Meetings
A meeting is a scheduled session of a government body — the top-level container for agendas and items.
Lifecycle
A meeting moves through stages, each set by a specific clerk action:
| Phase | Set by | Publicly visible |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | (nothing yet) | Not visible |
| Announced | Announcing the meeting | Date, time, location appear |
| Agenda published | Publishing the agenda (also announces it if you haven't) | Full agenda and item details |
| Record published | Publishing the record | Attendance, outcomes, votes, and minutes appear |
| Cancelled | Cancelling the meeting | Hidden, regardless of prior state |
"In progress" and "completed" follow from the scheduled start and end times — there's no separate flag. The record-editing surfaces (minutes, attendance, outcomes) become editable once the scheduled start time has passed and the meeting isn't cancelled.
Two distinct steps. Noticing makes the meeting's existence public — date, time, location only. Publishing the agenda releases item details. Both have compliance deadlines but happen at different points.
The app calls this announce / announced; the open-meetings-law term is noticing. Same action, two names.
On publish, every linked item that doesn't already have a published copy gets one, all in the same step. Items that already have one are left alone — staff republish updates explicitly.
The detail-page header swaps lifecycle actions in three stages so the next action is always the most prominent:
- Draft → Announce + Publish agenda
- Announced or agenda published, pre-meeting → Publish agenda + Publish record (disabled until the meeting starts)
- Post-meeting → Publish agenda + Publish record (label switches to Republish record when the live record differs from what's been published)
Announce disappears once the meeting is announced — the next action is always the next button on the right. Cancelled and archived meetings disable every button with an inline tooltip explaining the state.
When a published meeting record's live data (attendance, outcomes, annotations, minutes, votes) no longer matches the copy saved when you published, three signals fire together: the Publish record header button switches to Republish record, the Record-tab section globe icons turn yellow (out of date), and an "Unpublished record changes" warning appears in the warnings strip. Republishing refreshes the saved copy and clears all three signals.
Three lifecycle reverse-actions live in the Actions ▾ menu. They look similar but mean different things:
- Withdraw from Public — one-step reversal of the entire publish lifecycle. Clears the announcement, the agenda publish, and the record publish all at once. The meeting returns to a staff-only draft; the public page stops loading. Use when you need to pull the meeting back to rework privately.
- Cancel — marks the meeting cancelled. The meeting page keeps showing a "Cancelled" notice; the public sees that the meeting was scheduled but isn't happening. Use when a previously-announced meeting won't take place.
- Archive — removes the meeting from staff workflows and public lists without deleting it. Use after the meeting is fully wrapped up and you want it out of your dashboard.
Cancelled and archived meetings hide the Withdraw item from the Actions menu — un-cancel or unarchive first if you want a private draft. Going straight from cancelled or archived to a staff draft is intentionally blocked for the same reason.
Special Meetings
Marking a meeting "special" applies the shorter Special Notice deadline under most open-meetings laws. Special meetings typically have stricter rules about discussion scope. See Announcing Meetings.
Key Operations
| Operation | Who | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Create meeting | Admin, Super Admin | New draft meeting |
| Announce | Admin, Super Admin | Announces the meeting; date, time, and location become public |
| Publish agenda | Admin, Super Admin | Publishes the agenda (and announces the meeting if you haven't), creates a new agenda version, and publishes a copy of each item |
| Publish record | Admin, Super Admin | Publishes the record and saves a copy of attendance, outcomes, annotations, minutes, and votes. Later edits that no longer match the saved copy show up as out of date. |
| Withdraw from Public | Admin, Super Admin | Clears the announcement, agenda publish, record publish, and the saved record copy all at once — the meeting returns to a staff-only draft. Different from Cancel (keeps a public notice) and Archive (removes from staff workflows). |
| Cancel | Admin, Super Admin | Marks the meeting cancelled; meeting hidden |
| Archive | Admin, Super Admin | Removes from staff and public lists (recoverable) |
Related
- Agendas — versioned documents attached to a meeting
- Announcing Meetings — deadlines that gate announcing and publishing
- Permissions & Roles — who can perform each operation