This guide will cover what you'll need to know on the day of the meeting to ensure everything runs smoothly. Need help creating a meeting? View our guide for creating a meeting.

Before you begin, it's important to double-check the meeting details—date, time, location (virtual or physical), and agenda—to ensure everything is accurate and up-to-date. If you haven't done so already, confirm roles and responsibilities within your team, such as who will handle live questions and moderate public comments, and make sure everyone is briefed and ready to go.

The live meeting admin dashboard is where you can find all of your admin controls used during virtual or hybrid meetings. It can be accessed by clicking the View Live Site button next to the meeting on the Meetings & Offline tab:

The meeting page will shift to “Live” mode 30 minutes before the meeting start time. The meeting admin dashboard will not appear until then. At this point:

The live meeting admin dashboard is a centralized control panel that allows admins to manage and monitor virtual meetings in real-time. It provides several tools to facilitate engagement and track participation. Below, we'll break down the four core areas you'll use:

Now that you're familiar with the live meeting dashboard, it's time to start your meeting!

You may choose to start your meeting in your conferencing service (Zoom, Webex, etc.) a few minutes early to ensure all meeting staff/council members/presenters are settled and ready for the meeting before the official start time.

If you haven't done so already, double-check to make sure the meeting in your conferencing service matches the information in the PublicInput meeting editor.

Once you're ready, you can start your live streaming service. There are a couple of ways to start your live streaming:

External resources if you're not yet familiar with starting a live stream from within your conferencing service:

Your live stream is now connected! If you do not have a phone line, you can continue to the managing meeting participants section or ending your meeting if you do not have a public participation option.

If you've opted to use the PublicInput provided YouTube account or have authenticated your own YouTube, you'll be able to start your live stream directly from the live meeting admin dashboard.

Your live stream is now connected! If you have selected a conferencing service with a dial-in option, you'll need to connect the phone line to your conferencing service next.

On the live meeting admin dashboard, the phone line can be connected using the Connect Phone Line to Zoom button located at the top of the Public Conference Line and Live Stream dashboard or clicking the Connect to Zoom button provided by the Meeting Coach.

Once you've clicked either button, you will see your project's phone number appear as a caller. This phone number is your meeting phone line and is what you'll see dialing into your conferencing service (Zoom, Webex, etc.).

Check your conferencing service for the PublicInput phone line. If you have a waiting room, you'll need to admit it to your meeting. Once you've verified that the phone line is in your meeting, you'll want to double-check that the phone line is not muted.

If the phone line is muted, you won't be able to hear speakers in your conferencing service (Zoom, Webex, etc.). To unmute the phone line, head over to your live meeting admin dashboard and click Mute/Unmute in Video Service.

If your meeting is virtual and in-person (hybrid), you can connect an in-person audio device to capture in-person comments. Comments can then be attributed to participants using transcription (Recording must be enabled). To connect an in-person audio device:

-Dial the meeting phone number EX: 855-925-2801

-Enter the four-digit meeting code (if you are not using a pin-free line) EX: 6095

-After the prompt, press * 9 to access the admin menu

-Enter your admin pin (located in the meeting admin interface) EX: 787

After putting in your admin pin, the line will now be in the meeting as an unmuted admin connection. This line can be muted and unmuted using the live admin meeting dashboard by clicking and unclicking the speaker audio microphone under the Public Conference Line and Live Streaming section.

Your phone line and live streaming should now be connected and you're ready to begin your meeting! We'll cover managing meeting participants next, or if you do not have a public participation option enabled, you can skip to ending your meeting.

The phone-only conferencing option will require an admin to dial into the PublicInput phone line and designate their device. This can be done using a phone or other in-person audio device. To connect your device to the meeting phone line, first, locate your meeting phone number, code, and admin pin. This information can be found on your meeting's Phone tab:

When dialing in, you will take the following steps to properly connect your audio device:

-Dial the meeting phone number EX: 855-925-2801

-Enter the four-digit meeting code (if you are not using a pin-free line) EX: 6095

-After the prompt, press * 9 to access the admin menu

-Enter your admin pin (located in the meeting admin interface) EX: 787

Your phone line or other in-person audio device should now be connected and appear in the callers list with an admin badge.

