Please note: A PDF version of this guide is available for download at the bottom of the article.

The Meeting Agenda screen, available from IRB Assistant > Meeting Management > Meeting Agenda will allow users to view information related to a specific meeting date . A user can access past and future meetings from this area. If you have a review board administrator role, you can come to this area to prepare for an upcoming meeting. If your role does not have this administrative privilege, you can come to this area to look at submissions placed on a particular meeting date. Roles that have read/write access to this page can be configured under Setup Role Access in Review Board Administration.

The meeting agenda page will open to the next upcoming meeting. You can flip to a different meeting date by clicking on the arrows by the meeting date at the top of the page. You can view meeting dates up to one year in the past.

At the top of the page will appear information about the meeting you are viewing.

Agenda State – This will appear as either Draft or Finalized. Draft means that the agenda template is still being set up. Finalized means the agenda is ready for the meeting.

Reviewer Notifications – This will appear as either Enabled or Disabled. Enabled means reviewers assigned to submissions on this meeting date have been notified of their assignments. Disabled means reviewers have not yet been notified.

Items to be Reviewed at Meeting – All the items following this label are represented at the meeting. IRB Board in this case is the name of the committee. This label will be different in your system, depending on the names of your committees.

If your role allows write access to this page, you will be able to modify the following fields:

Meeting Attendance

Meeting Attendance is initially empty for a meeting. Attendance is typically tracked the day of the meeting.

When you click the Meeting Attendance link, a new page will open, listing all available members and staff of the review board. Each member is listed with additional information, as shown in the table below. This information reflects details from their user accounts. You will be able to mark which members are present at the meeting by clicking on the checkbox next to their name.

If you have alternate members, you will be able to indicate who they are alternates for by selecting a name from the drop-down list. A member is designated as an alternate in their review board user account.

If there are any guests present at the meeting, you can add their attendance by clicking on Click here to modify the guest list link, right above the guest table.

A new page will open. This page will list any guests added to the meeting. The first time you click on this link, the table will be empty, as no guests have been added to the meeting yet. Click on the Add Meeting Guest button to add a guest.

This will open another page allowing you to type the guest’s name, indicate his or her specialty, and enter the guest’s affiliation. Specialty can be configured by the iRIS system administrator in System Administration > List Configuration and Maintenance > Site List Setup > Study Management > Specialty. After entering the necessary information, click on the Save Guest Info button.

The record will be added to the guest list table. You can add more guests as needed. You can also remove a guest from the list by selecting the  icon in the Delete column. Click the Back button when you are finished to take you to the previous page.

The guest will be added to the list of users present at the meeting.

After you select which users are present at the meeting, click on the Save Changes button.

You will return to the Meeting Agenda page. The Meeting Attendance link will update, reflecting attendance based on the selections you have made. You can modify the attendance anytime before Meeting Minutes are published for the meeting. There are also properties under the RB Administration that will display the Voting Members Absent, Staff Absent, and Staff Absent. This can be turned on or off by your Review Board system administrator in Review Board Administration > Board Configuration Options > Meeting Settings > rb.use_member_absent / rb.use_non_member_absent / rb.use_staff_absent.

Note: The ability to add a guest to the meeting attendance by using the search user functionality has been added to IRB and IACUC boards.

Call to Order, Old and New Business, Miscellaneous and Closing Comments

The links for Call to Order, Old Business, New Business, Miscellaneous, and Closing Comments allow you to enter information either prior to the meeting or while the meeting is being held. These items can all be used as merge codes in the Meeting Minutes template.

You can click on any of these links to open a rich text editor. You can type in or copy and paste your text. When you are finished, click the Apply button.

The meeting agenda page will display any text entered via the text editor in the fields to the right of the corresponding label.

Meeting Motions

Use the Meeting Motion section to capture board member votes and approval for previous meeting minutes.

When you first open the Meeting Motions page, no motions will be listed. You can add a motion by clicking on the Add Mintues Approval button or the Add a New Motion button.

Add Minutes Approval – To approve minutes from a past meeting, click this button. A new screen will be displayed containing a list of previous meeting minutes.

You will only be able to select minutes from past meetings in which the minutes were generated and published. Otherwise, meeting dates will not be listed.

You can view the published minutes by clicking the View Finalized Minutes button. This will open the published minutes in a PDF document in a separate window.

