meeting with different roles.
Click in the Attendees field and search the attendees.
Every attendee should have a role in the meeting. When choosing a participant our software creates this person as a required participant. This role can be changed by putting the specific importance of the role.
We have four different roles of attendees:
- Chair
- Required
- Optional
- Non participant
The statuses of the attendees are
- Accepted- If the attendee has accepted the meeting, the circle of the member becomes gree
- Declined- If the attendee declines to participate in the meeting, the circle of the member becomes red
- Delegated- If the attendee chooses the status ‘Delegated’ the circle of the member will become black
- Needs action- If the attendee has not yet responded to the meeting invitation, the circle of the member remains gray
2.8 Just documenting a meeting that already took place?
2.9 Dynamic meeting coloring
The meeting color feature is designed to help you quickly understand the status and progress of your meetings. Based on certain conditions like how far the meeting is scheduled, whether agenda items or attendees are added, or if the meeting is archived, a specific color is assigned. This visual indication makes it easier for you to manage and prioritize your meetings without needing to open each one individually.
When the meeting is more than 2 days away
- Grey: You haven’t added any attendees or agenda items yet.
- Yellow: You’ve added either attendees or agenda items, but the meeting is still in draft.
- Green: The meeting is confirmed or finalized.
- Blue: The meeting is already archived.
- Red: Not used in this case.
When the meeting is exactly 2 days away
- Red: No attendees added.
- Yellow: Meeting is still in draft.
- Green: Meeting is confirmed or finalized.
- Blue: Meeting is archived.
- Grey: Not used here.
When the meeting is happening right now
- Red: Meeting is still in agenda stage (not started minutes yet).
- Yellow: Minutes have been started but not finished.
- Green: Minutes are under review or already published.
- Blue: Meeting+ is archived.
- Grey: Not used here.
When the meeting ended less than 2 days ago
- Red: Meeting stayed in agenda stage and was not completed.
- Yellow: Minutes were started but not finished.
- Green: Minutes are under review or published.
- Blue: Meeting is archived.
- Grey: Not used here.
When the meeting ended more than 2 days ago
- Red: Minutes were never completed.
- Yellow: Minutes are under review.
- Green: Minutes are published.
- Blue: Meeting is archived.
- Grey: Not used here.
3. Creating your meeting agenda & notes
3.1 Creating Agenda Items 📕
In every meeting it is suggested that you create your Agenda items. You can create as many agenda items as you want. Once you create one, only by clicking enter it will be saved and automatically create a next item ready to be added
For the Agenda Item you can:
- write down notes
- add minutes
- attach files
3.2 Documenting your Actions 🏃
We call a meeting successful when we are able to take actions and decisions from the discussion.
You can create an action by hovering the mouse over the action field and type the actions taken. After you have done this in the eye icon you can add more information about the action.
By doing this we integrate your action in the specific kanban so you know the status, priority, client etc.
Example:
After you create the action and associate it with a project and/or a project sprint, we will be able to see the action in the right project sprint with the status of it.
We can track the progress of the action from the meetings but also from the Kanban
You can reorder actions by using the drag and drop icon
You can set the action as done by clicking on the kebab menu and ‘Done’
You can assign this action to a person by clicking on the ‘Person’ icon and searching by the person’s name.
3.3 Document your Decisions 🌟
4. Organizing your recurring Meetings
There is no need to manually create single meetings that occur frequently. Recurring meetings can be set once and our software will automatically create the meetings based on the given information.
How to turn a meeting into a template?
In order to have repeated meetings that share the same content, we should set the necessary information in order to generate the repeated meetings.
This can be done in two ways.
Method 1
The quickest way to create a series of meetings is by clicking on the specific meeting where you want to make the generation. After you have created a meeting, there is a field called ‘Frequency’. By choosing the frequency of the meeting you will be able to create repeated meetings.
4.1 Scheduling options include:
- Daily: The task will recur every day
- Weekly: Recurs once a week on the day you choose
- Biweekly: Recurs once in two weeks on the day you choose
- Monthly: Option to recur on the same day each month that you’ve chosen, a select weekday of the month till the end date.
- End of Month: Recurs once a month on the end of the month, beginning with the current month.
- Yearly: Recurs once a year on the day you choose
- Quarterly: Recurs once in 3 months on the day you choose
- End of Quarter: Recurs once in 3 months in the end of the month
- Quadrimester: Recurs once in 4 months on the day you choose
- Half-yearly: Recurs twice a year in the selected date
- End of Year: Recurs once a year on the end of it, specifically on 31 december
- 4 Weeks: Recurs once in 4 weeks on the day you choose
- 3 Years: Recurs once in 3 years in the selected date
- 5 Years: Recurs once in 5 years in the selected date
- 2 Years: Recurs once in 2 years in the selected date
- 6 weekly: Recurs once in 6 weeks on the day you choose
- Costum: In this option you can customize the Recurrence of the meeting
Right after you choose the frequency, for the generation of a series of meetings, it is requested also the ‘Start date’ and ‘End date’.
Everything will be easy for you because we will make all the calculations on how many meetings should be generated based on the data you have given to us.
*If you have generated this meeting before but you need to regenerate, you have the option to delete the series of meetings generated before.
4.2 Example:Generate weekly meetings on a specific day
If for some reason some information needs to be updated in upcoming meetings, you can update the master meeting and try to regenerate by clicking ‘Regenerate future meetings only’. In this way you will be able to update all the future meetings and the previous ones.
