TOPIC:

Currently, FreeToastHost considers a "past meeting" to be one for which the meeting date is in the past... prior to today's date.

This has some advantages and some disadvantages. While the Toastmaster may be able to make some changes to the agenda after the meeting, the agenda never really becomes locked for changes by members until the following day.

Additionally, this affects how role tallies are calculated, when attendance tracking switches over to "edit only", and when you are able to mark an agenda as "reconciled".

This "past meeting logic" factors into a *lot* of how the FreeToastHost system works. There have been some past and present discussions that we should change how we determine what a "past meeting" is.

For example, perhaps we base it on the current time vs the start time of the meeting. Or, perhaps we base it on the current time vs the end time of the meeting. I have now figured out how to work the complex calculations for either of these cases. (Hence, that is the reason for this post.)

Personally, I tend to prefer basing it on the end time of the meeting since the agenda would not be locked for changes until the end of the meeting. However, the agenda would not be able to marked as reconciled until the meeting had concluded... perhaps this is desirable?

So, I would like to get some feedback... What criteria should we use to determine whether a meeting is in past?

It would help us comment if you list out everything that "past meeting" affects.

- it affects which agenda shows up by default when you go to the Meeting Agendas page, right? (for this I would strongly prefer it change after the meeting is over in case people want to view the agenda while the meeting is in progress)

- it affects when the "Reconciled" checkbox becomes available (I think it should be allowed slightly before the meeting begins because people fill empty roles and do replacements right before the meeting begins. I don't feel as strongly about this though and don't care too much if it becomes available directly after the end of the meeting)

- it affects when the agenda becomes locked for changes by members excluding Toastmaster/VPE (I prefer it be locked for members when the meeting begins. Why should a member be allowed to change it after the meeting begins? I don't care too much about this though. After the meeting is also fine. Make sure you don't mess up the timezones/DST for this one though)

- What else?

Considering these are different cases, I feel they don't all need to use the same "past meeting" time. They are different use cases. If that's too much work for you though, then I don't mind if you just do it at the end of the meeting (the first bullet point does it for me).

I think it is fine as it is, but if you were to change it, I would change it to the end of the meeting.

HI STEVE (we miss seeing you!)

I am not sure what the implications are of changing the day/time and what locked means? But I think you mean what time is the agenda locked for people to sign up for roles? correct? Is so the next day or at midnight of the day makes sense. This seems to make sense if a club uses an online agenda during a meeting. Maybe some clubs are real tech oriented. I assume that the admin is not limited to updating the agenda to reflect the actual attendance and meeting roles (as we all know last minute changes happen). I am planning on updating several months of agendas. I would like to think I can still do that... that is, the agendas are not locked to the admin.

I made a few changes to our template agenda. Love for you to take a look at it and give your feedback. We are still not getting anyone (but me) to use the online intro or print their evals. I added instructions to the speakers. I also added an attendance log. I thought this would be good; will keep one master copy of the agendas in a binder and update the online agendas with attendance as well. I need to figure out how to add the names of all members to that section (the drop down).

I have been encouraging other clubs to use the system and offered to help them set it up.

Oh and I have some ideas for D52 if they ever do implement some of fth on the d52 website. One feature would be a quick eval print out... be great source for members and clubs that are not using the fth agendas or fth at all.

Thank you Steve

My preference would be at the end of the day. We often change meeting roles around at the start of our meeting, and once I get back to my desk, as VPE I go in and update the agenda based on who actually filled the roles. I'd rather they didn't all say reconciled.

If you want anyone to look at your site, you need to place your club number in your signature. We are not mind readers, but volunteers... :0)

Hello Steve;

I think that a meeting becomes a past meeting at midnight after the last meeting. That will give members time to update their current agendas after their meeting.

lgtm wrote:

It would help us comment if you list out everything that "past meeting" affects.

This is a good point. Let me list everything I can think of... 1st 3 are your points (thx):

1. it affects which agenda shows up by default when you go to the Meeting Agendas page (you are correct)
2. it affects when the "Reconciled" checkbox becomes available (correct again)
3. it affects when the agenda becomes locked for changes by members excluding VPE/Admin
4. it affects how role tallies are calculated, since those include a past / future role count
5. it affects whether or not role signup buttons are displayed.
6. it affects whether or not role confirmation controls are displayed
7. it affects which "past" roles are shown in role reports
8. it affects which "future" roles are shown in role signup sheets
9. it affects how role change notifications are done, since those are only done for future meetings (not "past")
10. it affects how attendance is completed ... e.g whether the attendance drop down is shown on the signup screen and what the "master attendance" record looks like.
11. it affects what meetings are shown in the agenda selection drop-down. (used for navigation)

(there may be more...)

