What is a board portal?

A board portal is specialist governance software used by 80,000+ governance teams and board members to deliver effective and efficient board operations.

Board portals enable company secretaries, governance professionals, and their teams to collate, distribute, and manage board and committee materials digitally. They provide board chairs and board directors with secure, paperless access to mission-critical information, such as performance reports, strategy papers, and policy and reference documents. Board portals can also be used for secure board communication and to support the board in executing certain compliance responsibilities.

Board portals enable boards and governance teams to do all of this without the logistical burden and security risks associated with using paper, email, or generic document storage tools. The right tool can save governance teams considerable time, effort, and money while also improving board performance.

Who are the primary users of board portal software?

Board portals are commonplace across all sectors and across listed, privately owned, government, and non-profit organisations.

The main day-to-day users of board portal software are board directors, company secretaries and governance professionals, executive committees and management teams, and IT and information security teams.

• Board directors use board portals to access documents, search for information, communicate with each other, and collaborate on board tasks.
• Company secretaries and governance professionals use board portal software to streamline administrative tasks, manage the flow of information to directors, organise board meetings, and ensure compliance.
• Executive committee and management team members use board portals to share information with the board. They can also use board portals to support their own meetings and to share information with each other.
• IT and information security teams use board portal software to manage information security risk around board and committee materials and to provide a more modern work environment for directors.

How secure is board portal software?

The information shared in a board portal is highly confidential, so reputable board portal providers take the security and resilience of their software platforms very seriously.

When assessing a board portal provider, it’s important to consider how they encrypt your data and the infrastructure they use to deliver their services, as well as their approach to penetration testing, external auditing, and accreditations.

• Encryption: There are two types of encryption to consider when evaluating a board portal. The first is how data is stored when not being accessed (“at-rest” encryption), and the second is how data is encrypted when it’s being sent from the server to a device (“in-transit” encryption). The level of encryption you should look for is RSA 4096-bit standard encryption in transit and AES-256 at-rest.
• Infrastructure and cloud security: The infrastructure that delivers data over the cloud is an integral element of your security. Generally, board portal providers either build their software upon a major cloud provider such as Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services (AWS) or create and host their own secure data centres to store their clients’ information.
• Penetration testing: Board portal providers that regularly engage in penetration testing or ethical hacking to ensure their systems and data are secure demonstrate their commitment to their clients’ security.
• External audits and compliance: When selecting a board portal software provider, check that they have undergone extensive external audits which look closely at their procedures, controls, and security practices. These audits focus on availability, security, privacy, confidentiality, and system integrity. Additionally, assess whether a prospective vendor meets the highest security standards (such as ISO 27001), as these are key indicators of how securely your information is held.

Additional security features to look out for include:

• Two-factor authentication
• Granular permissions
• Remote wiping of devices
• Biometric security
• Audit trail
• Business continuity and disaster recovery plans

Find out more about how board management software keeps your most sensitive and mission-critical information safe, in our guide to board portal cybersecurity.

What questions should you ask a board portal provider?

When evaluating a board portal provider, consider asking the following questions:

• Security: What security measures are in place to protect your data?
• Compliance: Is the portal compliant with relevant regulations (e.g. UK GDPR)?
• User experience: How easy is it for board members and governance professionals to use the portal?
• Support: What kind of customer support is offered, and is there training available for users?
• Pricing: What is the pricing model, and what is, and isn’t, included in the fee?
• Audit trails: Does the portal provide a clear audit trail for document access and changes to ensure transparency and compliance?

These questions will help you assess the portal's functionality, security, and compatibility with your organisation’s needs.

How does board portal software improve board efficiency?

Board portal software streamlines board management processes in the following areas:

• Board meeting preparation
• Board pack collation and distribution
• Document access
• Board meetings

Efficient board meeting preparation

Board portals can streamline some of the most time-consuming tasks associated with preparing for board meetings. For example:

• Create agendas from a template or copy a previous meeting agenda.
• Add, remove, or re-order agenda items by drag and drop, with timings updating automatically.
• Share location and/or log-in details for in-person, hybrid, and virtual meetings.

Board Intelligence’s Agenda Planner tool takes this a step further, and builds best practice agenda planning guidance into the meeting preparation process. You can also tag agenda items by stakeholder group and get a single view of where your board is spending its time — data that’s vital for board performance reviews and regulatory reporting.

Hassle-free board pack collation and distribution

A board portal can automate key steps in the board pack process, helping governance teams to save time when commissioning, compiling, and distributing board materials. For example:

• Collate different file formats such as PDFs, slide decks, and narrative reports, into a single document.
• Create sections, tabs, and page numbers in just a few clicks.
• Quickly and easily distribute final packs within a secure platform.
• Send tailored board notifications when you publish the pack.
• Republish late papers or last-minute amendments without losing board members’ questions or notes.

In addition, with Board Intelligence’s Briefing Tool (available within the board portal), you can share focused briefs for board paper authors, so they have clarity on what they need to include in their reports from the get-go. The Briefing Tool also helps you to manage these paper requests centrally, so you don’t have to chase for submissions and late papers.

Secure, pain-free document access

Important documents, conversations, and links are stored in a single, secure platform that board members can easily access and navigate.

• Board papers available on any device, both online and offline, so directors can access them wherever they are in the world and at any time of day (or night).
• Combine papers into the pack in the right order, with consistent page numbering and no version control issues.
• Control who has permission to edit and view documents, or individual sections of documents.
• Alerts inform board members when new documents are uploaded.
• Fast and simple search function, available even when offline.
• Share links to specific pages of the pack with other board members.

Board meeting productivity

Board portals can make board and committee meetings more productive. They can also help chairs manage meetings more effectively. For example:

• Navigate to remote meetings directly from the board pack.
• Compare papers or see the board pack and virtual meeting app side-by-side, with split-screen functionality.
• Ask clarification questions and resolve points of detail before the meeting, via in-built annotation-sharing or communication tools.
• Share questions or points for debate with the chair in advance, so the chair can steer the conversation and involve attendees at the right point in the meeting.
• Fast and simple search function, available even when offline.
• Reserve meeting time for conversation, not administration — for example, share, comment on, and approve minutes, or vote or collect e-signatures (with a robust audit trail), before the meeting starts.

Case studies and customer success stories

Board Intelligence is trusted by more than 80,000+ directors, executives, and governance professionals globally — from charities and schools to leading corporate service providers like Waystone and global engineering firms like Keller.

Find out why nearly two-thirds of our business comes from referrals and take a look at some of our client success stories here.