Ex: If an attendee has been a participant in this recurring meeting but he is no longer needed in the meeting, you can remove this participant from the ‘Master meeting’ and click ‘Regenerate future meetings only’ by clicking on the ‘Frequency’.
4.3 Custom Recurring meeting
Example: Generate daily meetings skipping weekend days:
You can do this by choosing the frequency Repeat every – 1- -Weeks-
As you click ‘Weeks’ the new options are shown so you select all the week days you want this meeting to occur.
Choose the End date of this meeting and then confirm the data.
Right after you choose the frequency, for the generation of a series of meetings, you should confirm Start date and the end date. If you have generated this meeting before but you need to regenerate, you have the option to delete the series of meetings generated before.
Method 2 To choose the frequency click on the kebab menu 
of a meeting, Meeting detail and then the fields needed are in the advanced tab.
Step 1: First you have to activate the option ‘Use this meeting as future template’, then define the Frequency and select start and end date for the meeting series:
Step 2: After it, you need to refresh the page and click on the three dots and choose the ‘Series of meetings’ to generate them:
The generated items will inherit from the template the name (with the date in front of it), attendees, agenda items, duration, notes and so on.
You can edit every information that is given in the generated meetings.
When you are generating a series of meetings, in the pop up of the generation the software will give you the option to choose ‘Delete all existing child meetings before generation?’. If you choose this option, all the previous generations will be deleted and will be replaced with the new updated ones.
The new meetings will appear in the specific tab, depending on the date of the meeting (Today, Upcoming, Previous), but also in the ‘Recurring tab’.
4.4 How to regenerate the series of meetings after a change in the master meeting.
It is common for recurring meetings to change information. Our tool will help you regenerate the series of meetings with the updated information, so you won’t need to manually update the data.
Below we will explain a real case of a recurring meeting happening in a company:
Each month in 2022 we have a meeting with developers discussing the sprint progress where we also discuss impediments.
One of the developers that has been working in the company for more than a year (Fatjon) left the company in July and now we have a new developer (Jasmin). What needs to be done is change in the master meeting the attendees. We remove Fatjon and add Jasmin. After doing so, we can regenerate the series of meetings. Below you will find the example with a gif.
Steps:
- Click in the recurring meetings tab and open the master meeting detail.
- Make the specific modifications and click in the three dots.
- Regenerate meetings. You have two options:
- Delete ALL existing child meetings before generation?
- Regenerate FUTURE meetings only?
In regenerate future meetings only we can generate only the meetings from the current date till the end date of the recurring meetings.
5. Manage your Outstanding Actions & Decisions
In the outstanding actions you can:
- View the actions in detail by clicking on the ‘…’ and then ‘Edit’
- Delete the actions from the previous meetings
- Change status to ‘Done’ or ‘Doing’ by checking or unchecking the box
- Go in the parent meeting of the specific action by clicking on the name of the meeting.
5.1 Manage outstanding actions & decisions of your Recurring meetings
The recurring meetings will also appear in the ‘Recurring’ tab
This tab gives you all the necessary information on the first sight. It is divided into three sections.
On the left we have the list of all the recurring meetings and by clicking on one of them, on the right we have detailed information about the specific series of meetings.
On the right, in the upper part we have the information of the all series of meetings (parent meeting), more in detail:
- Name of the meeting
- When the meeting is occurring
- Duration of the meeting
- Possibility to upload attachments if needed directly from the tab
- List of all actions created in all meetings and the assignees
- List of all decisions made in all meetings.
On the right, on the bottom we have the list of all the meetings generated with the specific information:
- Date of the meeting
- Time of the meeting
- Number of actions taken
- Number of decision taken
- Possibility to upload attachments
If you click in one of the meetings, a pop up will open and you will be able to see/edit the specific meeting.
The kebab menu 
on the right enables the user to see the meeting details.
6. Send out your meeting minutes (for approval)
6.1 Preview Printable ⎙
6.2 Request Agenda review
After you have created the meeting and added all the participants needed, you can request the reviewer to review the Agenda.
If this Reviewer is already set in the participant’s detail, when you click in the ‘Request Agenda review’ it will be selected, but you can add more than one reviewer.
Importance of the participants in the meeting
Every attendee should have a role in the meeting. When choosing a participant our software creates this person as a required participant. This role can be changed by putting the specific importance of the role.
We have four different roles of attendees:
- Chair
- Required
- Optional
- Non participant
7. Q&A: How to keep track of discussions on a specific topic over time?
Complex programs often have lengthy timelines.
There may be personnel changes in the interim, which makes it difficult to rely on collective memory to trace exact agreements.
It is inefficient to search through scattered minutes for decisions on specific topics and projects.
The Meeting Module within MyContractManager helps you maintain a comprehensive record:
- Agenda Item, e.g., “purchase of new charging stations.”
Record all key agreements related to this agenda item as an Action or Decision. - Link the action or decision to a Project.
- The project displays all decisions made over time and links to the agenda item, allowing you to view the full minutes associated with it.
- You can also generate a report containing decisions, explanations, meeting dates, and minutes for the relevant agenda item.
Agenda Item, e.g., “purchase of new charging stations.”
Record all key agreements related to this agenda item as an Action or Decision.
Link the action or decision to a Project.
The project displays all decisions made over time and links to the agenda item, allowing you to view the full minutes associated with it.
You can also generate a report containing decisions, explanations, meeting dates, and minutes for the relevant agenda item.