Hold a meeting and get the minutes

Seat your team

A meeting puts two or three of your employees at one table to work on a question together. You chair it, and nobody speaks unless your line calls for them. You can hire employees on any plan, and the Meeting row appears once two people are on your team.

1. Open Hiring.
2. Tap ⋯ and choose Meeting.
3. Under Your team, tap two or three people. A fourth is refused with Only two or three fit in a meeting.
4. Tap a meeting type if you want one: Brainstorm, Work review, Decision, Planning or Quick sync. Tap it again to clear it.
5. Write the topic in the box, What's the meeting about?, and send it.

Your first line becomes the meeting's topic and the title of its minutes. An empty table also offers two example topics you can tap. The Hiring home has ready-made meetings too: see Start from what's going on.

Talk at the table

Send a line with no @ and no name, and the chair picks who answers: the people whose field it needs, most relevant first. The talk shows The chair is choosing who speaks…, then who has the floor.

• Write @Name to speak to one person. Writing a seated colleague's name in your line works too.
• Write @Everyone to put it to the whole table. After the first answer, each person speaks only if their field adds something new, so someone may pass.
• Tap + (Mention someone) to pick a name or Everyone from a list.
• Tap Stop while the chair is choosing or someone is speaking.

After a turn, colleagues with something new to add can raise a hand. They appear under Raised hands with a short reason; tap a name to give that person the floor.

Should I take the job offer?

Bring in guests, reports and work

• Invite a guest. Tap + and choose Invite with a colleague's name; the list suggests teammates whose field fits the topic. Their @ goes into your line, and they join when you send it. Writing @ and the name of any hired colleague who is not at the table does the same. A meeting has room for a limited number of guests, each tagged Guest, and they answer to @ like anyone else.
• Share a report. Once someone at the table has delivered a report, tap +, choose Share a report and pick one under Choose a report to share with the table. The app says Shared with the table, and everyone at the table can use what it says.
• Ask for a piece of work. When you clearly ask one person for a document, plan or analysis, a card shows what they can prepare now. Start sends it to their desk; Not now dismisses it. The card then follows the work, and Open it opens what they delivered.

Run the meeting in rounds

Under the talk, Meeting cycle lists the rounds, your type's agenda first, with the next one marked. Tap any round and everyone at the table answers it in turn: Opening (what each brings), Work review (what each delivered and what is pending), Discussion, Brainstorm (new ideas from each, with a first step) and Decisions (a decision from each, with the action they own).

Once the meeting has a topic, tap Run the meeting and the table walks the agenda for you. It stops before the decisions and asks Everyone has spoken. Ready to decide? Choose Decide now to open the decisions round, or Not yet to keep talking. Pause ends the run after the round in progress.

The Meeting board keeps the meeting's Agenda, Decisions, Actions and Open questions in one card. The Secretary keeps it up to date, posts short notes on what was covered, decided and left open, and drafts the decisions and an action table after the Decisions round. Tap the card to open it, or choose ⋯ › Meeting board.

End it and use the minutes

End meeting appears once someone other than you has spoken.

1. Tap ⋯ and choose End meeting, or tap End meeting under the cycle.
2. Read the Meeting minutes card when it is finished, then use its buttons.

While the secretary writes, you see The secretary is writing the minutes… and the minutes fill in as they are written; Stop cancels. They cover the attendees, a short summary, the themes, the decisions taken, an action table with owner, due date and status, open issues and the next step, plus sections for the rounds you held, the reports you shared and the work done at the table. A note under them says Saved to your files or Not saved to your files.

After Send to desks, a message says how many desks got an order, such as Sent to 3 desks, and the button goes away. If the minutes fail, you see The minutes were not written. Nothing was lost — try again. Choose Try again, or Back to the meeting to keep talking.

Past meetings and follow-ups

Once the minutes are written, the meeting ends and its foot offers Past meetings, Follow-up meeting and New meeting.

• Follow-up meeting opens a Work review with the same people. It carries over the earlier actions, and its minutes report where each one stands.
• New meeting starts fresh. If a meeting is open, it asks first; its minutes, if written, stay in Past meetings.
• Past meetings (also in ⋯) lists your most recent meetings with minutes. Tap Open it on one to read it, then Copy, Share or start a Follow-up meeting from it.