Check the box in the Select Meeting column for the minutes you would like to approve at this meeting, and then click on the Save Selected Minutes for Member Approval button.

You will be returned to the previous page, and a record will be added with the motion text “Meeting Minutes Approval for the [Committee Name] Meeting held on [Meeting Date]. Underneath the motion text, you will be able to indicate how the members voted. This is how the screen will appear if anonymous voting is turned off.

Depending on your review board configurations, the motion you added may or may not be set for anonymous voting.  For more details on setting this configuration, please refer to the IRB – Properties manual.

If your system is configured with anonymous voting, a screen will appear similar to the screenshot below.  You can enter the number of members that voted for each Vote Type in the Number column, and add Comments if necessary.

Click Save the Vote Summary to save the voting results.

Attendance will need to be set before voting can take place.  If attendance has not been set, the above page will be displayed.  If attendance has been set and taken, the list of members present will be displayed as shown below.

The vote type can be selected in the Vote column next to each Member Name.

Add a New Motion – If you need to capture a vote for a general meeting item (that is not specific to a submission) you can add a new motion and manually enter the motion text.

When you click on this button, a new page will open containing a rich text editor. You can enter or copy and paste your motion language, and then click on the OK button. The vote will be added to the list of meeting motions and you will be able to capture the vote in the same way as described above.

After the votes for the motions have been set, select the Save All Changes button.  The votes will be saved and can be used to merge into the Meeting Minutes template (see the IRB Assistant – RB Administration manual).

After you add and save the meeting’s motions, motion summaries will display on the Meeting Agenda page to the right of the Meeting Motion link. This is how the merged motion will display in the Meeting Minutes template, if you pull that information in using merge codes.

Whether or not you use anonymous voting, the motion summary will not pull in the member's names. Only a total number of votes for each voting category are displayed.

Review Documents

If there are any documents that need to be presented and reviewed at a meeting, they can be uploaded to the meeting agenda page and pulled up during the meeting. This applies to documents that are not specific to a submission.

Click on the Review Documents link.

A new page will open, containing a list of documents attached to the meeting. The list will be empty if no documents have been added. Click the Add a New Document button or click Add Multiple Documents to attach multiple documents at a time.

A new page will open. Type in the title of the document and provide a description, if applicable. Click on the Upload button to browse your computer for the document you would like to upload.

If the location is unknown, select the Browse button to browse through your system files.  After the file is located, select the Save Selected File button to upload the file or the Cancel button to cancel the process.

After the document is uploaded, a document icon will display to the left of the Description field.  To replace this document with another one, select the Upload button again and repeat the process.  Click Save Document to save your changes and return to the previous screen.

The attachment will appear in the Review Documents table on the main Agenda screen.  You will be able to delete attachment(s) or add more attachment(s) as necessary by clicking on the Review Documents link.

Expedite Reports

If the review board property rb.use_expedited_report is set to “Yes” within the Meeting Settings group, you will see the Expedite Reports sections. If an Expedite Report has been generated, which will be described in more detail later in this manual, a PDF file will appear within this section of the agenda.

You can click the PDF icon to view the Expedite Report. The number that appears in the Number of Expedite Reviews column reflects the number of expedited submissions on the agenda.

Meeting Start and End Times, Meeting Chair

You can add the meeting start time, end time, and indicate who chaired the meeting.

Meeting Start Time and Meeting End Time allow you to specify the actual start and end times by entering the hour and minutes and “AM” or “PM.” These two fields can be used as merge codes in your Meeting Minutes template.

Meeting Chair allows you to select from a drop down list of board members and staff who chaired the meeting. This can also be used as a merge code in the Meeting Minutes template.

After entering the meeting time and Chairperson’s details, click on the Save Changes button on the top right of the meeting agenda page.

Submissions Assigned to the Meeting

Any submission that is assigned to the meeting date will populate at the bottom portion of the meeting agenda page.

Submissions Assigned to Meeting will populate on the Meeting Agenda page when they have been assigned to a full board meeting. Click on the icon to see details. Click on the icon to hide the details again.

Categories and Submissions

The Green Headings are the Agenda Categories used to organize the submissions on the agenda. These categories are customized and can be configured in Review Board Administration. For more information on the Agenda Category configurations, see the Review Board Administration manual.

