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Guide to creating a meeting
Guide to creating a meeting
McKenzie avatar
Written by McKenzie
Updated over a week ago

This guide will walk you through everything you'll need to know to prepare your meeting for launch. If you've already set up your meeting, head over to our Day of Guide.


How to create a meeting or event

OPTION 1: Creating a new meeting from the Engagement Dashboard

On the Engagement Dashboard, click the +Create new item dropdown menu, and select New Meeting.


OPTION 2: From an existing project

Open the project you wish to associate your new meeting with. Your project can be found on your Engagement Dashboard.

On the main project page, head over to the Meetings & Offline tab and click on the Add Meeting or Event button.

In either instance, a prompt should appear to create a new meeting. You can choose to create a blank meeting from scratch, use a template from the library, or copy an existing meeting.


Meeting Details & Public Portal Display

  1. Enter a Name for your event so it is easy to find if you want to edit the details later. We recommend adding a date to the name.

  2. Select a Format. Your event format is how you will be conducting your event. If your event is in-person or a combination of virtual and in-person (hybrid), you'll be able to type a physical location using the list of Google suggestions or type in your location. If your meeting is virtual, you can select the virtual option and move on to the next step without entering a location.

  3. Enter a start Date and Time by using the calendar icon to select the date and the clock icon to select the time, which will appear once the date field is clicked. If you do not know the exact end time for your meeting, you can set it for the next day and update it once the meeting ends. You can also choose to make your meeting an all-day event. We recommend starting your Webex/Zoom meeting 15-30 minutes before the scheduled PublicInput meeting time to allow for presenter preparation.

  4. The Associate with an existing project or topic (optional) drop-down menu will appear if you're creating a meeting from the Meetings or Engagement Dashboard. If your meeting is associated with an existing project or topic, you can search and select it from the drop-down menu.

  5. The Department drop-down menu will appear if you're creating a meeting from the Meetings or Engagement Dashboard. If your meeting is associated with a specific department, you can search and select your department from the drop-down menu.

  6. Manage meeting tags for categorization. Tags help residents find meetings more easily when they search.

Note: Only tags that are marked "visible" from within Tags & Taxonomy can be added at this time. If you want to add a new tag, click "Add a Tag", create a new tag, and then add it here.

You can see tags that you created for a certain project or meeting displayed on your Public Portal:

To add a tag to the meeting:

  • meeting tag box

  • Click into the tag box. You will see a subset of the tags marked "visible" and usable for tagging. Please note that the dropdown menu will display only the first 20 tags.

  • You can begin typing to search for more tags. In this case, we've added "District 1" as a tag, and are looking for more to add.

  • Click on the tag you want to add to the Meeting.

To remove a tag from the meeting:

  • Click the "X" to the right of the individual tag box (in gray)

Next, we'll focus on the meeting's public description and display options.

1. Add a featured image to your meeting. A featured image will appear with the meeting on the public portal and embedded meeting listings. The recommended minimum size is 1200 x 600 pixels, with a 2:1 aspect ratio. Check out our image guidelines for more image recommendations.

2. Add your Public Description. This is where you can share the purpose of the meeting or a summary of the event. A couple of lines of text should be all you need here. You can further explain the details and goals of your meeting in the agenda section, or add additional text (like lengthier descriptions of meeting or project goals) to your project layout, including images, videos, text, documents, and more.

Tip: Use the content editor that pops up when you click inside the description box to customize this free-format content and create an eye-catching invitation using different fonts, colors, and layouts.

3. The "Automatically display on project live site, meetings portal, and embedded listing" toggle allows your meeting to be displayed on the live project page, and/or on your organizational hub. If you do not want the meeting to be displayed in either of these places, just leave the toggles off (indicated in white) to keep them hidden from public view.

Click More Display Options to see additional meeting options.

4. The "Feature on Public Portal" toggle will prioritize the meeting above all other meetings listed on your Public Portal. "Automatically display on project live site, meetings portal, and embedded listing" must be enabled to feature a meeting on the Public Portal.


Public participation options

The Phone, Email, and Text options are how the public can contact your organization and will be displayed publicly if selected. You can choose to display the phone number associated with your meeting, the meeting-specific email, and a text code (if enabled).

The number displayed is the auto-generated shortcode that participants will text in to participate.

Note: Text messaging (SMS) must be enabled for your project to allow text participation. Head to the Text tab to enable this feature.

