What is the meeting notetaker, and what does it do with my meeting?

How the BoardTools meeting notetaker bot works, what advance notice attendees get, what's captured under each retention mode, and how to object before a meeting starts.

What is the meeting notetaker?

A BoardTools-branded bot that joins your board's video call and captures the discussion. It's a differently-named feature from the manual recording upload — this one joins the call live and does the capturing for you; that one is for a file someone already has. Turning what the bot captures into draft minutes automatically is planned but not built yet — today the capture is the deliverable, and minutes are still written (or imported) by a person.

Off by default, for every board. A bot never appears on a call unless your board has explicitly opted in — see Settings → Can a bot join and record my board's meetings? for the board-wide switch and the per-meeting toggle that both have to be on.

Will I know before a meeting is recorded?

Yes. If a scheduled meeting has the notetaker turned on, BoardTools emails every expected attendee an advance notice before the meeting happens. That email tells you:

that the meeting will be recorded by a notetaker bot,
what's kept — your board's retention mode (see below), in plain language,
how to object — who to contact, or reply directly to the email if your board has a reply address configured, before the meeting starts.

BoardTools will not create the bot for a meeting until that notice has actually gone out. If a meeting is scheduled and the notetaker turned on with very little lead time, the notice still goes out as soon as possible — the bot simply waits for it.

What does the bot actually capture?

Whatever your board's retention mode says (set in Settings → Meetings, and optionally tightened — never loosened — for one especially sensitive meeting):

Summary only (the safest, and the default) — once the meeting's minutes are approved, the transcript and recording are permanently deleted; the approved minutes are the record.
Transcript only — once minutes are approved, the recording is permanently deleted; the transcript is kept as a supporting record.
Transcript and recording — nothing is purged when minutes are approved; both are kept indefinitely and count toward your board's storage.

The bot is never a mystery guest

It joins the call under a clearly branded name — "Your board's name Notetaker (BoardTools)" — so everyone on the call can see exactly what joined and who operates it. There is no way to make it join silently or under a different name.

Two moments become part of the meeting's own history, visible on the Audit log:

The notice. The moment the advance-notice email is enqueued for a meeting, that's recorded too — so there's a record that attendees were told, separate from whether any one person's email happened to bounce.
The bot joining the call. The bot's admission to the meeting is recorded as the consent of record for that meeting — alongside who turned the notetaker on in the first place (recording.enabled on the same log).

None of this requires anyone to click anything: the notice and the join event are both automatic, and both leave a trail.

I'd rather this specific meeting isn't recorded — what do I do?

Reply to the advance-notice email (if it offers a reply address) or contact the meeting organizer before the meeting starts. Whoever scheduled the meeting can turn the per-meeting toggle off from that meeting's own form — see How do I schedule a meeting?. Once the bot has joined, contact your board's administrator: the live pause/eject controls are a later addition to this feature.

What is the meeting notetaker, and what does it do with my meeting?