A submission that is placed on the meeting will display in a category, based on the configuration described above. The columns for each submission in a category are as follows:

Order – The order of the submissions will be displayed in this area. This area is configurable. Enter a whole number and click the Save Changes button. This will rearrange the submissions in the order entered, within the Agenda Category.

Click to Open – Click on the icon in this column to open the submission processing screens. The exact screens you will have access to are based on your iRIS role configuration. Typically, if you are a coordinator or administrator, you will be able to process the submission when you open the submission from this area. If you are a board member, you can open the submission to fill out a member checklist and view submission and study details.

Star -   This symbol indicates different corrections that have taken place. A green star indicates that corrections have been satisfied for the initial pre-review.  The red star indicates that corrections/modifications have been addressed after a formal review.

IRB Number – The Review Board number for the study.

Ref Num – This is the submission’s reference number. This is a unique number that is auto assigned by iRIS.

COI – If a KSP listed on the study for this submission also has a role on the review board committee, an icon will populate in this column. You can mouse over the icon to display the name of the user with conflicting roles.

Letters – If an Outcome Letter has been created for this submission, an icon will populate in this column. The icon will change depending on the status of the letter. You can mouse over the icon to see the letter status. If more than one letter has been generated for the submission, each letter will be listed when you mouse over the icon.

The following column headings can be selected to order the submissions by that type. An icon will be displayed next to the column heading indicating that it is being displayed in ascending or descending order. (See below)

Outcome – If a review outcome has been determined for this submission, it will be displayed here.

Type –The type of submission form.

Principal Investigator – This column will display the Principal Investigator on the study.

Reviewer(s) – If any reviewers were assigned to the submission, they will be displayed here along with their reviewer roles.

Date Board Received – The date that the submission first entered the Review Board’s queue.

Meeting Minutes

The Meeting Minutes screen provides access to published meeting minutes from past review board meetings. This is an area where board members can go to pull minutes from a past meeting.

This page will display a link for each board meeting that has been held from newest to oldest.  If minutes have been generated and a finalized version has been published, a View Finalized Minutes button will populate next to the meeting link. If a Draft version of the minutes has been published, the button will read View Draft Minutes. If the meeting minutes have not been published yet, no button will display. You can click on the View Finalized Minutes or View Draft Minutes button to view the PDF document for that meeting. You can also open the meeting agenda by clicking the meeting date’s hyperlink.

When you click to view the draft or finalized minutes, a new window will open displaying the information entered for the meeting.  The information in the minutes will reflect what was defined in the Meeting Minutes Template.  If it is a Draft version of the minutes, a watermark will appear with the word DRAFT across the minutes.

Merge Codes

A new merge code titled, “Submission Board Motion with Vote – Comments” has been added that will allow users to incorporate comments from the vote tab into the Setup Meeting Template for each agenda submission.

This merge code will pull the votes and comments for the Meeting Minutes Template that your review board administrator can create.

A new merge code titled, “Submission Board Motion with Vote – Comments” has been added that will allow users to incorporate comments from the vote tab into the Setup Meeting Template for each agenda submission.

This merge code will pull the votes and comments for the Meeting Minutes Template that your review board administrator can create.

Meeting Manager

Within the Meeting Manager, you can view meeting agendas, set the board’s meeting schedule, and set meeting availability. Access to this menu item can be controlled with the Role Access matrix in Review Board Administration. The Meeting Manager is typically reserved for a review board administrator. You can view current agendas and publish/create document versions of Agendas and Meeting Minutes to send to review board members. The Agenda and Meeting Minutes templates are created in Review Board Administration. For more information, see the Review Board Administration documentation.

The Meeting Manager page will list all of the meetings defined for the Review Board, displaying the newest meetings at the top of the list. You can search for a meeting date by entering filter information in the Meetings from/to date fields and clicking the Refresh button. This will display any meetings that fall between the dates you selected. You can switch back to viewing all the meetings by clicking the Show all meetings button.

Below is a description of the columns on this page.

Meeting Date – Click on one of the Meeting Dates to open a screen where you can open the meeting agenda, change the Meeting Status, and Enable Reviewer Notifications. This screen will be described in further detail later in the manual.

Agenda State – This column displays the agenda status as Draft or Finalized.

