Choosing a Government Management Solution That Works for Your Board

Lena Eisenstein
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If you're a city clerk, city manager or council member, and you've been using manual systems for a long time, you probably know that electronic solutions could make your work much easier. Perhaps you're just not sure what programs are out there that will actually work for your board to solve the daily problems you experience. You know what you want the programs to do for you and you want something that is intuitive and easy to learn ' something where users can get up to speed on using it quickly. Preferably, you'd like solutions that were designed by a company that understands the needs and challenges of municipalities and that will provide the best return on investment over the long term. Excellent customer service and a guarantee would be the icing on the cake.

iCompass, a Diligent brand, designed a suite of government management solutions that solve the challenges of municipalities. Its solutions are innovative, efficient, cost-effective and easy to use. With iCompass government management solutions, you even get the icing on the cake.

Assessing Your Needs for a Government Management Software Solution

In working with numerous municipal government workers, iCompass has identified the main issues that create heavy workloads on city clerks and managers. Municipal workers need help with getting and staying organized without breaking the bank. They're looking for ways to streamline processes for meetings, agendas, and managing boards and committees. They know that this needs to be done in ways that are accountable and transparent to the public they serve. If they could have everything they want, they'd also like to be able to increase citizen engagement.

Solutions by iCompass can help reduce employee workloads, which subsequently reduces stress in the office. Online solutions help city clerks and managers to stay organized, manage schedules and meet their deadlines. Software products can replace non-efficient manual and paper processes, which will also reduce operating costs.

These solutions were designed with transparency and improving citizen engagement in mind, which leads to enhancing the government's public image.

iCompass is aware that it simply takes too much time for clerks to plan agendas, write minutes, and manage the never-ending stream of people joining and retiring from boards, commissions and committees. Manual spreadsheets and binders are difficult to keep updated and sometimes they get lost in the shuffle. Paper processes are time-consuming when citizens want information about vacancies on boards, commissions and committees. iCompass, the leading source for government solutions, solves all of these issues and more with a suite of innovative government management software solutions. Here's how you can create your agenda and minutes in record time, streamline recordkeeping, manage boards, and create public access to documents and public meetings.

Agenda Software Solutions

Meeting Manager gives Clerks the ability to create minutes electronically. Staff and elected officials also get the ability to create notes on the agenda using any device, including the free AgendaNotes iPad app. The online file storage tool lets clerks store and organize documents using secure, cloud-based technology.

Meeting Manager Pro allows for even more efficiency with action tracking, digital voting and an online transparency portal called the Transparency Portal. The portal allows the public to subscribe for automatic email updates when new information is available.

Creating Efficiency With Board Manager Solutions

If you've ever wondered how great it would be to get automated alerts when a vacancy was soon due on a board or commission, now you can have it. Board Manager issues automatic alerts for board term dates and allows clerks to see the total year of service online for each member. Applicants can use the solution to apply for the position of their choice completely online. Once their applications get approved, Board Manager automatically updates the roll calls and attendance for the agenda and the minutes.

Increasing Citizen Engagement With the Transparency Portal and Video Manager

iCompass, a Diligent brand's, Transparency Portal was built with public use in mind. The platform provides seamless access for the public to your municipality's meeting agendas, board minutes and other documents approved for public access.

By adding Video Manager, you can easily embed livestreaming of council meetings right onto your website. Your videos are recorded in HD for the highest-quality viewing. You can also set it up so that it automatically uploads council meeting videos to your personal YouTube channel. Citizens can watch meetings live or catch up on the recorded version at their leisure.

iCompass's programs have the capability to fully integrate solutions, such as showing links to the council meeting video in agendas and minutes. Clerks can add and edit closed-captioning and add customized titles for clarification. Clerks can also add timestamps to the video, as well as to the agenda and minutes, so anyone can go directly to the section they need within seconds. Video Manager HD is reliable, affordable and transparency-focused.

There's no need to shop around for individual government management solutions when you can get a comprehensive set of fully integrated solutions from an industry leader in government management software. Request a demo and see how iCompass's government management solutions can work for you. iCompass, a Diligent brand, provides excellent customer service around-the-clock. There's nothing to lose and much to gain with government management made easy with iCompass's software solutions for municipal governments.
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Lena Eisenstein
Lena Eisenstein is a former Manager at Diligent. Her expertise in mission-driven organizations, including nonprofits, school boards and local governments, centers on how technology and modern governance best practices empower leaders at these organizations to serve their communities with efficiency and purpose.