- You are signed in to Daviah.
- You have an organisation selected in the organisation picker.
- You hold an operations role such as secretary or lodge-admin to create meetings and prepare minutes.
- Approving minutes also requires the lodge-admin or worshipful-master role.
Step by step
- Open Meetings in the left-hand navigation
In the admin panel, find the Meetings group in the left-hand column and click it to expand the list. Select Meetings from inside that group. The navigation is built for your organisation type, so what you see may vary slightly, but Meetings will always appear here.
- Create a new meeting record
Click to create a new meeting and fill in the Title, Meeting Type, Date, Scheduled Start, and Scheduled End. Location and Agenda items are optional but useful. The Status field is read-only and starts as Scheduled — the system updates it automatically. Save the record. Meetings cannot be deleted, which keeps your calendar accurate.
- Open the Meeting Workspace
Click Meeting workspace in the nav. The workspace loads your most recent non-cancelled meeting, or a specific one if you pass its ID in the address. If you have several meetings you can switch between them using the selector. The agenda is shown if you set one; if no meetings exist at all, a link invites you to create one.
- Start the meeting timer
Click Start meeting. The system creates a session record marked as running, notes the start time, and changes the meeting status to In progress. The status and session state are protected and can only be changed through the timer — they cannot be edited directly through the API.
- Take notes and add markers during the meeting
Type into the notes area as the meeting runs. Notes are saved automatically after a short pause in typing. Use the marker buttons — Motion, Vote, Ballot, Action, Announcement, Visitor, and Degree Work for lodges — to record structured events. Each marker captures your text, the wall-clock time, and the elapsed seconds, and appends a timestamped line to the notes.
- Pause for a recess if needed
Click Recess to pause the timer. The session is marked as paused and the pause time is recorded. Click Resume when the meeting continues. Paused time is tracked separately and deducted from the final calculated duration, so the recorded meeting length stays accurate.
- End the meeting
Click End meeting. The session is closed with an end time, any open recess interval is closed, and the net duration in minutes is calculated. The meeting status moves to Completed and an audit event is written to record that the meeting ended.
- Prepare the draft minutes from the workspace
Click Prepare minutes in the workspace. The system reads the meeting record, session, notes, and attendance, then assembles a structured document with sections for Opening, Attendance, Agenda, each marker type, the raw notes, and Closing with the recorded duration. A minutes document is created in Draft status, the working notes are locked, and an audit event is written. The workspace shows a link to the new minutes record.
- Open the minute book
Click The minute book in the nav, or follow the link the workspace showed you. The minute book lists all minutes for your organisation — up to forty, newest first — showing the title, status, and amendment count for each one.
- Submit the minutes for approval
Find the draft minutes row and click Submit for approval. The status moves to Submitted, the submission time and submitter are recorded, an audit event is written, and a notification is sent to the organisation. The row updates immediately to show the submitted state.
- Approve the minutes
On the submitted row, click They are approved. The system checks that you hold the lodge-admin or worshipful-master role and refuses with a permissions error if you do not. If the check passes, the status moves to Approved, the approval time and approver are recorded, and an audit event is written. The body, title, date, and time fields are now locked against direct edits.
- Read the approved minutes
Click Read them on any row in the minute book to open the full minutes record. You can see the complete document body, status, dates, duration, and amendment history. This view is available at any point, not only after approval.
What happens next
When the workflow is complete you have a meeting record with a status of Completed, a linked session record that captures the exact start time, end time, and net duration, and a minutes document with a status of Approved that serves as the permanent record in your minute book. An audit event is written at every significant step, giving you a full trail from the moment the meeting was started to the moment the minutes were approved.
Approved minutes are protected from direct changes. If a correction is needed after approval it must go through the amendment path rather than a direct edit, which preserves the integrity of the locked record.
Good to know
Meeting records cannot be deleted. This is intentional — the calendar and minute book are meant to be a truthful, permanent record of your organisation's activity, and gaps caused by deletions could create compliance or governance problems.
The status fields on both meetings and sessions are closed to ordinary API writes and can only be moved by the timer actions. This means no one can manually mark a meeting as completed or in progress by editing the record directly — the system state always reflects what actually happened.
Daviah — Create a meeting, run it with live notes and markers, then prepare, submit, and approve the official minutes.