Your profile & account

Where do I find my account menu?

Your name, initials, and role sit in the corner of every page — the bottom of the side rail on a computer, the top bar on a phone. Select it to open your account menu: My profile, Your onboarding, Help & docs and Sign out live there. On a phone the menu also holds the Theme choice and, if you belong to more than one board, Switch board — so the top bar stays uncluttered.

Where does my name come from?

The first time you sign in, BoardTools picks up your display name from your sign-in profile automatically — you shouldn't need to type it in yourself. If your name was ever shown as your email address instead (this could happen before your sign-in profile had a name attached), it corrects itself automatically the next time you sign in, as soon as a real name is available. You can also just edit it yourself any time — see below.

How do I edit my profile?

Choose My profile from the account menu. The edit page is grouped into a few sections, and you can update everything the member directory and your own profile page display:

• Identity — full name, notification email, pronouns, a photo, and a short bio. For photo, paste a direct link to an image (a URL ending in .jpg, .png, etc.) in the Photo URL field and a live preview appears immediately — it replaces your initials everywhere your avatar shows up (the member directory, rosters, discussions). Select Clear photo to go back to showing your initials.
• Contact — add as many extra emails and phone numbers as you need, each with its own label (e.g. "work", "mobile"). Select Add email or Add phone for another row, or the row's Remove button to take one back out.
• Address — your full mailing address (street, apartment/suite, city, state/region, postal code, country). This is the field the directory keeps hidden from fellow members by default — see Privacy to change that.
• Emergency contact — a name, relationship, phone, and email for someone to reach on your behalf. This section (and, for an administrator or the chair, the private administrator notes field) is visible only to you and to board administrators — never to fellow members.
• Communication preferences — an opt-in for email updates. See Privacy for how this affects what others can see.

Your notification email is not your sign-in email. The notification email field is simply where BoardTools sends its own emails to you — meeting notices, reminders, vote requests and the like. Changing it does not change the email address you sign in with, and nothing on this page can. The two are often the same address, but they don't have to be.

One exception, for administrators: until a member has signed in for the first time, BoardTools finds their profile by this address. If you change it before they've accepted their invitation, they'll need to sign in with the new address — otherwise they'll see "You're not a member of this board." The edit page shows a warning whenever this applies. See How do I accept a board invitation?

Whatever you save here shows up immediately on the member directory's Contact column and in its Export CSV download, so it's worth keeping current — especially if you've moved, changed your number, or want to add or update an emergency contact.

An administrator or your chair can also edit anyone's profile — including a field you can't touch yourself, your role.

If you've made changes and try to leave without saving — closing the tab, reloading, or selecting any link on the page, including "Manage this member's seat" — BoardTools asks you to confirm first, so a mis-click never silently throws away a long edit. Choose Cancel at the bottom of the form to leave on purpose without saving; a form you haven't touched never asks.

Your onboarding

When you join a board, you get a short onboarding checklist of your own. Open it from Your onboarding in your account menu, or from the Your onboarding card on your dashboard — the card shows how far along you are (for example "1 of 3 steps · 2 documents to acknowledge") and disappears once you're done.

The page shows one progress figure — for example "3 of 5 done" — and it counts both things you have to do: the checklist steps and each governing document you need to acknowledge. The line under it spells out the split ("2 of 3 steps · 1 of 2 documents acknowledged").

It always shows your own checklist — the member you're signed in as — so what you acknowledge is recorded against you and no one else. Each item is a link to where you finish it, and checks itself off automatically once you've actually done it — there's nothing to mark done by hand:

1. Complete your profile — links to your own edit-member page; it's checked off once you've added a phone number, a mailing address, or an emergency contact.
2. Read & acknowledge governing documents — links down to the governing documents list on the same page; it's checked off once you've acknowledged every one of them. Each document's title in that list is itself a link to that document's own page, so you can actually open and read it before you acknowledge — a document with no file uploaded yet says so instead of linking anywhere. Once you've acknowledged a document, its row shows the date you did so, in your board's own timezone.
3. Confirm your seat & term — links to the Seats & terms page; it's checked off once an administrator has assigned you a current (not-yet-ended) term on a seat.

On a phone

On a phone, the governing documents list shows each document as one short row instead of a table. The grey line under the document's name starts with where you stand — "Not yet acknowledged", "Acknowledged Sep 3" (in your board's own timezone), or "No file uploaded yet" — next to a To do or Done chip. A document you still need to acknowledge has its Acknowledge button at the end of the row; tap the document's name to open and read it first.

Onboarding used to be a tab of the Members page; old links to it still work and bring you here.

How do I change the appearance (light, dark, or high contrast)?

On a computer, the theme button in the top bar — its icon reflects the current theme — lets you choose how BoardTools looks. On a phone, the same choice is under Theme in your account menu (your initials, top right):

• System (the default) follows your device's own light/dark and contrast settings automatically.
• Light and Dark pin that palette regardless of your device.
• High contrast boosts contrast and focus outlines for easier reading.

Your choice is remembered on this device and applies straight away — no reload, and no flash of the wrong colours next time you open the app. It's a personal, per-device preference: it doesn't change anything for other members, and your board's brand colour still comes through in every theme. You can operate the button entirely by keyboard, and each option is announced to screen readers.

How do I switch between boards?

If you belong to more than one board, a Switch board button appears in the top bar on a computer, and a Switch board list appears in your account menu on a phone — pick a board to jump straight to its dashboard.

Where do my notifications go?

The bell icon in your account area shows your unread count — see Notifications for what shows up there and how email delivery works.

How do I sign out?

Choose Sign out from your account menu. It's a plain, deliberate action — BoardTools never signs you out just because your browser tried to preload a page in the background.