Board settings & branding

This page is for whoever administers your board's BoardTools account — a chair or administrator. Settings appears in the sidebar only for those two roles. Everyone else finds the board facts they need — name, timezone, contact and governing rules — on More → About this board (see what if I'm not an administrator or chair? below). If you're looking for your own name, notifications, or sign-out, see Your profile & account instead.

What lives on the Settings page?

Settings is organized into tabs, each with its own address you can bookmark or share — /settings/board-profile, /settings/governance, /settings/meetings, /settings/voting, /settings/rules-of-order, /settings/branding, and /settings/roles.

On a phone there isn't room for all seven tabs at once, so the strip scrolls sideways — the edge of the strip fades out wherever there are more tabs in that direction, and the tab you're currently on is always scrolled into view when the page opens. From a keyboard, Tab reaches the strip, then ← and → move between tabs, Home jumps to the first (Board profile) and End to the last (Roles & permissions); Enter opens the tab you've landed on.

• Board profile — your board's name, legal name, contact email, website, and mailing address, plus the timezone your meetings are scheduled in and the month your fiscal or term year starts (this is what "this year" means on the governance reports and the term/expiry forecast — a July–June board's "this year" is not January–December).
• Governance — your board's quorum rule (simple majority of seats, two-thirds of seats, a fixed number of members, or a majority of filled seats), plus the fixed count when that rule needs one; and the chair "at-risk member" panel's flagging thresholds — the engagement-rate percentage, the minimum eligible-event sample, and the recent-joiner grace period. All three start at BoardTools' documented defaults and can be overridden per board.
• Meetings — the default length and location new meetings start with (both prefill on Schedule meeting and stay editable there), the default number of days ahead of a meeting that RSVP is requested by (stored on each new meeting as its own "RSVP by" date, shown on that meeting's Details and Attendance pages), and the meeting-recording (notetaker) settings below.
• Voting & motions — the default pass threshold for a new motion; the written-consent defaults for decisions taken between meetings (the consent threshold a new round is prefilled with, how many days it stays open, and whether opening one emails each eligible voter a ballot link) — see Votes & ballots for what those defaults do — plus quick-motion presets: one-tap motion templates (like "Approve minutes as circulated" or "Adjourn") for the live meeting cockpit; add, reorder, and remove them here. Reordering with the up/down arrows takes effect immediately (it's easy to undo — just move it back), but removing a preset asks you to confirm first, since it can't be undone.
• Rules of order — your board's rules-of-order preset (Robert's Rules, Robert's small board, Simplified, or Corporate board) and each individual rule, including what a vote is counted against (which decides how an abstention affects a result). See Rules of order.
• Branding — your logo and primary color; see below. Your board's name shows here too, but read-only — it's edited from the Board profile tab.
• Roles & permissions — a read-only reference showing exactly what each board role can do, generated from BoardTools' live permission rules. See What can each role do? for the roles in plain language.

Which quorum rule should I choose?

The Governance tab offers four rules for deciding whether enough of the board is present to conduct business:

• Simple majority of seats — more than half of the board's voting members. A board with 7 voting members needs 4 present.
• Two-thirds of seats — at least two-thirds of the board's voting members (5 of 7).
• A fixed number — an exact headcount your board sets, independent of how many seats the board has. Choose this if your bylaws name a specific number rather than a fraction.
• A majority of filled seats — more than half of the seats that are filled right now by voting members.

Every rule except the fixed number is measured against the same count: voting members in filled seats. Members whose every current position is non-voting (an ex-officio secretary or an observer, for example) aren't counted, and vacant seats don't count against quorum, so today simple majority and majority of filled seats land on the same number. (Counting vacancies, "a majority of the full board as constituted", isn't available yet.) The fixed count (for a fixed number) is the only extra field to fill in; the other three compute their threshold automatically, and the Currently line under the picker shows today's threshold. See Who counts toward quorum? for the details, and How is quorum decided? for where the resulting threshold shows up during a meeting.

Saving on any one tab only changes that tab's fields — everything else on your board stays exactly as it was. That holds even when someone else is editing at the same time: each Save writes only the fields on the tab you're looking at, and re-reads everything else as it stands at that moment. So if a fellow administrator changes the quorum rule while you have the Meetings tab open, saving your meeting defaults keeps their new quorum rule — you won't quietly undo each other's work, and neither will your own second browser tab or a page you reached with the Back button.

None of this is locked in once — change any of it any time, and it only affects meetings and motions created afterward.

