Getting started with Legislative Management Suite (The "Open Meeting" Engine)

The Legislative Management Suite takes an item from a department's first draft through review, the published agenda, the meeting and the vote, to approved minutes and the permanent archive. Notices, agendas, packets, video and minutes are published to a public portal where residents can search every meeting and see how each member voted. Each step keeps who did what and when, so the clerk can show that notice and publication rules were followed.

What it is for

In many councils and boards the legislative process lives in email, shared drives and word-processor templates. Departments send staff reports in different formats, the clerk assembles packets by hand, notices are posted in one place and agendas in another, and votes are typed into minutes after the meeting from notes or a recording. When a resident, a reporter or a court asks whether a meeting was properly noticed, what was in the packet, or how a member voted on a given item, the clerk has to rebuild the answer from several systems.

• Agenda items arrive late, incomplete or in inconsistent formats
• Packets, notices and agendas are assembled and posted by hand
• Votes and actions are reconstructed from notes or video after the meeting
• Proving what was posted, when, and where takes hours of searching

Who uses it

• City, county and town clerks and their staff
• Department staff who prepare agenda items and staff reports
• Council, commission and board members and their aides
• City and county attorneys who review items and advise on open-meetings rules
• Residents and journalists who follow local decisions through the public portal

Before you start

• Your organization licenses Legislative Management Suite (The "Open Meeting" Engine) from Moraph.
• A Moraph client account in that organization, signed in.
• Access to Legislative Management Suite (The "Open Meeting" Engine) in Moraph Apps, given by an administrator in the Moraph Portal under People and access.
• For setup: the product administrator role.

Steps to get started

1. Sign in at app.moraph.com with your Moraph account.

2. Open Legislative Management Suite (The "Open Meeting" Engine) from the launcher. The first time anyone opens it, its workspace is created from the default described in Workspace reference.

3. Check your role: what you can see and do depends on it. See Roles and permissions.

4. Product administrators: work through Set up Legislative Management Suite (The "Open Meeting" Engine) before your team starts.

5. Everyone else: start with Everyday tasks.

Where to go next

• Set up Legislative Management Suite (The "Open Meeting" Engine)
• Everyday tasks
• Connect your systems
• Security, data and compliance
• Troubleshooting and the support guide
• Product overview on moraph.com