Notify Reviewers – Displays the current setting for email notifications to reviewers.  If this is set to Enabled, then, once the agenda has been finalized, all appropriate email notifications will be created and sent to the reviewers, alerting them that they have been assigned to review certain submissions. When the status is set to Disabled, this indicates that reviewers have not received their notifications or tasks yet.

Date Draft Published Minutes Sent for Comments – Indicates the date a draft version of the minutes was sent to IRB members for review.

Date Final Published Minutes Approved by Committee – Indicates the date the final, published minutes were approved by the committee. A motion can be added to a meeting date to approve a previous meeting’s minutes. When the board votes on the minutes, the date of that meeting is captured in this column.

Date Final Published Minutes Sent to the Meeting Attendees – On the Meeting Minutes screen, you have the option to send out a final copy of the minutes to the meeting attendees. This column will populate with that date.

Availability – You can click the icon in this column to set whether board members will be present at this meeting.

Edit/View Reviews & Minutes – Depending on the status of the meeting minutes for that meeting date, a link to view the Draft or Finalized Minutes may populate.

Meeting Schedule

From the Meeting Manager, you can add a new meeting date. Click the Meeting Schedule button on the top right of the screen to get started.

A new page will open, broken into two parts. The first part of the page lists recurring meetings and the second part of the page lists regular meeting dates that are individually created. Note that this list only shows meetings that have not yet occurred; past meeting dates are not shown. You can setup a recurring meeting pattern if your board meets on a regular basis. When you create a recurrence, the system will create meeting dates for up to 12 months and populate them in the second portion of the page. If you do not use a recurring pattern for your meetings, you can add meetings individually using the second part of the page.

Recurring Meetings

Click on the Add a New Recurring button.

A new page will open. You must first enter a name for the recurring pattern. “Monthly” is the name used to reference this particular recurring pattern.

Start Date is a required field and would be the beginning date that the recurring meeting dates would trigger from. The Start Date does not have to be the day of the first meeting. iRIS will not generate any meetings before the start date, only after the start date.

Start Time and End Time are fields where you can enter the planned meeting start and end times.

Meeting Type is a required field. This is a dropdown list of review board committees.

Meeting Location allows you to specify where the meeting will be held. This can be set up now, and changed for an individual meeting at a later time.

A Comments field is also provided in case you need to document anything related to the meeting record. To add comments, click the Comments link and a text editor will open where you can enter information.

After you add the meeting details, you will need to setup the recurring pattern. The meeting can be set up to generate weekly or monthly. You can choose your desired meeting pattern by selecting an option from the Change Recurrence Pattern dropdown list. Depending on your selection, the information below will change, allowing you to setup a weekly or monthly pattern.

Click on the Save Meeting Schedule button, and the system will generate 12 months’ worth of meeting dates based on the pattern you set up.

You can modify an existing recurring pattern if necessary; however, note that any changes made to the pattern will not update any meetings that have already been generated based on that particular pattern.

You can also delete a recurring pattern; however, deleting a recurring pattern will not delete the meeting records that were created as a result of the recurring pattern. These must be deleted separately.

Add a New Meeting

You can setup an individual meeting as needed. To do this, click on the Add a New Meeting button.

A new page will open. You can provide specific details about the meeting. The Meeting Date is a required field and this indicates the date for the meeting.

Start Time and End Time are fields where you can enter the planned meeting start and end times.

Submission is Due By is a date field used to inform study personnel when a form should be submitted in order to make it onto the meeting agenda.

 Meeting Type is a required field. This is a drop down list of your committees for the Review Board.

Meeting Location allows you to specify where the meeting will be held. This can be set up now and changed at a later time.

There is also a comments field provided in case additional documentation related to the meeting is necessary. Click the Enter Comments in the Editor link to open a text editor where you can enter comments.

After you enter all the necessary information, click the Save Meeting Schedule button to add the meeting to the list of meetings.

You can edit the details of any meeting setup in the system by clicking on the icon located in the Edit column.

A new page will open, allowing you to modify any of the details for the meeting. Make any necessary changes, and then click on the Save Meeting Schedule button to return to the list of meetings.

Meeting Agenda/Meeting Minutes

You can prepare a certain meeting by clicking on the link for the meeting date. Doing this will enable you to set the agenda status, enable reviewer notifications, generate your meeting agenda, and once a meeting has taken place, you will be able to generate and send out the minutes.

Meeting Agenda

Click on the name of the meeting in the Meeting Date column.

