Overview
During all meetings, detailed results are kept of all key activities that take place within the Meeting Manager. These results will form the basis of your meeting Minutes, which you can access, copy/paste to Word (or other editor) and format your final published Minutes.
Two key items are created and archived for every meeting you conduct.
Meeting Results Document
A document containing timestamps of all activities, attendance, speaker engagements, motions, seconds, final vote results and all detailed notes taken by the Clerk during the meeting, by and for each individual Agenda Item. This document will form the core input for your Final Meeting Minutes. These Results are stored / saved in a folder as explained further below in this document for every individual meeting you Load & Start by date.
Voting Result (.JPG) Screen Captures
For Roll Call and every agenda item that has been voted on, an image of the public display of the vote results (by member), is captured and saved as a .JPG image file. These can be used for future reference and optionally may be used as images in your final published minutes. These Images are stored / saved in a folder as explained further below in this document for every individual meeting you Load & Start by date. Note that you also have an option to print one or multiple copies of these images directly after every vote is completed during a live meeting.
- Printing Voting Result Screen Captures during a meeting – There may be meetings (for example a controversial meeting with the Press in the audience) where you may wish to print the Vote Result .JPG Screen immediately after every vote. This provides accurate and real-time information to the Public and the Press.
The above mentioned features may be turned ON or OFF per your preference in the Meeting Manager Configuration Settings as described in the following document link:
The location of these results and screen captures are File Folders that are named the same as the Meeting Name and Date you established when creating the meeting on the Home / Group / Meeting screen in Meeting Manager. The Results and Vote Screen Images are files within these folders with DATE STAMPS of the Day/Time the meeting was held. For more information regarding the locations and details of these files & naming convention, please see the following document link:
The following will explain more detail about accessing the Results & Vote Screen Files.
Details / Sequence of Events
Two ways to view the Result Files and the Vote Images.
1. View Results / Vote Screens DURING a Meeting
It is not often that you may need to do this during a meeting. However, as an example, a discussion may lead to members requesting to see the vote results on a previous (perhaps related) agenda item. You can easily pull up the results file to show any discussion and notes on that item AND can pull up the final Vote Results screen for that item (if it was a voted upon item).
2. View and work with the Results / Vote Screens AFTER a Meeting
This is what you will do routinely as you prepare the meeting minutes for approval and distribution after each meeting concludes.
We’ll explain both of these two methods below.
Again, it is helpful for you to understand how and where these Results and Image Files are saved on the Meeting Manager PC.
Please see the following document link for a review of this detail:
1. How to View Results / Vote Screens DURING a Meeting
Anytime during a meeting, you may “view” the Results File (thus far recorded during the proceedings) AND any Vote Screens on items already voted on. This may be helpful if members or perhaps the public request input regarding action taken on a previous item.
Select (anytime during a meeting) the Meeting Files dropdown menu on the top right of the Meeting Manager screen. You will see two selections drop down as shown on the following sample screen (View Meeting Logs & View Vote Screens.
Select VIEW MEETING LOGS (Results)
You will be presented with a pop-up window like the following listing text file names. There may be multiple text files listed if you’ve started this meeting prior to the meeting you are running (i.e., to adjust the Agenda or to practice prior to the live meeting). Each text file is NAMED with a Date & Time stamp of when the meeting “started”. In the example below, we have two text files for this meeting listed as follows:
- 2002-04-02-06-22 – This is listed first and is the MOST CURRENT meeting (the one you are in now) which was on 04/02/2022 starting at 6:22 pm.
- 2002-03-23-08-04 – This is perhaps a practice meeting you started before the live meeting.
NOTE: The first meeting listed will always be the meeting you are running and generally the one you would select.
Select and Open the first .txt File listed, to view the detailed Results of your current meeting. A partial example is shown below. Scrolling further when you open this file will show you ALL member activity, votes, and notes as they happened during the meeting.
NOTE this is basically the minutes of your meeting with all details and activities logged. By scrolling through this file, you can locate the section you wish to review. You can also share this view to the Public Display for viewing by the Members and the Public IF desired. To do this, you usually simply drag this window to the Public Display Screen that the meeting manager is connected to. However, every A/V set-up is a bit different, so please consult with your I.T. team to understand how to do this specifically in your environment.
Select VIEW VOTE SCREENS
On the Meeting Files drop-down, select the 2nd option “View Vote Screen”.
You will be presented with a pop-up window like the following, listing multiple .JPG image files. Each text file is NAMED with a Date & Time stamp along with the name of the Agenda Item that was voted on. These will look familiar to you and are always listed in the order of the very last item voted on in the current meeting you are conducting.
NOTE: Similar to the discussion of the Results Files above, you may have vote screen files from this same meeting you started as a practice run. Simply note the dates / time stamps in the file names of the listed files, to be sure you are looking at vote screens from the current meeting you are conducting.
Select and Open any vote screen image you wish to view, based on the file name of the voted item you wish to view. Only items voted on will have an image file located here.
The following is an example of the Vote Screen image that will open. It is simply a screen image of what was presented on the Public Display, after voting on that item was completed. In this example; the “Approval of the Agenda”.
