Introduction
Building an agenda sits at the core of boardcycle and is done through our simple, drag-and-drop interface that dynamically updates each time you make a change.
This article provides a holistic overview of how to build an agenda, including links to other articles that go into more detail on specific aspects.
First, create a meeting
Agendas are created within a meeting. Therefore, before you can build an agenda, you must create a meeting. You can do this by either:
creating a new meeting from scratch, which will also mean that you will need to build the agenda for that meeting from scratch too (click here to learn more); or
creating a new meeting from an existing meeting, in which case you be building from the agenda of the existing meeting you copied (click here to learn more).
The agenda canvas
Once you have created a meeting, you will be taken to the Agenda tab, where you will see the empty agenda canvas below the start time:
The agenda canvas is an area where you can drag and drop agenda blocks to build your agenda.
Agenda blocks
There are 4 different types of agenda blocks available to drag and drop onto your agenda canvas.
Agenda block | Description | Example | Link to detailed article |
Section | A section is a way to organise and group other sections, items and breaks on your agenda. Sections do not independently occupy any time on the agenda - the time associated with a section is simply the sum of the time associated with all of the items within it. | Many agendas will have a section called "Opening Items", "Administrative Items" or similar which includes items such as Quorum, Minutes of Previous Meetings, Matters Arising, etc. | |
Item | Items are the 'heroes' of an agenda - these are the things that will actually be discussed during the meeting and require an action from the forum. Items have a duration associated with them, as well as numerous other attributes. | Using the example above, Quorum, Minutes of Previous Meetings and Matters Arising are items. | |
Break | A break is a block of time on an agenda where the meeting will stop/pause. | A lunch break | |
Note | A note is a block that communicates information but does not occupy time on the agenda. | The date and time of the next board meeting |
These 4 blocks are located to the right of the agenda canvas:
Building an agenda
Building an agenda is as simple as:
choosing which agenda block you need
dragging and dropping that agenda block into the right location in the agenda canvas
configuring that agenda block (see the detailed articles for each block linked in the table above)
repeating as necessary to build the full agenda.
The image below shows the agenda canvas after one of each agenda block has been dragged onto the agenda canvas.
Worth knowing: Agendas autosave as you're building
There is no save button in the Agendas tab because it autosaves as you are building your agenda.
Organising your agenda using drag and drop
Except when fine tuning (see below), organisation of your agenda is done by dragging and dropping agenda blocks within the agenda canvas. When you pick up an agenda block and move it around the agenda canvas, a 'drop preview' will appear to indicate to you where that block will land when you drop it.
You can also use drag and drop to organise your agenda into groups of sections. This can be done once you have at least 1 section on your agenda canvas, after which you can drag other agenda blocks so that they sit below and indented from that section.
Worth knowing: Dragging a section drags all agenda blocks inside that section
When you pick up a section, you are picking up any and all agenda blocks that are inside that section and moving all of them at once. This means that you can easily move around large portions of your agenda by moving the section it is contained within.
The images below show how indentation works to organise agenda blocks inside one 'parent' section:
at first, there are 2 sections and 1 item, all sitting at the highest level on the agenda canvas as section 1, section 2 and item 3
then, item 3 is dragged so that it is indented inside the section 2, causing the item to be renumbered from item 3 to item 2.1
then, section 2 is dragged so that it is indented inside section 1. Dragging section 2 drags item 2.1 within it and causes section 2 to be renumbered as section 1.1 and item 2.1 to be renumbered as item 1.1.1
Worth knowing: No technical limit on indentation
There is no technical limit on the number of levels of indentation you can create on the agenda canvas. However we strongly recommend that only 3 levels of indentation wherever possible and do not go beyond 4 levels of indentation as a maximum of 4 levels of indentation are supported in the agenda export.
Important things to know about indentation
When using sections and indentation to organise your agenda, it is worth keeping the following things in mind:
you can indent any type of agenda block inside a section, including other sections - this means that section blocks are the key blocks that you need to use to create hierarchies and groupings on your agenda
you cannot indent any type of agenda block inside an item - for example, you cannot have item 1 with item 1.1 indented inside it - in this scenario you would need to use a section to create section 1, and then have item 1.1 indented inside that section
it is similarly not possible to indent any type of agenda block inside a break
Important: Deleting a section deletes all agenda blocks inside it
If you delete a section, you will also delete all sections, items and breaks that are indented inside that section. If you do not want to delete those other agenda blocks, drag them out of the section before you delete the section.
Fine-tuning indentation
Sometimes it can be a little tricky to get a section or item to indent exactly where you want it to using drag-and-drop, especially if you have deep agendas. In those cases, you can specify the location you want a section or item to go into simply by typing in the number of the position you want it to occupy. To do this:
click on the number of the relevant section or item - once you do this, it will become editable
type in the number of the position you want it to occupy
hit return or click out of the box
Once you do this, the relevant section or item will move to the position you specified.
Worth knowing: fine-tuning is recommended for... fine-tuning
We recommend using drag-and-drop as your primary way of building agendas and then using the fine-tuning feature to make only small adjustments (e.g. indenting or outdenting by 1 level).
Once you enter the number of a position you want a section or item to move to using the fine-tuning feature it will immediately 'jump' to that location, which can be hard to track if you move it a long distance on your agenda.