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Take and publish the minutes

Turn the meeting record — agenda, motions, votes, decisions — into a minutes document, take it through review and signing, then publish (and, for a general assembly, distribute) it.

Goal​

By the end you will have a minutes document for the meeting that has moved from draft through review to approved/published, with the agreed signers recorded, and the action items it contains extracted.

Prerequisites​

  • A meeting that has happened — agenda items handled, any votes closed, decisions published (see Run a vote).
  • Secretary (or whoever the body's workflow names) — that role drives the minutes lifecycle.
  • The list of people who must sign the minutes (chair, secretary, …) per the body's rules.

Steps​

  1. Open the meeting and go to Minutes in the navigation, then create a minutes record for the meeting — or use Generate draft to have Decidesk assemble a first draft from the meeting record (agenda items, motions, voting results, decisions).

    Generate a minutes draft

  2. Edit the draft — tidy the wording, add discussion notes, confirm the recorded decisions are right. The minutes detail page has a Signers tab and an Audit trail.

    Minutes detail with the draft

  3. On the Signers tab, set who must sign — typically the chair and the secretary. Then submit for approval: the minutes move to review and the dashboard's Minutes awaiting approval tile picks them up.

    Signers tab on the minutes

  4. The signers approve. When the last required signature is in, the minutes transition to approved. Publish them — the minutes become the official record of the meeting.

    Approved and published minutes

  5. Extract action items from the minutes — Decidesk pulls out the "X to do Y by Z" lines so they become tracked action items (see Track decisions and action items). For a general assembly (ALV), generate the ALV-format minutes and distribute them to members.

    Action items extracted from the minutes

Verification​

The minutes show in the Minutes list with lifecycle approved (or published) and a version number, the Signers tab lists everyone who signed, the Audit trail records the submit/approve/publish steps, and the extracted action items appear under Action items.

Common issues​

SymptomFix
Generate draft produces a thin draftIt only includes what's recorded — make sure agenda items, votes, and decisions were captured in the meeting before generating.
Minutes stuck in reviewA required signer hasn't approved yet — check the Signers tab for the outstanding signature.
Action item extraction misses itemsThe extractor looks for clear assignment phrasing; rephrase vague lines, or add the action items by hand from Action items → Add Item.
No "distribute" optionDistribute is for ALV (general assembly) minutes — generate the ALV-format minutes first.

Reference​