Succession & vacancy planning

What does the Succession page show?

Administrators and the chair open Succession from the sidebar (or Members → Seats & terms → Succession & vacancies, which works for every member) for a board-level forecast of what's coming up across every seat, so you don't have to scan the roster seat by seat. It's a read-only view — a snapshot of your current seats and terms — that updates the moment a seat, term, or assignment changes:

• Expiring terms — current terms ending within the forecast horizon (90 days unless you change it — see below), soonest first. Each row shows the seat, its current holder, the term's end date, and a badge with the days remaining (highlighted once 30 days or fewer are left). If you can assign terms and the seat still exists, each row also has a Renew term button — see below.
• Term-limited members — currently-serving members who have reached their seat's term limit and so can't simply be renewed; each one needs a successor. Each row shows the member, their seat, how many terms they've served against the seat's limit, and when their current term ends.
• Open seats — any seat with an unfilled slot right now, whether it's fully vacant or below its capacity. Each row shows the seat, how many of its slots are currently filled, and a status badge (Vacant if none are filled, Partially filled otherwise). A seat with no capacity limit is marked "(uncapped)" and never shows as open. If you can assign terms, each row also has an Assign a member button — see below.

Any of the three lists can be empty — for example, "No terms expiring soon" — which just means nothing currently falls into that category.

Every "as of today" judgement here — whether a term has already expired, how many days are left on it, and whether a seat counts as open — is made against your board's own configured timezone (set on its Settings page), not wherever the server happens to run. So the forecast always agrees with the date on your board's own calendar, including late in the evening or early in the morning.

How far ahead does the forecast look?

The Forecast horizon control at the top of the page decides how far ahead "expiring" reaches. It offers 30 days, 90 days (the default), 6 months, and 12 months, and everything below it — the headline, the "Ending ≤" figure, and the Expiring terms list itself — is recomputed for the window you pick.

Two windows are genuinely useful, which is why you can switch between them:

• 90 days is the operational question — what must we act on this quarter?
• 12 months is the planning question, and it's the window the roster's Terms expiring figure counts (Members, at the top of the roster). Choose 12 months here and the two surfaces show exactly the same terms.

Your choice lives in the page's web address (/succession?window=365), so a horizon you've set survives a refresh, works with the browser's Back button, and can be shared or bookmarked — send a colleague the 12-month link and they see the same forecast you do. The plain /succession link always means the 90-day default. Term-limited members and open seats are "as of today" judgements, so they don't change with the horizon.

What does the forecast headline mean?

At the top of the page, a headline reads something like "3 seats need succession next term," with a line underneath breaking down how many seats are open now, how many terms are ending within the forecast horizon, and how many members are at their seat's term limit. The headline counts every seat that shows up in at least one of the three lists above, without double- counting a seat that appears in more than one (for example, a seat that's both expiring soon and already vacant only counts once).

Filling a vacant seat from here

If your role can assign terms, every row in the Open seats list has its own Assign a member button — no need to leave the page. It opens a dialog with:

• Member — a searchable list of members eligible for that seat right now (currently active or on leave, and not already holding the seat). If everyone eligible already holds the seat, the dialog says so instead of offering the field.
• Start date and end date — the start date defaults to today; the end date prefills from the seat's defined term length and updates as you change the start date, until you edit it directly. Leave it blank for an open-ended (current) term, or edit it for a partial term.

Submitting assigns the member to that seat through the same action the Seats & terms page uses — a confirmation toast appears, and the row updates immediately to reflect the new occupant. If the assignment fails (for example, the seat filled up in the meantime), the dialog shows the error and stays open so you can try again.

Renewing an expiring term from here

If your role can assign terms, every row in the Expiring terms list whose seat still exists has its own Renew term button. It opens the same kind of dialog as Assign a member, pre-filled to start the day after the current term ends — so there's no gap in the seat's service record — with the end date prefilled from the seat's defined term length. Choose who's serving next (which can be the same member, if their status still allows it, or a successor) and submit; it writes a brand-new term through the same action the full Terms table uses, leaving the ending term's own record untouched.

Starting an election from the forecast

When the forecast shows seats that need filling, the page's Start an election button (top right, for roles that can assign terms) turns that forecast straight into an election cycle — no re-typing the same seats into a new election by hand.

It opens a short confirmation dialog showing:

• Election — the title that will be created, naming the year and the seats in scope (more than three seats are summarized, e.g. "Chair, Treasurer, Secretary and 2 more").
• Seats in scope — every seat the forecast identified, how many openings each one has, and why it's there: Open now, Term expiring, or Term-limited. A seat that's in scope for more than one reason is listed once, with each reason shown, and a term that's both expiring and term-limited counts as one opening, not two.
• Nominations close — the nomination deadline, pre-filled 30 days out. Change it to any date from today up to a year out; it's read as the end of that day in your board's own timezone.

Submitting creates the election and opens its nomination window in one step, so nominations can be taken immediately. The scope is always re-derived on the server from the same live forecast — so what gets created matches the seats the board actually needs, at the horizon you're currently viewing (switch to 12 months first if you want the election to cover the year's seats rather than the quarter's).

The button only appears when at least one seat needs succession, and only for roles that can assign terms. Once an election for those seats is under way, the button is replaced by a note naming it ("Nominations are open for …") until its nominations close, so the same seats can't be put up for election twice by accident — a second click (or a second tab) is refused rather than creating a duplicate. Both the creation and the opened nomination window are written to the audit trail, recording which seats the cycle was opened for.

On a phone

On a phone, the Expiring terms, Term-limited members and Open seats tables show each entry as one compact row instead of a stack of labelled lines, with the term end date first:

• Expiring terms — the seat's name, then a grey line such as "Ends Oct 28 · Ada Lovelace", with the days-left chip (for example 30d left). If you can manage terms, Renew term sits at the end of the row.
• Term-limited members — the member's name, then "Ends Oct 28 · Treasurer", with the terms-served chip (for example 3 / 3 terms).
• Open seats — the seat's name, then how many of its slots are filled, with the Vacant or Partially filled chip and, if you can manage terms, Assign a member at the end of the row.

Dates are your board's calendar dates; the year is left off when it's this year.

How do I act on what I see here?

Beyond assigning a member to a vacant seat and starting an election inline, the Succession page is read-only — it doesn't have its own controls for adding seats or editing terms directly. Use the Manage seats & terms button on the page to jump to Members → Seats & terms, where you can add a seat, assign or edit a term, or set the terms and limits that feed this forecast. See Roles vs. positions for how seats, terms, and term limits work.