A new page will open, displaying meeting agenda options for the meeting date you selected. If you have not generated the meeting agenda for this meeting yet, the page will display as shown in the screenshot below. You can access the Meeting Agenda page in iRIS by clicking on the link that reads Click to Open the Meeting Agenda.

This will open the Meeting Agenda, allowing you to make any changes to the agenda before generating the agenda template.

Click the Back button to return to the previous page.

Meeting Status – When you are ready to generate the meeting agenda, set the status from Draft to Finalized.

Enable Reviewer Notifications – When you are ready to notify reviewers with review assignments for a meeting date, switch this status from No to Yes.  As soon as you set this option to Yes, assigned reviewers will receive an email notification with their reviewer assignments, if emails are turned on for the notification, as well as a home screen task.

At this point, you will also be able to send out the published version of the agenda to the board members.

A Finalized Agenda area will display underneath the Meeting Agenda Options once you change the Meeting Status from Draft to Finalized. Click the Generate  A Finalized Agenda Document link.

iRIS will grab your Meeting Agenda Template as it is set up under Review Board Administration > Setup Finalized Agenda Document Template. This is a Microsoft Word document that uses merge codes to pull in specific information about the meeting and items placed on that meeting’s agenda. When the agenda template is generated, the screen will refresh and you will see three new links available.

Check-Out The Finalized Agenda For Editing In Word – After you generate your agenda, you can check the document out to make any edits on your computer using Microsoft Word. Click on this link to download the file.

If you have the document checked out, you will not be able to do anything more with the agenda template until you check it back in. The screen will display only one link, Check-In Finalized Agenda.

If another user views this page while the agenda document is checked out, they will see that it is checked out, along with the name of the user who currently has this document checked out. They will not be able to view, modify, or publish the agenda until the document is checked back in.

Once you make any necessary edits to the agenda in Microsoft Word on your computer, you can check it back in to iRIS.

Navigate back to the page for the meeting date.

Click the Check-In Finalized Agenda link.

A popup window will open, allowing you to browse your computer for the agenda document you would like to upload. Click the Save selected file button once you specify the document location. If you do not want to upload the document, click on the Cancel button.

After you save the file, the links will be restored to the page and you will be able to continue to work on publishing the agenda.

Edit The Finalized Agenda Within The Browser – You can click on this link to view the generated agenda as well as make changes to the document without having to check it out to your computer.

A new page will open with an embedded Microsoft Word tool containing the generated agenda. You may need to download and install an Active X to display the Microsoft Word editor, a feature only available when using Internet Explorer as your browser.

You may make any changes needed to the document by typing in or copying and pasting in text.

You can also insert pre-defined template language if needed. Click on the Insert Template Language button.

A small popup window will open containing a list of available languages. Template language is set up under Review Board Administration > Setup Template Language. In the window abve, select the template language you would like to insert.

The window will update, displaying the full content of the template language. If this is the language you would like to merge into the agenda document, make sure you position your cursor at the location in the agenda document where you want the language to appear. Then, click on the Insert Template Language button. 

The meeting agenda page will refresh, and the language will be inserted in the document where you had positioned the cursor.

When you are done editing the meeting agenda document, click on the Save Change button at the top right of the page to return to the previous screen.

Publish The Finalized Version Of The Agenda — After making any necessary edits, whether you had checked out the document or edited within the browser, you are ready to publish the agenda.

When you publish the agenda, the screen will pause for several moments (depending on the size of your agenda document). At this time, iRIS is converting the Word document you have been working on to a PDF.

The links on the page will change when the conversion is complete. When you publish the agenda, the agenda is locked down for editing, as the agenda is ready to be sent out to members. You can click the Unpublish The Finalized Agenda link to reset the agenda. This will refresh the screen and allow you to check out the agenda document or edit within the browser again. When you are finished making your changes, you will need to publish the agenda again. You can also click the View The Finalized Agenda Document button to see the agenda document in a PDF format. Clicking this link will open the document in a new window.

Send The Finalized Agenda Document To All Members – You can click this link to email the published agenda template to all board members or a select few, in preparation for the meeting. This option will only display if Enable Reviewer Notifications is set to “Yes” and you have published the agenda.