Comments

There are several options for facilitating public input during your meeting. First, you'll want to determine whether or not you want to display comments publically, keep comments private, or disable comments altogether.


Public: all comments are public (exception: individual participants can opt to submit their comments privately.)
Private: all comments are submitted privately (you cannot make these visible to the public at a later date if you change your mind)
Disabled: no comments will be accepted

If you've chosen Public comments, you'll see several settings that you can toggle off or on based on your meeting requirements/preferences.

If you would like to prevent participants from being able to keep their comments private when the public setting is enabled, toggle off the option Participants can opt to keep their comments private.

If your meeting comments are private, you will only be able to set the first 3 toggles – Allow users to include attachments, Collect name and email, and Require name and email. Privately submitted comments cannot be made public by admins, but they will show up on the meeting for anyone who has admin access.

After you've decided on a comment display, a comment box will appear below the meeting wherever the meeting is published (e.g. visible on your hub and/or project page) during the specified time frame. For example, if you choose to begin collecting questions starting two days before the meeting/event, the comment box for questions will not appear until 2 days before.

Here's what it looks like on a project page:

To learn about the different formats for accepting meeting comments, such as playing recorded comments or accepting live comments, please check out the additional options and tips section.

Now that you've decided on a comment display, we'll move on to setting up event registration.



Registration

Public registration can be set to enable, required, or disabled. We recommend using registration for any hybrid or in-person meeting to help predict in-person capacity needs. Event registration must be enabled if you want Speakers to register.

If you've opted to enable event registration, click More Registration Options.

  1. If providing participant information is a requirement for meeting attendance, you'll want to toggle on "Require registration to view event". Requiring registration is also a great way to keep a head count for in-person events. If registration is enabled and "Require registration to view event" is toggled off, the registration form will disappear 30 minutes prior to the meeting start time.

  2. Enable Speaker Pre-Registration (available on the Engage+ Plan) will show a checkbox for participants to opt-in to request to speak in the meeting on the registration form. Additional settings can be applied to limit the number of pre-registered speakers and the time window for pre-registering can be limited (learn more about this) to avoid registration too close to the beginning of a meeting. On the public registration form, registrants will see an option to be added to the meeting speaker queue:

    If a participant requests to speak, this will be designated in the registration table and data export:

    You can optionally include a meeting agenda and associate meeting registrants with specific agenda items. Click here to learn more about agenda speaker registration:

  3. Registrants can request to be dialed into the meeting at the meeting start time. This setting provides registrants with a more efficient, convenient, and error-free method of dialing into your meeting.

  4. The registration email field must be toggled on to send registrants a confirmation or reminder email:

Registrants can be sent a confirmation email upon registering for the event. The default email will contain the name of the meeting as the email subject, the date and time of the meeting, a hyperlink to the live meeting site, the preferred method of attendance (if the meeting format is hybrid), and add to calendar options. The reminder email will be sent 4 hours prior to the meeting start time and will contain the same information as your confirmation email.

If you would prefer to customize the confirmation and reminder email, you can click the Customize Emails button to open a text editor. The customizable content includes the ability to change the email subject and the option to add a custom message, which will appear above the event information and links.

Event registration includes a standard set of fields you can choose from, such as email, phone number, and name. Please note that required fields must be displayed. If you wish to customize the registration form further, select the Custom registration form option, which allows you to add various question types and demographic questions to your meeting's form.


Conferencing

Selecting a conferencing method

Next, select an appropriate conferencing method for your public meeting. There are several combinations available, so let's start by defining each option.

None: Selecting "None" means that your meeting will not include video or audio options. This is ideal for in-person events where audio and video are not required, or when you only need to display meeting information online.

Video + Phone: Choosing "Video + Phone" allows participants to watch your meeting virtually and/or dial in to listen or speak. This provides flexibility for attendees to engage in the manner that suits them best.

Video: The "Video" option enables participants to view your meeting virtually but does not offer a dial-in option for those who prefer to use a phone, or request to speak.

Phone: Selecting "Phone" allows participants to dial into your meeting to listen or request to speak, but it does not provide video access.

💡 Why add Phone Conferencing to your virtual meeting?