If you've changed a field and then select another tab, a link, or close the page before saving, BoardTools asks you to confirm first — including when you're just switching to a different settings tab, since that's a real page change too. A tab you haven't touched never asks, and saving successfully never asks either.

Good governance tip: revisit your quorum rule and voting defaults once a year, or whenever your bylaws change. A stale default is an easy way to accidentally record a motion that shouldn't have passed.

What if I'm not an administrator or chair?

Changing board settings takes the administrator or chair role, and only those two roles see Settings in the sidebar. If you hold a different role — director, treasurer, staff liaison, or observer — open More → About this board instead. It's a short, read-only page with your board's name, legal name, timezone and fiscal-year start, contact email, website and mailing address, and its governing rules: the quorum rule, what it takes to pass a motion, how abstentions count, and the written-consent threshold. Anything your board hasn't filled in is simply left off, rather than shown as "Not set". At the bottom, a Roles & permissions link opens the read-only reference of what each role can do.

If you follow a link or bookmark straight to a Settings address, the tabs still open, and every value your board has saved is shown for you to read: the quorum rule and its fixed count, timezone, fiscal-year start, your board's legal name, contact email, website and mailing address, the meeting and voting defaults, the written-consent defaults, the at-risk flagging thresholds, the meeting-recording choices, your logo and color, and the list of quick-motion presets.

What you won't see is the fields themselves, or a Save settings button. Each tab says so at the top ("These settings are read-only for your role"), so nothing is hidden or silently ignored — and you can't type a new quorum rule that was never going to be accepted. To change something, ask an administrator or your board's chair.

Roles & permissions looks the same for everyone: it's a reference table, so there was never anything to save there. The History panel is its own separate question — it's visible to administrators and observers only, whichever of the above applies (see is a settings change recorded anywhere? below).

How do I change my board's time zone?

Open the Board profile tab, pick a zone under Timezone, and save. The board's time zone is what every scheduling form defaults to — new meetings, consent-round deadlines, and the times in emails — so it's worth getting right. A board created in BoardTools starts in its creator's browser time zone; an older board that never set one is still on UTC, and administrators see a one-line reminder ("Times are in UTC because this board has no time zone set") with a Set time zone link on the schedule-a-meeting and start-a-consent-round pages until it's changed. Changing the zone doesn't move meetings you've already scheduled — each keeps the time zone it was created in — and, like every settings change, it's recorded in the tab's History.

How do I fill in my board's profile?

Open the Board profile tab. Alongside timezone and fiscal year, you can set:

• Board name — the one place to set your board's name. It shows in the app's navigation rail, the Branding tab (read-only there), and outbound email/board packets — everywhere your board's name appears. Leave it blank to show your board's registered name instead. Long names are fine: the navigation rail wraps your name over two lines and steps the type down a size or two to fit it, and a name too long for even that shows in full when you hover it or move keyboard focus to it (press Escape to dismiss it). The Switch board list behaves the same way, so boards whose names start alike — "Riverside USD Board of Trustees" and "Riverside USD Finance Committee" — stay easy to tell apart. Names can run up to 200 characters, but a name you'd recognize at a glance reads best in the rail.
• Legal name — your board's full registered legal name (for example "Riverside Community Housing Association Inc."). Printed under your board name on the cover of downloaded minutes and board packets, and shown at the bottom of every email the board sends. If it's the same as your board name it isn't repeated. Optional.
• Contact email — used as the reply-to address on outbound board email, so replies reach a real inbox instead of a no-reply address. Optional.
• Website — your board's public site. Printed on the packet cover (as text, since packets are often printed) and linked at the bottom of every email. Optional.
• Mailing address — your board's registered or postal address. Printed at the end of downloaded minutes and on the packet cover, and shown on one line at the bottom of every email — the postal address bulk email is expected to carry. Line breaks you type are kept on the PDFs. Optional.

All five are optional — leaving any of them blank doesn't change anything else on your board.

Where do these details appear?

Every email ends with a line like "Riverside Community Housing Association Inc. · 12 River Rd, Riverside, CA 90000" and, when set, your website — added beneath the usual note about why the recipient got the message. Changes apply to the next PDF you download and to any email not yet sent.

Can a bot join and record my board's meetings?

Only if your board turns it on — the meeting notetaker is off by default, and requires two separate switches before it ever joins a call: the board-wide opt-in below, AND a per-meeting toggle on that specific meeting's scheduling form. Turning on the board-wide setting doesn't record anything by itself.

