Board portals are now commonplace in the boardrooms of FTSE 100s, through to SMEs, NHS Trusts, Colleges, and Schools. But what is a board portal? And are they worth the investment?
This short, no-nonsense guide aims to answer the questions that might be on your mind as you consider whether a board portal is right for your organisation.
What is a board portal?
A board portal is specialist governance software that provides secure, timely, and efficient delivery of digital board packs.
Why should boards use a board portal?
Going digital can save time and money, and increases the security of your confidential papers.
Board portals should make it quick and easy for the company secretariat to pull together packs, allow directors to access, read and annotate their papers anytime, anywhere, and enable report writers to produce more effective reports.
What do the best board portals do?
It is possible to go paperless with generic software such as Acrobat or SharePoint. This approach may be low-cost, but it’s unlikely to deliver the best security or the full range of possible benefits for your board meetings.
If you decide to use a specialist board portal, to help you choose the best solution for your organisation, you should first ask: Who will use the board portal? And what do they need from it?
A board portal serves your board or directors, trustees or governors, your company secretary team, and everyone who writes or contributes to board reports. Generic software, and some board portals, will serve one group at the expense of others. But the best board portals will work hard for all three groups and should easily pass your IT team’s requirements for board security, scalability and support.
Apps for Directors
Directors expect the convenience of paper, with the power of technology. The board portal app should deliver both and must be intuitive to pick up, navigate, and use.
The best board portals:
- Provide secure and instant access on the go, online and offline;
- Alert directors to new papers and updates;
- Allow directors to search their full archive of electronic board papers easily;
- Allow directors to make notes and retain those notes when a paper is updated;
- Provide 24/7 support from trained in-house support staff.
Software for Company Secretaries
A good board portal will save up to 90% of the time it takes to compile and distribute a board pack, and yet the production process is often overlooked when considering how best to go digital.
Whilst no board portal can stop a report author making last-minute changes, the more sophisticated board portals will make it easy to cope with those headaches.
The best board portals:
- Are fast and intuitive to use, saving time and relieving the administrative burden;
- Publish packs, updates, and late papers with a single click;
- Quickly rearrange agenda items using drag and drop;
- Easily arrange files, of any format, with drag and drop;
- Allow you to preview and collaborate on drafts before publication
- Easily control who sees which sensitive documents;
- Automatically calculate agenda timings and section numbers;
- Easily control versions and keep track of your audit trail;
- Streamline the process of briefing report writers, managing tasks, deadlines and feedback;
- Provide 24/7 support from trained in-house support staff.
Technology for Report Writers
A good board portal will remove the need for hundreds of emails back-and-forth with your report writers, reducing both the burden on your inbox and the security risk of including sensitive attachments with your emails. It will also provide a platform to drive the continual improvement of your board reports.
The best board portals:
- Seamlessly manage briefings, task deadlines, and version control, all in one place;
- Provide an easy mechanism for feedback on papers between report writers and the company secretariat;
- Provide report writers with best-practice templates, guidance, and training, for more effective reports.
Assurance for IT Teams
IT teams have the important task of making sure the board has the right technology and that it stays secure too. Each organisation has its own criteria, and board portal providers should be happy to engage directly with your IT team to accommodate these.
The best board portals offer:
- Full 24/7 support from trained in-house staff;
- Encryption in transit and at rest;
- Granular control over authentication and access rights, including two-factor log-ins;
- Remote wipe to protect against missing devices;
- A full audit trail of activity;
- Regular third-party penetration testing and security audits, such as ISO 27001;
- Robust Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plans, including an uptime guarantee.
Beyond the Boardroom
Although often referred to as a board portal, the software described here is useful for any meeting or committee where papers are circulated beforehand, security matters, and time is tight.
For more on paperless boardrooms and best-practice board information, please see the Board Intelligence platform.
