Engagement signals & the at-risk member view

What this is for

Boards rarely lose a member to a single dramatic event — engagement usually fades gradually, one skipped RSVP and one unread packet at a time, until a resignation arrives as a surprise. The "Members who may need a check-in" panel on the chair's Overview page exists to catch that drift early enough for a conversation, not a resignation letter.

It is never a judgement of the person, and it never shows a bare score or a colour-only badge. Every member it lists comes with the specific signals and numbers behind the flag, so you can check the reasoning yourself before deciding whether — and how — to reach out.

The five engagement signals

Every signal is a rate: how many of the things a member was eligible for did they actually do. A signal only ever appears once the member has had a genuine chance to act on it — a member who joined after a meeting was never "eligible" for it, and it never counts against them.

• RSVP responses — of the meetings a member was on the roster for, how many did they respond to at all (Yes, No, or Maybe all count — only silence is a miss)?
• Meeting attendance — of the meetings someone actually took a roll call for, how many was the member recorded present or remote at? See Attendance history & rates for the full definition.
• Vote participation — of the motions decided during a member's time in a voting position, how many did they cast a ballot on? A recusal counts as participation — stepping back from a conflict is showing up, not an absence.
• Task completion — of the tasks assigned to a member (excluding any that were withdrawn), how many are done?
• Packet & document views — of the board packets and library documents available during a member's membership, how many has the member opened at least once? See What do other board members see about me? for exactly what BoardTools records when someone opens a document.

A signal that has no eligible events yet (a brand-new board, or a member with nothing to have done) never reads as "0%" — it simply has no data, and is never flagged.

One member's signals: the Engagement section on a profile

The check-in list tells you which signal prompted a conversation. To see the whole picture for one person, open their profile from Members (or click their name straight from the check-in list) and scroll to Engagement.

It shows the six figures behind everything on this page:

• the five rates above — RSVP responses, meeting attendance, vote participation, task completion, and packet & document views — each with the underlying counts spelled out, e.g. "Responded to 3 of 6 eligible meetings";
• the current attendance streak: how many of the most recent meetings with a roll call the member attended in a row.

Three details are deliberate:

• "No data yet" is never shown as 0%. A director who has had no eligible motions has not voted on 0% of motions — they have no vote-participation record at all, and the section says exactly that. A fabricated zero on someone's governance record would read as a serious signal about a person who was never given the chance to act.
• A measured zero is still shown. "0% (0 of 5)" means there really were five chances. That is a different fact, and it is not hidden.
• Where BoardTools already knows why a number is low, it says so rather than leaving a bare rate to speak for itself: a non-voting seat, a leave of absence, a member who has left the board, and a member still inside the recent-joiner grace window each get a plain sentence alongside the figures.

Every rate is written out in words as well as drawn as a bar, so nothing on this section depends on seeing a colour or a bar length.

When a member is flagged

A signal is flagged only when both are true:

1. The member has had a genuine chance to act (at least a couple of eligible events — one unlucky data point is not a pattern), and
2. Their rate on that signal has fallen below the board's guideline (50% by default today).

Each flag is written out in full, for example:

RSVP responses: Responded to 2 of 6 eligible meetings (33%) — below the board's 50% guideline.

A member with no flagged signals never appears on the list at all — a board with no concerns sees a plain "No concerns right now" message, not an empty table.

Who this doesn't apply to (the excuse conditions)

Three situations are explicitly not disengagement, and are excused rather than flagged:

• On leave. A member who has stepped back with an on_leave status is excused from every signal for as long as they're on leave — reduced engagement while on leave is expected, not a warning sign.
• Recently joined. A member who joined within the last couple of months is excused from every signal — there simply hasn't been enough time yet for a rate to mean anything.
• A non-voting seat. A member whose position never carries a vote (e.g. a non-voting secretary) is never flagged for vote participation — it isn't part of their role. Their other signals (attendance, RSVPs, tasks, document views) still apply as normal.

A member who has already left the board, or who has never been seated, never appears on this list either — there is no check-in to have with someone who isn't currently serving.

Thresholds

Three numbers drive every flag above, and your board can override all three from Settings → Governance:

• Engagement threshold — the percentage below which a signal is flagged (the "50%" in "Responded to 2 of 6 eligible meetings (33%) — below the board's 50% guideline"). Must be between 1% and 99% — either extreme would flag no one or nearly everyone, so BoardTools refuses those values.
• Minimum eligible events — how many eligible events a signal needs before it can be flagged at all (one unlucky data point is not a pattern).
• Recent-joiner grace period — how many days a newly joined member is excused from every signal.

The platform default — 50% / 2 eligible events / 60 days — is what every board uses until it changes these, and it's what a board that never touches this section keeps using indefinitely. It was chosen to be a real, actionable signal without over-flagging ordinary variation on a small board. Changing any of these three values is recorded in the board's audit log, the same as any other settings change, naming the old and new value.

Who can see this

The "Members who may need a check-in" panel is restricted to the people who already administer your board's roster — a Board Admin or the Chair. Directors, treasurers, staff liaisons, and observers do not see it: being able to see a derived judgement about a colleague's engagement is itself a privilege, not a general board-wide view. Every time someone opens this panel, that access is recorded in the board's audit log — the same way a threshold or setting change would be.

The Engagement section on a member's profile follows the same rule, with one addition:

• You can always see your own. Your own engagement figures appear on your own profile, and nobody needs to grant you that.
• A Board Admin or the Chair can see anyone's. Nobody else can — a fellow director opening your profile sees your seat, contact details, committees, and tasks, but no Engagement section at all. The figures are not merely hidden from them; they are never even looked up.
• Viewing a colleague's figures is recorded, naming who looked and whose profile it was, in the board's audit log. Reading your own is not recorded — there is no privilege to account for.

See What do other board members see about me? for the rest of the profile's visibility rules.