Expedite Report

If your meeting agenda contains Expedited submissions, you may want to use the Expedite Report functionality to generate a report summarizing the Expedited submissions on your agenda. The template for the Expedite Report is configured under Review Board Administration > Setup Expedite Report Template. This is a Microsoft Word document that uses merge codes to pull in specific information about expedited submissions on the agenda.

Click the Generate An Expedite Report link and more options will populate.

Check-Out The Expedite Report For Editing In Word – After you generate your expedite report, you can check the document out to make any edits on your computer using Microsoft Word. Click on this link to download the file.

If you have the document checked out, you will not be able to do anything more with the expedite report until you check it back in. The screen will display only one link, Check-In Expedited Report.

If another user views this page while the document is checked out, they will see that it is checked out, along with the name of the user who currently has this document checked out. They will not be able to view, modify, or publish the agenda until the document is checked back in.

Once you make any necessary edits to the report in Microsoft Word on your computer, you can check it back into iRIS.

Navigate back to the page for the meeting date.

Click the Check-In Expedited Agenda link.

A popup window will open, allowing you to browse your computer for the document you would like to upload. Click the Save selected file button once you specify the document location. If you do not want to upload the document, click on the Cancel button.

After you save the file, the links will be restored to the page and you will be able to continue to work on publishing the report.

Edit The Expedite Report Within The Browser – You can click on this link to view the generated expedite report as well as make changes to the document without having to check it out to your computer.

A new page will open with an embedded Microsoft Word tool containing the generated report. You may need to download and install an Active X to display the Microsoft Word editor, a feature only available when using Internet Explorer as your browser.

You may make any changes needed to the document by typing in or copying and pasting in text.

You can also insert pre-defined template language if needed. Click on the Insert Template Language button.

A small popup window will open, containing a list of available languages. Template language is set up under Review Board Administration > Setup Template Language. In the window above, select the template language you would like to insert.

The window will update, displaying the full content of the template language. If this is the language you would like to merge into the agenda document, make sure you position your cursor at the location in the document where you want the language to appear. Then, click on the Insert Template Language button.

The expedite report page will refresh, and the language will be inserted in the document where you had positioned the cursor.

When you are done editing the document, click on the Save Change button at the top right of the page to return to the previous screen.

Publish The Expedite Report — After making any necessary edits, whether you had checked out the document or edited within the browser, you are ready to publish the expedite report.

When you publish the report, the screen will pause for several moments (depending on the size of your document). At this time, iRIS is converting the Word document you have been working on to a PDF. After the expedite report is published, the Expedite Reports section of the agenda will populate as described earlier in the manual.

The links on the page will change when the conversion is complete. When you publish the expedite report, it is locked down for editing, as the report is ready to be sent out to members. You can click the Unpublish The Expedite Report link to reset the agenda. This will refresh the screen and allow you to check out the document or edit it within the browser again. When you are finished making your changes, you will need to publish the report again. You can also click the View The Expedite Report button to see the document in a PDF format. Clicking this link will open the document in a new window.

Send The Expedite Report To All Members – You can click this link to email the published expedite report to all board members, in preparation for the meeting. This option will only display if Enable Reviewer Notifications is set to “Yes” and you have published the agenda.

Meeting Minutes

Once the day of the meeting has passed, a new area will populate on the page called “Meeting Minutes Options” and you will have the ability to generate the minutes for that particular meeting. You will be able to generate a minutes document similar to the meeting agenda template, in that you can also edit the document and publish it. After the minutes are published, you will be able to include the minutes in a future meeting motion for approval.

Begin by clicking the Generate The Minutes From The Agenda link.

iRIS will grab your Meeting Minutes Template, as it is set up under Review Board Administration >Setup Meeting Minutes Document Template. This is a Microsoft Word document that uses merge codes to pull in specific information about the meeting, and items placed on that meeting. When the minutes template is generated, the screen will refresh and you will see four new links available.

Check-Out The Minutes For Editing In Word – After you generate your minutes, you can check the document out to make any editions on your computer using Microsoft Word. Click on this link to download the file.

If you have the document checked out, you will not be able to do anything more with the minutes template until you check it back in. The screen will display only one link, Check-In The Minutes.

If another user views this page while the minutes document is checked out, they will see that it is checked out, along with the name of the user who currently has the document checked out. They will not be able to view, modify, or publish the minutes until the document is checked back in.

Once you make any necessary edits to the minutes in Microsoft Word on your computer, you can check it back in to iRIS. Navigate back to the meeting page for the meeting date.