You can also share this view to the Public Display for viewing by the Members and the Public IF desired. To do this, you usually simply drag this window to the Public Display Screen that the meeting manager is connected to. However, every A/V set-up is a bit different, so please consult with your I.T. team to understand how to do this specifically in your environment.
2. How to work with the Results / Vote Screens AFTER a Meeting
Again, it is helpful for you to understand how and where these Results and Image Files are saved on the Meeting Manager PC.
Please see the following document link for a review of this detail:
Sign-In to the Meeting Manager App. When on the Home / Select Group screen, select and Load any one of your meetings, but DON’T Start the meeting. Rather select the 3-bar (hamburger) menu icon on the top left of the screen to open the Main Navigation Menu as shown below:
When the Main Menu is open, find the File Manager area and select Group Files. A screen like the sample below will open:
In the Group Files folder, select the Meetings Folder as shown above. This folder contains all the Meetings (combination of Configurations & Agendas) that you’ve created and named whenever you do a new Meeting Setup on the Home / Select Group Meeting Manager Main Menu. When selecting the Meetings Folder a screen like the following will open. As you review, Select Back (to view the previous screen you were last on) or Select Reset Path (to view the initial Group Files folder).
As shown below, you will see specific & unique folders for every meeting you created on the Main Menu Home / Select Group / Meeting Setup screens. These folders will be named the same as the Agenda File names you used for each unique meeting you created. Within these folders will be BOTH the Results (minutes) .txt files AND all the vote result screens (.jpg image files).
Opening any of the named Meeting Folders, you will always see the Logs and Results Folders, as follows:
The Log Folder is a troubleshooting folder mainly for OMT Support if needed, so you generally won’t need to use this Folder. Select the Results Folder to view your Results & Voting Image Files as shown below.
As an example, let’s assume you had a Board Meeting on March 23, 2022. You would see a meeting folder named “2022-03-23 REG Board”. If you open that folder followed by the Results Folder within it (or any other dated meeting folders), you will see something similar to the list of files shown below, that were automatically saved during this specific meeting.
The following explains the two file types you will always see in the meeting folders (a Text File and various .JPG Image Files).
The Results (Minutes) Text File
2022-03-23-08-04.txt (Text Document) – This is the Results (or Minutes) File which is shown on the previous screen-shot above. It is a Text File that you can open and edit OR copy / paste from to MS-Word or any other document type. It is used to complete your detailed minutes, as it contains every attendance action, discussion action, motions, seconds, amendments, item votes by member and any clerk notes. It also contains timestamps of every action beginning with opening the meeting, through meeting adjournment. The file naming structure uses a time stamp to signify the Date & Time this meeting was started.
Select and Open this TXT File to view the detailed Results of your meeting. A partial example is shown below. Scrolling further when you open this file will show you ALL activity, votes, and notes as they happened during the meeting.
The Vote Screen (.JPG) Image Files
2022-03-23-080523-Approval of Agenda.jpg – This (and every other .JPG file shown in this folder) are the Vote Screen images exactly as they public saw them after each item vote was finalized. These images can be used in any way you wish (i.e., sized smaller and placed directly into your minutes, placed on your website with minutes, or sent to anyone wishing to have these images). As noted above, the file naming structure uses a time stamp to signify the Date, Time, and agenda Item name for each voting action that took place during the meeting.
Select & Open any one of the .JPG image files to view the final voting results, just as the public saw them at the meeting. An example is shown below.
A couple important notes regarding the Final Vote Screen Images.
- Vote Screen Images are only saved for Roll Call and Agenda Items that require voting and are voted on during the meeting.
- They are not saved if you skip an item and don’t vote on it.
- The system allows you to go back to an item you previously voted on in the meeting and Re-Vote the item. In cases of Re-Voting, the system always only saves the Vote Screen image of the last and final vote result, not the previous vote result.
Notes / Special Situations
Running Preliminary Practice or Set-up meetings
It is important to understand that Meeting Results are saved for EVERY Meeting you Load and Run. You may run multiple meeting prior to the live-actual meeting (to practice and make sure everything is ready for the real-final meeting). THUS, understand that you may have RESULTS and VOTE Screen files in this folder with earlier time stamps than the actual & final / formal meeting (perhaps days ahead). You may wish to view and delete these practice files using the File Manager / Group Files / Meetings menu options explained above.
However, be careful to never delete the results of actual legislative meetings that were formally conducted, as you always want these saved as the an archive / results of the Official Meeting.
Accessing the Group and Meeting Folders using MS-File Explorer
The documentation above explains how to access the Groups, Meetings and Results Folders using the File Manager function directly within the Meeting Manager. However, you can certainly access these Folders and Files directly using the Microsoft’s native File Explorer.
Once again, to understand more detail about the location of the Meeting Results and Vote Screen images, to help you locate these directly using MS-File Explorer, please review the following document link:
If you are having issues that are not successfully addressed above, or you are not successful signing into Meeting Manager, please call OpenMeeting Customer Support at 320.249.0555.