Maybe we *do* use more than one criteria for what a "past meeting" is. I just prefer consistency, whenever possible.

This is likely an impractical suggestion and overly complicates configuration, but did you consider making it a setup option? "When do you want your meetings to become 'past'? Midnight on the day of / at ending time / at start time. I obviously have no idea how the code looks but if it's just one or two variables holding date/time for when meeting is considered ended ...

As for our club, it's fine as it is but if it changes, then end-of-meeting would likely work well for us.

Thanks for asking and for all you do!

Jim Kloss
Delaware County, Pennsylvania Toastmasters #3204
3204.toastmastersclubs.org

I'm not sure how you would obtain "end of meeting" time except by examining the last agenda item and the time tag associated with it. I know from experience that last agenda item time tag is frequently not the same as the actual end of meeting (for many reasons, both "good" and "bad").

Using "start of meeting" would, as several posters noted, would prevent dynamic agenda changes by those clubs that directly access the FTH online agenda during their meetings. We don't want to mess up virtual clubs and such.

Using "midnight" of the meeting day is effectively the same as the current "next day" logic, except for night owl individuals. For the rest of us, we're long asleep by the time midnight rolls around.

How about estimating "time at which meeting is PAST" as "start time" plus a delta? All clubs, with which I'm familiar, meet for 1-2 hours. Are there any clubs that routinely meet for 3 hours? 4 hours? longer? I suspect that a delta of 4 hours would be more than sufficient. And I suspect that a delta of 2 hours would work for the vast majority of clubs and be inaccurate for only a handful, if any.

Hey... here's a thought... Maybe the delta could be a configurable quantity, initially defaulted to, say, 6 hours, but each club could change the delta to reflect their club's normal meeting duration???

Sue Worden DTM
Club 311 et.al.

I am a brand new officer but seem to be the only member digging into online tools and management. My opinion is that a "Past meeting" should have an "end time" at the END of the Meeting.

Hey, everyone, thanks for the input.

Just a note: I do not need any help doing the calculation, per se. I can determine the meeting start time, I can determine the meeting end time, and all the related calculations. I can do the coding... I got that handled.

My question is actually simpler... I am just interested in people's opinion about what point in time we should be using as the point where we say the meeting is now "in the past". Historically, we have said that a meeting is in the past if it occurred on the prior day. However, this means that some activities related to a meeting cannot currently be completed until the following day, such as marking an agenda as reconciled. Also this, affects all the activities I mention above, as well.

The other possibilities that I see are that we could say a "past meeting" is a meeting whose start time is in the past OR we could say that a "past meeting" is one whose end time is in the past. Doing the time calcs would be more involved than a simple date calc, but hey, I can do the calcs... That is why I am doing the code development.

END OF DAY would be better, in my opinion, since everyone works and doesn't seem to get online until night time.

Hmmm... not a lot of agreement here.

If I did a setting as one user mentioned, I think it would lead to inconsistency and confusion.

I could use a different "time point" for different activities, but that also leads to inconsistency and confusion.

Is the issue not a lot simpler than it seems? Is it not just "when should the Reconciled check box become visible".

Marking an agenda as reconciled doesn't affect the ability of the VPE/responsible officer to update the actual agenda.

If the reconcile check box is available on all agendas (past, current and future), and someone marks a future agenda as reconciled, could we have warning that this is a future agenda and is likely to be changed, but allow them to do it anyway. It is their problem if they change it later.
Similarly the current message reminding the user that an agenda is now historical would need to be shown only for past agendas

I'm assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that the agenda is still only locked to members at midnight, and that is not linked to whether the reconcile box is checked or not.

During every meeting I update the agenda to reflect who filled each role. Once I’m done, I would like to be able to check the reconcile box. Thus the box needs to be available. Once all the roles are filled and the meeting is underway, people don’t suddenly change their minds and swap with another person. If I don’t check the reconciled box, all of the role reports still work. When I do check it, the agenda becomes locked to members incentivizing the admin or VPE to do this. For future role reports, it doesn’t matter whether the box appears or not.

Hard to wrap my head around all of the possibilities. Bottom line: always available.

Allow each club to determine what works best for them, with respect to when a meeting becomes a "past meeting". Make it a club-specific parameter, maybe a "delta" from the meeting start time, which each club can configure to meet that club's needs and can reconfigure, when the club's needs change, and allowing "delta" to be pretty much any value, even negative values. (That's just the first approach that popped into my head. I'm sure there are others.)