This feature allows you to use your existing PublicInput project Phone Line to add a host of capabilities to virtual meetings:

  1. Allow residents and speakers to dial into the meeting / listen by phone

  2. Allow residents to leave voicemail comments associated with your meeting

  3. Provide live closed captions on your livestream

  4. Record and transcribe meeting audio

  5. Manage and queue dial-in speakers (available on the Engage+ Plan)


Conferencing Services

There are a few tech requirements for running a meeting within PublicInput. If you haven't done so already, double-check that your conferencing service has the settings needed to run a meeting successfully.

Authenticating your conferencing service with PublicInput is highly recommended and in some instances required. If your conferencing platform preference is Zoom or Webex, you'll want to authenticate your account before moving on to the next step.

None

If you've selected None, you can move on to Live streaming or finish up by saving your meeting.

Video + Phone

To begin, select your conferencing platform. If you choose Zoom or Webex, your conferencing section will display a dropdown menu where you can select an existing meeting created within Zoom or Webex. Alternatively, a new meeting will be created after you save the meeting editor.

If your conferencing preference is Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, you will need to paste in your meeting details manually.

If you are using Microsoft Teams or Google Meet, you'll first want to schedule your meeting within Microsoft Teams or Google. Once your meeting is scheduled, you'll receive a meeting URL, pin number, or conference ID, and dial-in number. Use this information to paste into the corresponding fields in PublicInput.

Google Meet:

Microsoft Teams:

Note: Make sure you're selecting the correct meeting from the drop down menu if you're not creating a new meeting on save. This information is used for the PublicInput phone line to dial into the meeting to capture audio, transcription, and enable speakers.

Next, select the dial-in format. If you're not seeing this option yet, you may need to save your editor and reopen it. This should match your project's phone number by default. If your organization has a designated phone line (pin-free), those numbers will appear in the drop-down as well. This is also a good time to double-check that the Phone option is toggled on under the Public Participation Options so that participants know how to dial in on meeting day.

If you'd like to learn more about calling into the phone line as an admin or participant, check out our additional options and tips section.

After selecting a dial-in format, you have a couple of optional settings to choose from:

Phone Options

Enable Speaker Queue: (available on the Engage+ Plan) When enabled the speaker queue allows meeting organizers to keep track of participants who want to speak and in what order. You can optionally Enable Speaker Queue Position Announcement to notify speakers where they are in the line and Notify people in the queue of updated estimated wait time after each speaker.

Record meeting audio: Recording meeting audio will produce an audio file of the meeting. After the meeting concludes, the recorded audio can be transcribed. This transcription can be reviewed, edited for accuracy, and then made available to participants or the public. Phone conferencing must be enabled to record and transcribe meetings. Recording starts as soon as the phone conferencing line is connected.

Once you've completed your conferencing selections, you're ready to move on to setting up your live streaming.

Video

The video-only method is ideal for meetings where visual content is the primary focus and where interactive audio participation is not necessary. Common use cases include presentations, educational sessions, or public announcements. Unlike meetings that offer both video and phone options, a "Video Only" meeting does not provide a dial-in number for participants to listen in or speak.

Since the PublicInput Phone Line is responsible for capturing audio files, transcriptions, and close captioning these features are not readily available for "Video Only" meetings. If audio recording, transcription, and closed captioning are critical for your meeting, we recommend using the Video + Phone option and toggling off "Phone" under the Resident Participation section.

To begin, select your conferencing platform. If you choose Zoom or Webex, your conferencing section will display a dropdown menu where you can select an existing meeting created within Zoom or Webex. Alternatively, a new meeting will be created after you save the meeting editor.

If your conferencing preference is Microsoft Teams, you will have the option to either select or create a meeting from an authenticated Microsoft Teams account or paste in your meeting information manually. For Google Meet, you will need to manually paste in your meeting details.

If you've opted to paste in your meeting information or are using Google Meet, you'll first want to schedule your meeting within Microsoft Teams or Google. Once your meeting is scheduled, you'll receive a meeting URL, pin number, or conference ID, and dial-in number. Use this information to paste into the corresponding fields in PublicInput.

Google Meet:

Microsoft Teams:

Note: Make sure you're selecting the correct meeting from the drop down menu if you're not creating a new meeting on save. This information is used for the PublicInput phone line to dial into the meeting to capture audio, transcription, and enable speakers.

Video Options

Publicly share video conference number & access code: Publicly sharing the video conference number and access code means making these details available to the general public, allowing anyone with the information to join the video conference. This information will appear publicly on the PublicInput website 30 minutes prior to the meeting start time. If enabling this feature, we recommend implementing waiting rooms, requiring participant names, and using moderators to manage the meeting.

