What's in the board packet

What is the board packet?

The Packet tab on a meeting compiles one PDF a director can read start to finish: everything they need for that sitting, in the order they need it. It contains, in this order:

1. a cover page with your board's name and colour, the meeting's title, when and where it is, and whether this is a draft or a final version;
2. a contents page listing every section and every attached document, each with the page it starts on;
3. the agenda, in order, with each item's type, presenter, time box, description, and the documents attached to it;
4. every attached PDF and image, in full — each one behind a divider page naming the document and saying which pages of the packet it occupies;
5. an attached-documents index, splitting what is included in the PDF from what is only listed; and
6. a prior-minutes summary, naming and dating the meeting it comes from — when one exists (see below).

Whose minutes are "the prior minutes"?

The most recent earlier meeting of the same kind — the same committee, or the board itself — that has a minutes record, whatever its approval status. This is deliberately not the meeting the packet is FOR: minutes for a meeting that hasn't happened yet don't exist, so a packet for an upcoming sitting carries the minutes the board is about to be asked to approve, which is what "Approval of prior minutes" on the agenda actually means. The summary states the minutes' status (Draft, Circulated for review, or Approved) so a not-yet- adopted record is never mistaken for the final one. A cancelled meeting is skipped over. If no earlier meeting in scope has minutes yet — a board's very first meeting, for instance — the section is left out of the packet entirely rather than showing a placeholder.

Every page BoardTools adds carries a footer with your board's name and "Page X of Y", so a page number in the contents page is a page number you can navigate to — on paper, in the in-app reader, or in any PDF app.

Which clock do the packet's dates use?

Each date reads in the time zone of the meeting IT describes. The cover's Generated stamp and the meeting's own When/Time zone rows use this meeting's zone; the prior-minutes summary's date and approval stamp use the zone of the earlier meeting the minutes actually belong to (which can differ from this meeting's zone — a board that changed time zones between sittings still reads each date correctly). A packet for a meeting in Auckland reads in Auckland time no matter where the person who generated it was sitting.

Which attachments are included in full?

A "listed" document is never dropped silently: it appears in the packet's contents page and in its attached-documents index, under a heading that says plainly it is not included, with the reason. Members open those from the document library as usual.

In what order are the documents included?

The meeting's own materials first, in the order the organizer arranged them on the meeting's Details tab, then any document reached only through an agenda item, in agenda order. A document attached in both places is included once.

That order is yours to set: the Materials card has Move up / Move down buttons on every row (keyboard-operable, no dragging required), and the order you leave them in is the order the next compiled packet prints. See adding and ordering materials.

What happens if a document can't be read?

The packet still generates. A document whose file is damaged, password-protected, or missing from storage gets a page naming it and saying why its content isn't there, and the rest of the packet compiles as normal. A packet that fails to build would tell a chair nothing; a packet that admits one gap tells them exactly what to fix.

Is there a size limit?

Yes — a packet includes up to 40 MB of attached documents. Documents are added in the order above until that is reached; anything beyond it is listed instead of included, and whoever generated the packet is told which documents and why, right next to the Generate packet button. Nothing times out and nothing is lost — remove or split an attachment (the library accepts up to 25 MB per file) and regenerate.

What does the Packet page show me?

The Board packet contents table lists what the current version of the PDF actually contains — the agenda as it was compiled, in the order it was compiled, one row per item, with the page its attachments start on (p. 12), Listed only when an item's documents could not be included, or — when the item has no attachments. Meeting materials show their page beside the title, as that version listed them. The footer row shows the compiled PDF's real page count.

Above those rows, a Packet sections table names each section the compiled PDF actually has — Agenda, Attached documents, and Prior minutes summary, when one exists — and the page each one starts on, matching what the PDF's own contents page prints for the same packet.

When a document is Listed only, the row also shows why — the same reason the PDF's own attached-documents index gives (an Office file needs an office suite BoardTools does not run, a GIF or WebP can't be drawn onto a PDF page, and so on). An attachment with no recorded reason still shows the plain Listed only wording rather than an empty cell.

That is deliberately not the meeting's live agenda. Finalizing a packet does not lock the agenda underneath it, so an item added after the packet was compiled is not in the PDF your board downloaded — and the table would be lying if it showed one.

A packet compiled before BoardTools recorded what went into it cannot say what it contains. The table then shows the meeting's agenda as it stands today, says so above the table, falls back to counting attachments instead of showing page numbers, and shows no Packet sections table at all — inventing one would claim structure the PDF was never proven to have. Regenerate the packet and it records its own contents, sections, and reasons from then on. Regenerating is safe at any time while the packet is a draft.

How do I know the packet is out of date?

The page tells you. When the meeting's agenda changes — or a meeting material is attached, removed, or reordered — after the current packet was generated, the Current packet card says so in plain words:

The agenda has changed since this packet was compiled

Everyone on the board sees it, not just organizers: a director reading the PDF needs to know it predates the agenda on screen. The meeting's Details tab shows the same fact on its Packet row ("Final v3 · the agenda has changed since it was compiled").

Nothing happens automatically. BoardTools never regenerates or re-sends a packet on your behalf, and a final version is never rewritten — regenerating compiles a new draft and leaves the finalized version exactly as it was distributed. If you can manage the meeting, the Regenerate button sits directly below the notice; if you can't, ask whoever organizes the meeting. The notice clears itself the moment a newer packet is generated.

Does regenerating affect my highlights and notes?

Your notes are never dropped. Because including attachments changes how long the packet is, the first regeneration after this change moves nearly every page — so every open note on that packet is flagged as may have moved, and you can check it against the new page. A later regeneration that doesn't change the packet's length leaves your notes untouched. See Reading, highlighting and noting the board packet for how those flags appear in the reader.

Who can generate and read it?

Reading the packet is for everyone on the board: every signed-in member sees the current version, its status, the version history, and can download or open it in the reader. Generating, regenerating, finalizing and notifying the board need permission to manage the meeting — the same permission as running it. Finalizing takes a permanent snapshot; drafts can be regenerated as often as the papers change.