Those who want "past meeting" to be when the meeting starts could set "delta" to 0 hours 0 minutes.

Those who want the "past meeting" to be midnight could... examples:
meetings start at 10:30 AM, set "delta" to 13 hours 30 minutes
meetings start at Noon, set "delta" set to 12 hours 0 minutes
meetings start at 7:00 PM, set "delta" to 5 hours 0 minutes

Those who want "past meeting" to be when a typical meeting ends would set "delta" to, say, 1 hour 30 minutes.

Those who want to "lock down" their agendas BEFORE their meetings start could set "delta" to a negative value, say, -2 hours 0 minutes --- or even -24 hours 0 minutes if they want to "lock down" agendas one day in advance.

Yes, an approach like this would result in inconsistency, from club to club, in "when a meeting becomes a past meeting". But, each club IS different, as reflected by the diversity of opinions expressed on this topic.

On the other hand, I do understand that it might be awkward or difficult to implement a club-specific parameterized solution, depending on the existing software architecture. I don't know the slightest thing about the guts of FTH, so if you awesome volunteers say it's not a reasonably feasible approach, the rest of us just have to accept that.

As far as the potential for confusion that a parameterized solution could cause, I hear you. On the other hand, despite years of administering club websites, I freely admit that I remain befuddled by certain FTH features. There's plenty of confusing features already. What's one more?

Sue Worden DTM
Club 311 et.al.

If you offer options so each club can customize, please make one of them the default. Any one of them. Most of us will take what you give, gladly, and just want things to be as simple as possible.

John Williams, Admin/VPE
Hi-Noon Toastmasters Club 3963

I vote for using the meeting end time. Also a "shout-out" to the FreeToastHost team for all of their hard work with maintaining our websites! You all do a great job and we very much appreciate everything you do to make our lives easier!

Herman Koester, DTM
Secretary
St. Clair Toastmasters, Club 496

I agree with Pam. Basically, let us reconcile regardless of whether the meeting has ended. It's basically a notation and doesn't prevent future changes anyway (as that's a different time function).

Quick question: what does reconciling a meeting do? It sounds, from the discussion, that after reconciling, changes can still be made - so what is the point of reconciling?

As for when a meeting becomes a "past meeting," I think it should be the end time of the meeting. My club does not use the online agenda during meetings, but the VP-Ed updates attendance and roles after the meeting, usually within a two-hour window. I could go along with a midnight cutoff as well, so that the day's meeting remains the default until updated and reconciled.

I feel like I am just learning how to work Toast Host effectively. I am not looking to see any major changes to the agenda, though there are some ways that some minor tweaking could enhance the experience for the majority, if not all.

There are some things that would be awesome to add to web page design capability as well, however that is not this thread

We are very appreciative of all that you guys do. Hopefully it is not a thankless job as we are enormously grateful and appreciative of your sacrifice of time, talent, and effort on behalf of all of us.

1. it affects which agenda shows up by default when you go to the Meeting Agendas page (you are correct)
We like having access to all agendas as they are now (past current and future agendas)[/color]

2. it affects when the "Reconciled" checkbox becomes available (correct again)
The reconciled box makes sense to appear end of day after the meeting ends. Sometimes we are unable to get back online after filling roles at the meeting until the next day. So 11pm day after meeting makes better sense to me for this portion

3. it affects when the agenda becomes locked for changes by members excluding VPE/Admin
It should be locked to members for changes 2 hours before the meeting. This gives an Officer time to print the agenda before a meeting without surprise changes entered after the fact. However still available to admin and Officers to edit

4. it affects how role tallies are calculated, since those include a past / future role count
not sure how they are tallied now, however if tallies are calculated at 11pm day after meeting, that gives time for Officer to install any changes that happened at meeting and then you would have your consistency as well that serve the time frame of the majority, if not all edits

5. it affects whether or not role signup buttons are displayed.
Again, role signup should be available to members until 2 hours before the meeting. They should be available to Admin and Officers until 11pm the day after the meeting - again with that consistency

6. it affects whether or not role confirmation controls are displayed
The role confirmation displays are fine the way they are now. However, if you are looking for consistency - make it 11pm the day after the meeting as well. Members wouldn't have access to agenda changes then anyway and the Officer updating agenda can click any corrected or filled in agenda spots and click confirmed as well - thus updating attendance tallies properly

7. it affects which "past" roles are shown in role reports
Listing past roles in reports seems more thorough to me. However, if this impacts the previous addressed questions too hugely there may need to be an option to include or disclude past reports that is a Club option to choose when printing reports - that way the code is there for the choosing for each Club preference when printing reports.