Click the Check-In The Minutes button.

A popup window will open, allowing you to browse your computer for the minutes document you would like to upload. Click the Save selected file button once you specify the document location. If you do not want to upload the document, click on the Cancel button.

After you save the file, the links will be restored to the page and you will be able to continue to work on publishing the minutes.

Edit The Minutes Within The Browser – You can click on this link to view the generated minutes as well as make some changes to the document without having to check it out to your computer.

A new page will open with an embedded Microsoft Word tool containing the generated minutes. You may need to download and install an Active X to display Microsoft Word editor, a feature only available when using Internet Explorer as your browser.

You may make any changes needed to the document by typing in or copying and pasting in text.

You can also insert pre-defined template language if needed. Click on the Insert Template Language button.

A small popup window will open, containing a list of available language. Template language is setup in Review Board Administration > Setup Template Language. In the window, click on the template language you would like to insert.

The window will update, displaying the full content of the template language. If this is the language you would like to merge into the minutes document, make sure you position your cursor at the location in the minutes document where you want the language to appear. Then, click on the Insert Template Language button.

The meeting minutes page will refresh, and the language will be inserted in the document where you had positioned the cursor.

When you are done editing the minutes document, click on the Save Change button on the top right of the page to return to the previous screen.

Publish A Draft Version Of The Minutes – You can publish a draft version of the minutes if you need to send out the draft to the board members for review.

When you publish the draft minutes, the screen will pause for several moments (depending on the size of your minutes document). At this time, iRIS is taking the Word document version of the minutes and converting it to a PDF.

The links on the page will change when the conversion is complete. When you publish the draft minutes, the minutes template is still available for editing; however, if you modify the minutes, you will need to publish the draft version of the minutes again. There are several options available to you at this point. Each is described below.

Publish The Final Version Of The Minutes – Click on this link when you are ready to publish a finalized version of the minutes. This means that you have verified the minutes are complete and ready to be approved by the board. When you click on this button, the system will generate a PDF version. The page will refresh and you will no longer be able to modify the minutes. You would need to unpublish the minutes, make your changes, and then publish the minutes again.

Send Out A Copy Of The Draft Minutes To The Meeting Attendees – If you would like to send a copy of the draft to the board members who attended the meeting, click on this link. The system will generate an email with the draft minutes PDF attached and send it to anyone who was marked present at this meeting. You can select all or a few members.

When you click on this link, a popup message will indicate that an email was sent.

After the page refreshes, a date field will populate underneath the link used to send the draft minutes. This date field will auto-populate with the date on which the draft minutes were sent out.

View The Draft Version Of The Minutes – You can view the PDF version of the draft minutes by clicking on this link. The PDF will open in a separate window. Note that because this is the draft version of the document, a DRAFT watermark displays.

Do you want to route the minutes for approval? – You can email the minutes to a specific board member or a group of board members for review. Change this from No to Yes to get started.

A Click here to generate the routing list link will populate on the page.

A new page will open when you click on the link. This page allows you to specify the member or members who need to review the draft minutes. There are two ways to add a user to approve and signoff on the draft minutes: 

1. Add Review Board Routing– This allows you to choose from any review board member.

2. Add Non-Review Board Routing – This allows you to choose any user in the iRIS database, regardless of their access to the review board.

When you have located the user you wish to add to the routings using the Search User Directory filters, click the icon next to their name to add them to the routing list.

After selecting the users required to signoff, their records will appear as shown in the screen shot below.

Below is a description of the columns on this page.

Order Number – This specifies who will receive the signoff task first and in what order. Two users with the same number in this column will receive the task at the same time.

Name – This is the name of the Board Member (selected from the dropdown menu) being assigned to review the minutes.  

Signoff – This column is used for the currently logged-in user.  An icon will populate in this column for each selected user.  If you are looking at this page and are selected as the signoff personnel, the icon next to your name will become editable and you will be able to view and sign off on the minutes by selecting this icon.

Approved – This area will display the status of the minutes after the user has approved or denied the document.

Include Signature – If this field is set to Yes, the user’s electronic signature will be required when they approve the minutes.

Date Received – The date the user receives the minutes for signature.

Date Completed – The date the user applies their electronic signature.

Comments – Any comments the user may have entered here upon signoff.

