Agendas, minutes and recordings are all tied to a meeting. To start with ClerkMinutes, first you need to create a meeting.
Create a meeting
Head over to ClerkMinutes dashboard, then click the Add meeting button. This page will open up:
There are 2 ways to fill in the details of a meeting:
Manually
Fill the minimum of required fields, Title, Date & Start time, then click the Create meeting button.
From an existing agenda
If you already have a meeting agenda as a PDF or DOCX document, you can upload or drop it in the Upload or drop agenda section. ClerkMinutes will read and extract all meeting details.
Meeting fields explained
Title: A short name for the meeting like "Regular City Council", required. It will show up in the Meetings list for municipality staff and the Meetings Portal where residents can see the list or calendar of meetings
Date: The day when the meeting takes place, required
Starts at: The time at which the meeting takes place, required
Ends at: The expected time for when the meeting will end, optional
Description: A short description for the meeting, optional
Boards or Departments: Select the boards & departments associated with this meeting, optional but recommended. Enables features like: meeting template based on department, meeting notifications for board/dept members, and custom minutes generation
Type: Select a meeting type like Special, Regular, Closed session, Work Session, Public hearing. Used for search & filtering
Location: Where the meeting takes place
Conferencing link: Add a Youtube, Zoom, Google Meet, or other link where residents can join the meeting when it takes place, optional (it should not be a link of a past meeting recording)
Saving the meeting
After you review the details, there are 2 options for saving the meeting:
Save as draft: The meeting will be created and flagged as a draft, and it will be visible only to logged-in municipality staff. It will not yet be visible for residents in the Meetings Portal
Create meeting: The meeting will be created and marked as Published, it will be accessible by everyone
Pro Tip: You can simply drop a meeting agenda (PDF or DOCX) in the meetings list page. ClerkMinutes will read the agenda, create the meeting and import the agenda items in one go.