Open the Meetings tab and turn on Allow a recording bot to join this board's meetings to reveal two more choices:

• Retention mode — your board decides what survives once a meeting's minutes are approved:
  • Summary only (the safest, and the default) — once 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.
• Automatically enforce retention when minutes are approved — on by default. Turning this off pauses automatic deletion (nothing is purged automatically until an admin removes it by hand); it does not change what the bot records, only whether the retention mode above is enforced for you.

Once the board-wide setting is on, whoever schedules a meeting sees a Recording choice on that meeting's own form — see How do I schedule a meeting?. A meeting can only make its own retention MORE private than your board's setting, never less — e.g. a board set to "Transcript and recording" can still schedule an especially sensitive meeting as "Summary only," but a board set to "Summary only" can't loosen an individual meeting to keep more. Turning the notetaker on or off for a specific meeting is recorded in the Audit log, the same as any other settings change.

Is a settings change recorded anywhere?

Yes. Saving any tab — board profile, governance, meetings, voting & motions (including quick-motion presets), or branding — adds an entry to your board's Audit log, showing who changed what and the old and new value for every field that actually changed. A save that doesn't change anything (you opened a tab and clicked Save without editing a field) doesn't add an entry — only real changes are recorded. Administrators and observers can review the full history from the Audit log in the navigation, or from a History panel at the bottom of each settings tab, pre-filtered to that tab's own fields (so the Governance tab's History only shows governance changes, and so on) and paginated once there are more than a handful of entries. The History panel is only visible to administrators and observers, same as the Audit log — a chair saving settings still sees the rest of the tab even though they can't see this panel. A tab with no changes yet explains that history only starts once a change is made after audit logging was added, not from when the board itself was created.

Board profile History shows changes to the board profile — saves to the profile fields on that tab — and the board's own lifecycle events (the board being created, and a deletion being requested or completed). Nothing else: other things recorded against the board as a whole, such as someone viewing the at-risk member list on Home, stay in the full Audit log and don't appear here.

The Board profile tab is laid out top to bottom as: the profile form, its History, Board setup (re-run the guided setup walkthrough), and — last — the Danger zone.

How do I change my board's name, logo, or color?

Your board's name has exactly one place to change it: the Board profile tab (or the guided setup wizard's Board basics step — both edit the same value, so whichever one you use last is what shows everywhere: navigation rail, Branding tab, and outbound email/board packets).

Open the Branding tab any time to set the rest — it's the same editor the wizard's Board basics step uses for these, so whichever one you use last is what takes effect. Your board's name shows at the top of this tab too, for reference, with a link back to Board profile — it isn't editable here. You can set:

• Logo — a hosted image URL for the top bar, with a live preview right below the field as you type. Leave it blank to show your board name as the wordmark instead.
• Primary color — a hex color (e.g. #1b5fb0) that drives buttons, links, and the active accent throughout your board, with a live preview swatch as you type. Leave it blank to keep the platform default.

A change here re-themes your board's chrome immediately and shows up in the next branded email or board packet — there's nothing else to "publish."

Why doesn't my logo show?

The logo is a link to an image you host, not an upload, so your members' browsers fetch it directly. If the preview under the field says the image didn't load, the URL is the problem — check for a typo, and check that the image is reachable without signing in (a file in a private drive folder, or on an internal network, will load for you and for nobody else). Paste the URL into a private/incognito window to be sure.

If a saved logo ever stops loading — the file is moved, renamed, or its host goes away — your board simply shows its name as the wordmark again, everywhere, until you fix or clear the URL. You'll never see a broken-image icon in the navigation rail, and neither will your members.

Custom branding is included on the Pro plan and above. If your board is on a plan that doesn't include it, the Branding tab shows an upgrade notice instead of the editor — ask your board's owner to upgrade to unlock it. (Boards that already had custom branding keep it either way.)

See Set up your board for the rest of what the wizard covers.

How do I permanently delete a board?

Open the Board profile tab and scroll to the Danger zone — it's the last section on the page. Deleting a board is deliberately not a single click:

1. Type the board's exact name to enable Send confirmation email, then send it. This does not delete anything yet.
2. A single-use confirmation link is emailed to your own address. It expires in 24 hours and works exactly once.
3. Opening that link and confirming is what actually deletes the board. Meetings, documents, votes, and members are retained during a grace period, then permanently removed — this cannot be undone once confirmed.

Only an administrator or the chair can start this flow, and the same check runs again when you confirm the email — so demoting yourself between the two steps stops the deletion. If you only need to remove people from the board, see Members & roles instead; a board with no members left is exactly what this flow exists to replace with a deliberate action.