Any callers who join the meeting before the host will be notified that the host has joined the meeting and the waiting room music will end. This is also a good time to double-check that your phone line or other audio device is not on mute.

If you've enabled recording, the Recording Audio icon will flash, indicating the recording has started. If you're not seeing this icon, you may need to check your meeting editor to see if you have recording enabled.

Your callers will appear in the Phone tab for your meeting under the callers list.

Your meeting is live and you're now ready to manage meeting participants. There are a few different ways participants can interact with your meeting.

It's easiest to break down what participation management methods are needed or can be used based on the meeting's format. We'll sort participation methods based on whether it's virtual, in-person, or hybrid. All virtual methods can be used in hybrid meetings.

Callers who have requested to speak will appear with a raised hand showing when they requested to speak in the Public. If you've enabled agenda item registration, the agenda item they wish to speak on will appear in the Agenda Items column beside their raised hand.

You can sort your speaker queue by clicking the Queue column header.

Starting a speaking session

When you are ready to give the caller the floor, click Tap to speak.

You will see a spinning icon and the button will become disabled while the system plays a voice announcement to the participant "It is now your turn to speak. Your microphone is unmuted and you are speaking in the meeting."

Ending a speaking session

Once the participant has completed their comment, you can end their speaking session by clicking End speaking session. This will mute the caller and they will continue hearing the meeting audio.

Whether you've accepted voicemail comments prior to a meeting, or are receiving recorded voice comments during your meeting, you can choose to play them back in the meeting. All voice comments and their accompanying transcripts will appear under the Phone Comments dashboard, including comments received through the speaker queue.

Click the Options button found next to the phone comment you wish to play in the meeting and click Play in...

Recorded phone comments will also now appear as comments in your meeting records under the "Comments" tab on the meeting admin dashboard.

Written comments are any written comments the meeting received in your comment acceptance period.

If you're running a hybrid meeting, the in-person audio line should be the sole source of audio coming into the virtual portion of your meeting. To control this input from your Public Input conference line, toggle the mute/unmute status of the line from your conference participants table.

You can have multiple speakers participate through this line, but when using this approach for a public hearing, we strongly suggest asking participants to state their names at the beginning of any public statement to simplify comment attribution using the transcription tools.

The Projector Screen and Live Polling options allow the presenter to display survey questions to a live audience during a meeting by means of a screen share. This option is great for asking an audience a question live in the moment, giving them time to respond to the question, and then relaying the results in real-time. If you'd like to learn more about how to set up and run a live poll, check out the resource below:

Participants can sign into a meeting using PublicInput's sign-in screen. To launch a meeting sign-in screen, head to the project's Meetings & Offline tab.

Congratulations! Your meeting has concluded. We'll walk through the different ways to end your meeting depending on your conferencing services.

You can end your meeting's live stream and phone line at any time by ending your meeting in your conferencing service (Zoom, Webex, etc.). If your team wishes to stick around post-meeting, you'll want to stop your live stream within your conferencing service. You'll also need to disconnect your phone line so that callers can no longer listen to your meeting. To do this, click End Conference on the live meeting admin dashboard:

It's a good idea to double-check that the phone line is no longer present in your conference meeting. Once your live streaming service and phone line are disconnected, your meeting will no longer be recorded or transcribed.

You can end your meeting's live stream and phone line at any time by ending your meeting in your conferencing service (Zoom, Webex, etc.). If your team wishes to stick around post-meeting, you'll want to stop your live stream within your conferencing service.

To end your meeting, you'll just need to hang up from your phone or other audio device. Hanging up will disconnect callers from the meeting line automatically. Recording and transcription will end the moment you hang up.

Nice work on a job well done! Your meeting has concluded and you're now ready to move on to post-meeting edits and review.

If you're interested in learning more, we've collected additional resources: