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The meeting process in Boardeaser – From planning and agenda to e-signed minutes

  • Updated

This guide guides you through the entire meeting process in Boardeaser from start to finish: from planning the meeting, building the agenda, and sending invitations to writing, reviewing, approving, and e-signing the minutes.

Who does what in the meeting process? (Roles & permissions)

  • Administrator / Meeting Secretary (Steps 1–5, 7–8): Plans the meeting, creates the agenda, sends invitations, writes the minutes, and manages review, approval, and signing requests. (Note: A Limited user assigned as Secretary for a meeting can also write and manage the minutes.)
  • Reviewer (Step 6): Reviews the completed minutes, leaves comments if needed, and approves or requests changes.
  • Signatory (Step 9): Digitally signs the approved minutes using e-identification (such as BankID) or electronic signature.
  • Other participants: Reads the agenda and attachments in the boardroom and provides input if a comment round is initiated.

Table of contents

1. Plan a meeting

Go to Meetings > Plan meeting in the left menu to create a new meeting.

Select Meetings and Plan meeting in the left menu

Fill in meeting details

You can create a meeting several months in advance. Enter the title, meeting number, date, time, location (physical address or video meeting link), theme, purpose, and preparations, and select which members should be invited.

  • Send meeting information (optional): Click the button at the bottom to send an advance notice with a calendar file (.ics) to participants. 
    Note: This is only a calendar notification – not the formal meeting invitation with the agenda.
  • Save: Click Save to save the meeting as a draft, or Save and continue to proceed directly to building the agenda.

Learn more: Meeting number and Create and plan a new meeting.

Fill in meeting details such as date, time, location, and participants

2. Write the agenda

Once the meeting is saved, create the agenda. At the top of the view, there are three tabs: Agenda Templates, Agenda, and Preview.

Use a template or start from scratch

  • Use an agenda template: Under the Agenda Templates tab, you can preview the organization's saved templates and click Use next to the template you want to apply.
  • Create without a template: Click Skip or go directly to the Agenda tab to build your own agenda from scratch.
Select an agenda template or skip to create a new agenda

Add and edit agenda items

Under the Agenda tab, click Add items to create new agenda items. You can change the order of items by clicking and dragging the handle icon (the six dots) furthest to the left of each item.

Click the arrow to the left of the item number to expand the item and enter additional details:

  • Item description and prepared minutes text (hidden from participants in the agenda and carried over directly to the minutes)
  • Proposals for decisions and to-do tasks
  • Time estimate, presenter (rapporteur), and item type (decision, discussion, information, formality, or follow-up)
  • Recess after item and supporting attachments

Learn more: Create and edit an agenda for a meeting.

Edit agenda items and details

Add attachments

Under the Attachments field in an expanded item, you can drag and drop files, click Choose file to upload a document from your device, or click Choose file from archive to select a document from the organization's document archive.

Learn more: Add and include attachments to the minutes.

Attach files locally or from the document archive under Attachments

Additional features via the three-dot icon (···)

In the upper right corner of the agenda view, click the three-dot icon (···) to access additional options:

Menu under the three-dot icon in the agenda view

Finalize the agenda

Review the complete agenda under the Preview tab. When you are satisfied, click Mark agenda as done to proceed to sending invitations.

3. Send invitations

Once the agenda is marked as done, you can send the formal invitation to the meeting participants:

  1. Write a custom message for the invitation if needed.
  2. (Optional) Check Include agenda as PDF if you want recipients to receive the agenda directly as an email attachment without having to log in.
  3. Click Send invitations (if you do not want to send an email notification, click Skip sending invitation instead).

Important note about invitations:
Once an invitation has been sent, it cannot be recalled or undone. If an invitation containing sensitive meeting details was accidentally sent to the wrong person, we recommend deleting the meeting and creating a new one from scratch.

Send invitations to meeting participants

4. Write the minutes

When the meeting takes place (or is ready to be minuted), open the meeting and click Write minutes.

Note: When you click Write minutes, the system locks the agenda for further editing and invitations can no longer be sent.

Click Write minutes to begin recording the meeting minutes

The minutes view consists of four tabs: Attending members, Minutes, Attachments, and Preview.

Attending members tab (Attendees & meeting roles)

Select who attended the meeting and assign the roles of Secretary, Reviewer, and Signatory:

  • The meeting must have at least one secretary and one reviewer assigned.
  • If the chairperson and another board member are to review the minutes, mark both as Reviewers (and as Signatories if they will also sign the minutes).
  • External attendees: You can add external participants via Add more > Create new by entering their name and email address. External attendees can be designated as Signatories, but not as formal reviewers or secretaries (the review role requires an invited user account in the organization).
Select attending members and assign Secretary, Reviewer, and Signatory roles

Minutes tab

Click Edit minutes (or open the Minutes tab) to record decisions and notes item by item. If needed, you can add new items using the Add item button if topics were discussed outside the original agenda.

Write decisions and notes under each minute item

Attachments tab

Manage meeting attachments under the Attachments tab and select whether they should be included in the minutes or displayed as links.

Good to know about included attachments:
Attachments included directly in the minutes will appear in the combined PDF file, but are not covered by the technical e-signature certificate when the minutes are signed.

Manage and select whether attachments should be included in the minutes

Preview tab

Review the complete minutes in the Preview tab. When everything is ready, click Comments and review to proceed.

Preview the minutes and proceed to Comments and review

5. Comment and send for review (Secretary)

Depending on your board's workflow, you can either collect informal feedback first, send the minutes directly to reviewers, or mark them as already reviewed:

Request comments from selected participants (optional)

Click Request comments if you want selected meeting participants to provide input before formal review begins. Selected commenters receive an email request, and once everyone has clicked Done with commenting, the secretary is notified by email.

Learn more: Comments on minutes – Request, add, and review feedback

Click Request comments to invite participants to provide feedback
Select which participants should comment on the minutes

Mark as done and send to reviewers

  1. Click Mark minutes as done when the draft is ready to be locked for review.
Click Mark minutes as done
  1. Click Send to reviewer (if you want to skip the review step, click Mark as reviewed instead).
Select Send to reviewer or Mark as reviewed
  1. Enter an optional message and review deadline, confirm the selected reviewer(s), and choose what happens once the review is complete:
  2. Click Send. Reviewers will now receive an email with a direct link to review the minutes.

Learn more: The reviewer's role – Review, comment on, and approve minutes

Settings when sending minutes for review

Skip the review step

If the minutes have already been reviewed, or if you want to skip the review round altogether, you can bypass the review step and move the minutes directly to approval. After clicking Mark minutes as done:

  1. Click Mark as reviewed instead of sending the minutes to reviewers.
  2. Confirm by clicking Review and lock to lock the minutes.

6. Review the minutes (Reviewer)

Assigned reviewers receive an email with a direct link (Login to Boardeaser to read and comment on the minutes) to enter review mode:

  1. Review the minutes and leave feedback on specific items by clicking Write comment (and Comment), or add an overall comment for the entire minutes.
  2. Complete the review by selecting one of the following two statuses and clicking Send review:
    • Approve: Approves the minutes (with or without comments).
    • Request changes: Sends the minutes back to the secretary to update the text before they can be approved.

What happens next?
The secretary receives an email notification once all reviewers have submitted their review. If changes were requested, the secretary updates the minutes and sends them out for review again. Once all reviewers approve, the minutes automatically move forward.

Reviewer view for commenting and approving or requesting changes

7. Approve the minutes (Admin / Secretary)

(This step appears if you did not choose to send the minutes directly from review to signing.)

Once the review is complete, the minutes move to the Approve minutes stage – for example, for formal approval at the next board meeting. Click Approve to finalize the minutes for signing. Only one authorized user (secretary or administrator) needs to click Approve to complete this step.

Click Approve to finalize the approval stage

8. Request signing of the minutes (Admin / Secretary)

Once the minutes are approved, the signing case is generated and emails are automatically sent to everyone designated as a Signatory.

In this view, you can track signing status in real time and send reminders to anyone who has not yet signed by clicking Remind next to their name.

Overview of signing status and Remind button

9. E-sign the minutes and automatic archiving (Signatory)

E-signing is securely handled through Boardeaser's integrated signing partner (Assently):

  1. The signatory clicks the link in the email notification (or clicks Sign directly inside the meeting in Boardeaser) and reviews the generated PDF minutes.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the document and click the green Sign now button to sign using e-identification (such as BankID) or electronic signature.
Scroll to the bottom and click Sign now with electronic signature

Automatic archiving:
As soon as the last signatory has e-signed, the minutes are permanently locked with a signing certificate. The meeting is automatically moved from the Active meetings tab to the Archived meetings tab under Meetings > All meetings, and the signed PDF is saved in the document archive under the Board meetings folder.

Completed and signed meeting moved to Archived meetings