Overview
Upon a successful login to the Meeting Manager, you will be directed to the Home/Select Group Screen, that will look like the screen further below.
This document will prepare you to Create, Select and prepare to Run a Meeting. The following document links will explain more about Groups, Meetings, Configurations & Agendas. We expect that you understand these concepts, but if not, you can access the following document links now or anytime.
If you are having issues or questions about logging into the Meeting Manager, please access this User Access link to review these steps or call OpenMeeting Customer Support at 320.249.0555.
Details / Sequence of Events
Assuming you’ve gone through implementation training with OpenMeeting, you should already have Groups, core/template Configurations and core/template Agendas established.
Sign into the Meeting Manager with your User Name and Password.
If you need help here, see the following document link: User Access
Upon a successful sign-in, you will be presented the following screen, requesting you to select the Group you wish to work within. You’ll likely only see one group listed, unless your OMT license provides multiple groups to choose from (i.e., County Commission, Public Works, Public Health, etc..).
Select Group & Create a New Meeting or Duplicate a Meeting
Select the Group on the left, and Meetings will appear on the right as follows:
It is IMPORTANT and MANDATORY, that ALL meetings you wish to run are created and listed in the Meeting area of the screen above.
You may have Templates established (this example shows County Board Regular and Special Templates), which can be “Duplicated” repeatedly to create new meetings. The Agenda can then me modified as needed for the new meeting you are preparing for.
You can Create a New Meeting by choosing the option on the top right. However, we recommend creating a new meeting by using the Duplicate function on a template or previous meeting. By doing so, you automatically load a Configuration and Agenda that are often standard and typical for your County Board (in this case). Your Agenda will be ready in a typical format, waiting for you to simply modify it only for the details of the upcoming meeting.
If you have NO meetings (or templates) listed on the right, please see the following link to review how to establish your first Configuration & Meeting Agenda
Select Duplicate (on a template or previous, similar meeting)
Name Your New Meeting
The following dialogue box will appear asking the name of the Meeting. We recommend using dates (YEAR-MO-DAy) on the front end of the Meeting Name to keep them sorted in easy to find date order. In this example we used 2022-01-24 Reg Board.
Select OK and your meeting will appear in the meeting list as follows:
Single click once on your new meeting. The newly created or duplicated meeting is now pre-set containing the template Configuration and Agenda for this meeting type. The following screen with the template (or duplicated) Agenda will appear in the center area, but remember that you will want to RENAME it (Save As) to the Agenda for your “new meeting”.
NOTE: The Configuration will most often stay as is with no changes. However, we have duplicated the Template Agenda, and we will want to immediately change its name to the current meeting’s name and save.
Save Agenda as a New Name
Click Save As (shown above) on Step 2 Load Agenda.
When the following Save As dialogue box appears, we recommend saving as the same name as the Meeting name you used on the previous screen. In this example it was 2022-01-24 Reg Board. The system will create the agenda file name and add the .oma extension. This agenda will always get loaded for this meeting when selected on the Home – Groups & Meetings screen.
Select Save on the screen below, after entering the Agenda File name:
Proof and Edit the Agenda Name
Select Edit Agenda (grey button at the top of the screen) after you have saved the agenda with a new name.
Confirm the Agenda Name in the top right corner is correct. Since this was the template agenda, you will likely need to change the Meeting Description to reflect the date this meeting will be held. Once changes are made in the Agenda Manager, they are auto-saved – no need to press Save. This is shown in the example below:
After the above changes, you are directly in the Agenda Manager and can begin making any specific Agenda changes & additions that are needed for the upcoming meeting. You can work on this now or leave the program and come back later as many times as you wish before you Load and Run the live meeting.
If you have any questions about making changes / additions in the Agenda Manager, please see the following link for more detail:
- Agenda Manager – to understand how to create, edit and save Agendas as Templates and for each individual meeting.
Notes / Special Situations
It is important to understand the concept of Groups, Configurations, Meetings and Agendas. For more information on these topics visit one or both of the following links for more detail.
- Meeting Setup – to understand Groups, Configurations, Meetings and Agendas.
- Agenda Manager – to understand how to create, edit and save Agendas as Templates and for each individual meeting.
If you are having issues that are not successfully addressed above, please call OMT Customer Support at 320.249.0555.