Once you've completed your conferencing selections, you're ready to move on to setting up your live streaming if you've chosen to host the meeting within PublicInput.

Phone

A "Phone Only" meeting allows participants to join and engage solely through a phone line, without any video conferencing options. Participants will dial into the meeting using a phone number and access code. They can listen to the meeting, and depending on the settings, may be able to speak or ask questions. This method is ideal when visual presentations aren't necessary.

This is a good time to double-check that the Phone option is toggled on under the Public Participation Options so that participants know how to dial in on meeting day.

Next, select the dial-in format. This should match your project's phone number by default. If your organization has a designated phone line (pin-free), those numbers will appear in the drop-down as well.

You'll use the dial-in number and admin pin listed below the dial-in format drop-down to designate yourself as the phone line admin on the day of.

Note: We recommend sharing the phone line admin pin with your staff or meeting presenters/organizers before the meeting.

Phone Options

Record meeting audio: Recording meeting audio will produce an audio file of the meeting. After the meeting concludes, the recorded audio can be transcribed. This transcription can be reviewed, edited for accuracy, and then made available to participants or the public. Phone conferencing must be enabled to record and transcribe meetings. Recording starts as soon as the phone conferencing line is connected.

If you'd like to learn more about the participant dial-in experience, check out our additional tips & options section.

Once you have finalized your conferencing settings, you can move on to saving your meeting.


Live streaming

Live streaming is available on Engage+ Plans

Live streaming your meeting allows the public to view the meeting without having access to the controls of your meeting, similar to how a TV camera streams to viewers at home. This ensures that the public can watch the proceedings while the meeting hosts maintain control over the meeting itself and keep comments all in one place.

Additionally, platforms such as YouTube automatically record live streams, which can be edited post-event if necessary, such as to remove dead air or unrelated conversations at the beginning of the meeting. Once edited, the video can be made visible again on your live site. If you opt to use PublicInput's YouTube account, post-meeting edits will not be available.

PublicInput currently offers Facebook Live, Youtube Live, Granicus, and Swagit live streaming services.

Entering your live streaming info into the PublicInput meeting editor embeds the video right into your live meeting page. This information can be added in advance or on the day of the event. We'll help you locate where to find the video links you'll need to paste into the meeting editor in Publicinput as well as provide additional resources for creating live streams in each service if you're unfamiliar with the process.

If you'll be utilizing Granicus or Swagit as your live streaming service, please reach out to your CSM for additional support.

YouTube Live: Live streaming with YouTube is easiest when you've authenticated your account with PublicInput. Authenticating your YouTube account has several benefits:

  • PublicInput will create a new live stream for you for the date and time of the event

  • Your streaming key information will be visible in the meeting editor for easy access on the day of the event

  • You can start your YouTube live stream from your meeting's live site.

If you prefer not to authenticate your YouTube account, or if your account has fewer than 1,000 subscribers (the minimum required to live stream), you can use PublicInput’s complimentary YouTube account. Please note that post-meeting edits are not available using PublicInput's YouTube account.

If you've opted to paste in your live stream info, you’ll need to create and schedule your live stream. Need help with this process? Check out YouTube's help center:

Once you've scheduled your live stream, you'll find the link to paste into PublicInput on your YouTube video details page (if you've just finished scheduling your live stream, you should already be on this page). We recommend using the clipboard function to avoid any typos.

Facebook Live: Facebook live streams can be scheduled in advance, but require an event so if you'd like to skip creating an event on Facebook, you can wait until the day of the meeting to create a live stream. Not sure how to do this? Check out Facebook's help center to get started:

Live streaming options

Hide live stream until the event start time: Hide live stream until the event start time will keep the live stream hidden from public view until the scheduled start time of the event. This helps prevent viewers from accessing the stream prematurely and also helps with event coordination.

Hide meeting video after event end: Hiding the meeting video after the event ends will automatically remove or hide the recorded video of a meeting from public view once the event has concluded. This is useful if post-meeting video edits need to be made or if the meeting is intended to be accessible only during the live event.

Enable Closed Captioning: Provides real-time multi-lingual text translations of spoken content during live meetings or events. Check out our article on enabling multilingual closed captions for your public meetings to learn more about the benefits of utilizing PublicInput's closed captioning feature.