Delete Selected Routing(s) – If you wish to delete users selected for signoff, check the box(es) next to their name(s) and click this button at the top right.

Once all routing selections are made, select the Yes radio button next to the field Have you completed your selection of required signatures? and click Save Routing List. This will enable the selected users to sign off.

Navigating back to the previous screen, the link has updated to reflect the current status of the routing.

Any user assigned to review the draft minutes will receive a task on their home screen in the RB Meeting Minutes Routing Signoff group.

A new page will open when the user opens their task. The page will display the PDF within the browser and details to the left of the PDF.

Meeting Type (the committee name) and Meeting Date display at the top of the page. An Approve or Deny option is available in the dropdown list. The user will need to select one or the other and then apply their electronic signature if they are approving the draft minutes. Comments can also be added within this page by clicking Click here to add comments. After adding the necessary information, the user must click the Save Meeting Minute Review button.

This will cause the status of the routing to update. If the draft minutes are approved, you may continue on with processing the minutes. If the minutes were denied, you can open the link to view any comments the reviewer may have left. To make any corrections, you would need to regenerate the minutes and publish another draft version of the minutes.

Publish The Final Version Of The Minutes – After any necessary draft minutes are published, sent out, reviewed, and approved (if necessary), you can then move on to publishing the finalized version of the minutes. Please note that all submissions reviewed at the meeting must be complete before the final version can be published.

The links on the page will change when the conversion is complete. When you publish the final version of the minutes, the minutes are locked down for editing, as the minutes are ready to be approved by board members. You can click the Unpublish The Final Version Of The Minutes link to reset the minutes. This will refresh the screen and allow you to check out the minutes document or edit it within the browser. When you are finished making your changes, you would publish the final minutes again. You can also click the View The Final Version Of The Minutes link to see the minutes document in a PDF. Clicking this link will open the document in a new window.

The Date Final Minutes Approved by Committee field will populate beneath the link to view the minutes. This date will update with the date the minutes were approved by the committee. This is done when a motion is created on the Meeting Agenda page that pulls in the minutes from this meeting. You can also manually set the approval date by selecting a date and clicking on the Set button.

If you Send Out a Final Copy Of The Minutes To The Meeting Attendees, the Date Final Minutes Sent to the Meeting Attendees field will auto-populate with the date the minutes were sent. You can also enter a date manually. Be sure to click the Set button to save the date in this field.

Once you publish the final version of the minutes, there is typically nothing left that needs to be done to the minutes, unless they are denied at a meeting. In that case, you would unpublish the minutes, make any changes, and publish them again so they can be voted on again.

Meeting Minutes and Agenda Option

When sending Meeting Minutes and Meeting Agendas, there is now an option where you can select who receives those documents. You can also add people who are not on the review board to receive the Meeting Minutes or Meeting Agendas.

The figure below displays the screen that will appear after you click on “Send Out A Copy Of The Draft Minutes To The Meeting Committee Members”. This page will allow you to add recipients, or select recipients from the Recipient List.

Meeting Availability

Meeting Availability allows a user to indicate their availability for any future board meetings.

The Meeting Availability link is also available from the Meeting Manager screen.

If you log in to Meeting Availability as a system administrator, each meeting date will appear on a single page, as seen in the image below. You can switch between dates by clicking the arrows next to the date at the top of the screen. Each member of the board will display on the page with three columns to the right of their name. You can set a member’s availability for a certain meeting date by marking a response in any of the three columns.

Will be Present – Select this if the member will be at the meeting.

Will Not be Present – Select this if the member will not be attending the meeting. Note that if a selection is not made in this column, it will indicate that the member will be present at the meeting.  If this selection is flagged, the user’s name will be flagged in the Member Attendance section of the Meeting Agenda page as “May not be present” (see the screenshot below).

Available for Review – If a member has indicated that he or she will not be available for reviewing assignments, set this from Yes to No.

If you log in to the system with a non-administrative role, you will only be allowed to set your own availability for upcoming meetings in this page.

Each meeting will be listed with the same options: Will be Present, Will Not be Present, and Available for Review. Another column, View Calendar, is also available if you are a board member (attendee and not an administrator).

Clicking this icon will open a new page with a calendar view displaying the month of the meeting. Click the close button when you are finished viewing the calendar.

After setting your availability for a meeting date, be sure to click the Save the Availability button.