IMPORTANT: This is for a Legacy Product. Please be sure you have a Legacy Product before reading this item.
All you do from meeting to meeting is launch the program and select the configuration file you want to use. RTS Pro always opens on the Meeting Tab, so you’re ready to go to work:
Note that the chair’s icon has a solid red board indicating that it is activated. It is activated automatically because we made its Default option setting “on” in the roster setup process.
Operator Buttons
On the Meeting Tab, the operator buttons below the device icons are live. By default, the One Speaker button is active:
If the One Speaker button is active, then only one voter can be recognized at any given time. If no one is in the RTS queue, then the Next RTS and Clear All RTS buttons are inactive and shown in light gray. The Multiple Speakers button is a darker gray, indicating that we’re not in multiple speakers mode. If we want to allow more than voter to speak (perhaps engaged in a question and answer session on a topic), we can click the Multiple Speakers button and activate the appropriate devices.
Here’s what all the operator buttons do:
The One Speaker button means that in addition to the chair’s microphone, only one other voter’s mic in the room can be active. To move on to the next speaker/voter, simply touch the icon for the next voter, and the previous icon automatically turns off.
If there are voters in the request to speak queue – shown on the chair’s screen by the numbers in the upper left-hand corners of their icons – the chair can use the Next RTS button to activate the microphone of the next voter in the queue. This button is only available in One Speaker mode.
The Clear All RTS button is used when discussion of the current issue has concluded, and the group needs to start a new discussion with a clean slate. This button also clears the checkmarks for voters who have already spoken on the issue.
The Mute All Speakers button returns all microphones to their default state (which is usually “off”). The chair uses it when discussion has ended. It does not clear the RTS queue.
The Multiple Speakers button allows the chair to activate more than one voter’s microphone at the same time, perhaps to permit a conversation between two or more voters in the room. During such a discussion, the Next RTS button disappears, and the chair must turn individual microphones on and off as needed.
RTS Pro in Action
As members request to speak, their requests are reflected on the chair’s screen:
If you have chosen to number the queue, whoever is first will have a yellow border that blinks off and on. If the Next RTS button is pressed, the first voter in the RTS queue is recognized – which is indicated with a blinking red border around the icon – and the queue is renumbered:
Notice that there’s a Times Recognized check mark above the voter who has been recognized:
Each time a voter is recognized, they get a check mark. While the chair can still recognize people who have “3 strikes”, the check marks are helpful indicators of which voters have yet to speak on an item.
The chair can recognize anyone in any order. To recognize someone out of order, the chair simply touches the icon on that voter. If the system is in One Speaker mode, this action also turns off the mic of the previously recognized voter automatically:
The RollCall Pro public screen will also reflect this information:
If you would like to activate multiple voters’ microphones to facilitate a discussion within the group, press the Multiple Speakers button. This will allow you to activate any number of voters’ mics at the same time:
Any time you want to return all microphones to their default status (on or off), press the Mute All Speakers button. In most cases, all the microphones in the room – except, perhaps, for the chair – will by off by default, so this action usually results in turning all mics off.
When discussion of this agenda item is complete, and the chair wishes to erase all the Times Recognized check marks on the screen, this is accomplished by clicking the Clear All RTS button.
Note that if the chair does not Mute All Speakers and Clear All RTS indicators prior to the clerk’s putting RollCall Pro into voting mode, RollCall Pro will prompt the clerk when the Vote button is pressed:
If this action is confirmed by the clerk, all speakers are muted and requests to speak are cleared on the chair’s RTS Pro screen, and RollCall Pro enters voting mode.