You're now ready to save your meeting! If you'd like to learn more about meeting comments, custom meeting emails, or live polling, check out our additional options & tips.


Save your meeting

Click the Save Settings button.


Once you've saved your meeting, the meeting editor will close and you'll return to the project's meetings page. You'll receive a green success message if your save is successful.

Congrats! You've just created a meeting!

Viewing your meeting or event

To view your meeting as it will appear to the public, you can click the View Live Site button next to the meeting:

This will take you to the public meeting link (seen in the browser window.)

You can also find your meeting link next to your meeting in the Meetings & Offline tab. Click the drop-down menu (the circle with 3 dots ) to the right of your meeting to see it's meeting URL.


Additional Options & Tips

Creating custom meeting emails

To customize the meeting email, you can use the custom link builder, located in the project's Settings tab. This is also how you can create a custom meeting URL.

Participants can type in the custom URL on their smartphone, tablet, or another device to participate, allowing for live results in real-time during your meeting.

Once you've created a custom link, you will see the custom link as a selectable option in the drop-down menu for your meeting email.

Selecting a comment acceptance format

Once you've selected your preferred comment display, there are a few additional options to choose from. Here's how to choose a format that suits your needs:

Format: Comments only accepted prior to the meeting

If your meeting is primarily for handling internal business or does not have a public comment component, this approach may be best. In this scenario, you'll set your meeting comment window to close at a specific time prior to the meeting. You can accept comments up until 5 minutes before the event starts or as far as 1 hour before the event is set to start.

Remember to close your meeting to comments and leave the speaker queue option disabled under Phone Options, if your conferencing service is set to Video + Phone.

Format: In-meeting recorded comments

If you'd like to accept in-meeting voice comments, but would prefer to screen these comments prior to playback in the meeting, this option is right for you.

In addition to accepting pre-meeting comments, you can choose to accept recorded voice comments by leaving the voicemail system enabled, while again disabling the speaker queue:

From here, you will see new voice comments populate automatically in the phone comments table in your meeting admin view:

Format: Accept live meeting voice comments

Speaker queue functionality is available on the Engage+ Plan

If you're looking to provide participants a way to voice comments in the meeting in real time, using the speaker queue functionality is right for you. You'll need a Video + Phone conferencing service, and to enable the speaker queue in your meeting settings.

Meeting questions and comments will populate in a few different areas. You can find phone comments on your project's Phone tab and written comments on the Comments tab. To locate meeting comments on the Comments tab, search for your meeting title in the lefthand question display.

Calling into the phone line as an admin

Your meeting staff/council members/moderators will call into the meeting line and type in the admin pin (differs from the public meeting code.) You can find the admin pin on the Phone tab of your meeting block. We recommend sharing the conference line admin pin with your staff or meeting presenters/moderators before the meeting.


​Calling into the phone line as a participant

On the day of, the public can call into the meeting phone line and type in the public meeting code. If the speaker queue is enabled, you'll be able to permit them to speak in the meeting.

When participants call the meeting phone line and enter the meeting code, they'll hear the meeting options:


- Press 1 to listen to the meeting
- Press 2 to leave a recorded comment (if enabled on the Phone tab)
- Press 3 to be added to the speaker queue (if enabled in the meeting editor)
- Press star (*) to hear these options again

The phone line management dashboard will appear below the meeting on the publicinput.com live meeting page 30 minutes before the meeting's official start time. You can manage phone participants from the live meeting page (the public-facing site.)

Add Agenda items (optional)

If you'd like to make your meeting's agenda public, you can add individual agenda items to your meeting under the Agenda tab:

If you've also enabled meeting registration, the agenda feature is displayed in a tab beside the comments form, and shows agenda items with the option for participants to register to speak on (if enabled). The item the caller has registered to speak on is displayed in the live speaker queue when they call in, so that you can better manage your phone participants, and get an idea of which topics the public is most interested in.


Learn more about adding agenda items here.

Projector Screen

If you plan to present your meeting in person on a projector, you can choose Open projector screen from the drop-down menu (above.) This will launch the meeting and any associated survey questions so that you and your audience can see live results come in as they participate (if enabled.) You could also share this screen virtually, via screen share.

The Meetings & Offline tab will show all events associated with a project. Here, you can view and modify your event - e.g., invite participants to the event, add meeting collateral, open a sign-in screen, etc.

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