8. it affects which "future" roles are shown in role signup sheets
The way this is currently set up is perfect. I like being able to set up roles and agendas in advance and alter them based on need for that particular meeting
9. it affects how role change notifications are done, since those are only done for future meetings (not "past")
not sure how role notifications are done now, however it makes sense to make notifications for future meetings in respect to that 11pm time the day after the current meeting (if that makes sense)

10. it affects how attendance is completed ... e.g whether the attendance drop down is shown on the signup screen and what the "master attendance" record looks like.
These should both match by 11pm the day after the meeting, with an option to revise..with a pop up that says that entries made before 11pm are final and any changes will affect attendance Master sheet and it affects attendance stats - if changing after the 11pm deadline day after meeting

11. it affects what meetings are shown in the agenda selection drop-down. (used for navigation)
I like this the way it is with a couple of exceptions - there should be two changes made to include Guest Speaker and ability to enter their name as a Guest Speaker on Agenda and ability to add visiting Toastmaster and their name. So on drop down menu it should have option to add to agenda something that says "Guest speaker - Jane Doe" or "visiting Toastmaster - John Doe" When looking back at past agendas and historical data we have no way of seeing who visited or who was a guest speaker and this is an imperative piece of tracking for our Club

If you get a chance to check out our Webpages that would be awesome 6556139.toastmastersclubs.org/

I am Secretary and website administrator for several clubs. All but one of my clubs are community clubs that meet on weeknights. I go straight to a club meeting most evenings after work. When I get home after the meeting, which is generally between 8:30 PM and 9:00 PM, I login to that club's website, update the floater message, update the home page if the club announces the "next meeting" on the home page, update that evening's meeting agenda to reflect actual speeches and roles, record actual attendances, record visitor and new member information, and informally record as a Meeting Note any club business that was conducted. I would like to be able to do all of this plus reconcile the agenda as soon as I get back home.

I find that when I do not do these updates immediately upon returning home after a meeting, I'm likely to be busy on subsequent nights with other club meetings and their updates (or other activities), and I get behind. Often I forget to go back and "reconcile" the attendance. What would work best for me is to be able to "reconcile" an agenda immediately after the meeting is scheduled to end.

Different people develop different routines for all these "update" tasks. Different clubs have different needs.

I suggested before defining a parameter that each club could configure to meet their needs as to when that club wants a meeting to become a "past meeting". But maybe there's a simpler solution that would be less confusing. For example, how about a short menu of options that seem to be popular among those who have responded here? Include a little question mark popup that briefly lists the things affected by the "past meeting" time. I think the following options would cover most (maybe all?) of the bases:

A club meeting becomes a "past meeting" (select one):
- One hour before the meeting starts ,,, or make it two hours if preferred
- When the meeting starts
- When the meeting ends
- The day after the meeting (at Midnight) (DEFAULT)

Did I forget one of the basic options that has been discussed so far?

Sue Worden DTM
Club 311 et.al.

When i have been VPE or Secretary responsible for updating what actually happened and reconciling the meeting agendas, i typically like to do it immediately after the meeting whenever possible. It would be great in my situation to have the meeting end time be the "past meeting" cutoff. I have often updated the agenda, then forgotten to go back the following day to mark it as "reconciled."

Thanks for even considering making this an option!

Thanks to everyone who posted their input here. I had decided to take a short pause on further posts to this thread to allow you all to add your voices.

My conclusion is that there is not much agreement on this... Generally speaking, my thinking after reading this is to focus on 3 areas:

1. When the agenda gets locked for edits... including showing the role sign-up buttons, confirmation buttons, etc. This is something that has been brought up a number of times in the past. My thinking is that I should probably just provide a new option to allow setting a number of hours prior to a meeting start time to lock an agenda, with the default being zero hours. I do not think members should be editing an agenda after the meeting start at all. After that point, it should be up to the VPE or Toastmaster (?) to make those changes.

2. When the agenda can be marked as reconciled. I am still inclined to make this the end time of the meeting. If you want to reconcile the agenda during the meeting, that is fine, you just would not be able to mark the agenda as reconciled until the end of the meeting. Using the end time of the meeting does not prevent you from marking the agenda as reconciled the next day, it just seems to me like the natural time to be able to mark it would be the end of the meeting.

3. Everything else, basically role reports, sign-up sheets, and attendance. From my perspective, it should be either the meeting end time or the meeting date (past is prior day). If you are tracking actual attendance at a meeting that has completed, it seems to me you would want to be able to do that right after the meeting finishes... not the next day.