Help & Documentation

How to use the activity log to see who did what and when across your council's meetings and agendas.

Review Attendance Data: count how many meetings you held and how many councillor attendances (present, excused, absent) there were over a chosen period, broken down by committee.

The per-councillor attendance summary on a councillor's profile: the present, excused, absent and not-recorded breakdown for the current cycle, and the recent-meetings list.

How to view emails sent to councillors, including per-councillor, per-meeting and per-agenda views.

The council-wide Recent Attendance report: when each councillor was last present, the s.85 six-month-rule flag, and runs of consecutive unexcused absences.

How to browse councillors, committees and meetings in the Councillor App.

How councillors log in and find their way around the Councillor App dashboard.

What a councillor can see and do once inside a meeting - the agenda, minutes, downloads, and tags.

How a councillor sees and tracks the matters they have been allocated to action following meetings - the My Actions view.

How to search council papers from the Councillor App, including filters and exact phrase matching.

What arrives pre-configured when your council is set up, and what you will need to add before your first meeting.

What to expect when you log in for the first time, where everything is, and how to orient yourself.

The whole journey from your first login to running your first meeting — what is already done for you, what you need to add, and what is optional.

A step-by-step checklist for setting up your council: adding councillors, committees, default content and your first meeting.

What you'll see when you log into CouncilAdmin - the Getting Started panel for a new council, and the full Dashboard once meetings are underway.

Why agendas are versioned, what Commit means, and how to create a new version when you need to make changes after committing.

What a committee is in CouncilPapers, what the adopting committee designation means, and why every council must have one.

What a council cycle is, why it is required, and how to create and manage cycles for your council.

How CouncilPapers notifies councillors when an agenda is published, and how to configure notification preferences for each councillor.

How CouncilPapers structures a meeting, what an agenda is, and why items are the fundamental unit of both agendas and minutes.

How minutes move from first draft through to fully published, including the difference between Approval and Adoption.

Ready-made agenda templates based on NALC and One Voice Wales guidance, and the two ways to use them - as default committee content or for a single meeting.

How planning applications move from the planning authority's website into CouncilPapers, what an import and a purpose are, and how they relate to agenda items.

What each of the four rich text editor toolbars (Basic, Introduction, Agenda, Minutes) can do, and what every icon means.

What tags are, how they connect agenda items across meetings, and why they are useful for search and for councillors tracking topics over time.

What the Item Library is, the three ways to use it, and how it differs from Default Meeting Content and Model Agenda Templates.

How to copy an agenda item directly from an earlier, committed agenda into the meeting you're currently building.

Step-by-step instructions for saving, editing, managing, and inserting Item Library entries, including placeholder tokens and the Move option.

How to view and change the committee designated as responsible for adopting minutes on behalf of the full council.

How to add and remove councillors from a committee, and how to set the Chair and Vice-Chair.

Step-by-step guide to creating a new committee, including name, type, venue and default introduction.

How to set the default agenda items that appear automatically when a new meeting agenda is created from default content.

How to decide whether a new group needs its own committee in CouncilPapers, and the implications of that choice.

How to add a new councillor to your council, including their details and notification preferences.

How to add a deputy clerk or other staff member, and how staff accounts differ from councillor accounts.

How to control which councillor details are published on your council's public portal.

How to update a councillor's personal details, ward, party, photo and public description.

How to remove a councillor from the council when they leave, and how to reinstate them if needed.

How to set up approval and adoption of minutes on a future agenda, and how to record the outcome in the minutes.

How to commit minutes, what happens when you do, and how to un-publish them if corrections are needed.

How to raise, allocate and track matters requiring action arising from a meeting - the NALC action sheet - from the minutes, on the council-wide Action Sheet, and in each councillor's My Actions view.

How to record which councillors were present, absent or sent apologies for a meeting.

How to start and write minutes for a meeting, including recording attendance, writing minute text, and using the Action style for resolutions.

How to upload supporting papers and annexes to agenda items.

How to import planning applications from your planning authority's website, set their purpose, and add them to an agenda as child items.

How to create, populate and prepare an agenda for committing, including adding items, sub-items, papers and special content.

How to use the calendar view, generate the meeting year planner PDF, and subscribe to the iCal feed.

How to cancel a meeting whose agenda has already been published - record attendance, then follow the cancellation routine so the minute and the records are correct.

The three ways to deal with a meeting that is no longer going ahead - delete it, move its date, or cancel it - and when to use each.

How to commit an agenda, what preflight checks are run, what happens when you do, and what to check beforehand.

How to clone a committed agenda to create a minor or major version, and when to choose each.

How to create a new meeting, set the date, time and venue, and assign it to a committee.

The statutory three clear working days rule, how CouncilPapers calculates your deadline, and what the status indicators mean.

How to make a committed agenda version live using the Change Active Agenda button, and how to switch between versions.

Use the Meeting Scheduler to lay out a whole year of meetings at once - set a day and time, drop meetings onto weeks, repeat a series, then commit them all together.

What is indexed by search, what is excluded, and how confidential items are handled.

Search syntax, filters, and exact phrase matching.

How to update your council's contact details, address, public description, and logos.

How to configure email notification preferences for councillors.

How to configure your council's bank holiday region and minimum clear working days setting.

How to add and edit the venues used for council meetings.

Website Integration: turning on instant (webhook) updates so your WordPress site is told the moment you change a meeting, agenda, committee or councillor, and managing the connected websites.

The CouncilPapers WordPress plugin: putting your live meetings, agendas, minutes, committees and councillors on your council's own WordPress website, how to install it, and how to show the content on your pages.

Steps to diagnose and fix a councillor who is not receiving agenda notification emails.

What to do if you need to change an agenda after committing.

Diagnosing and fixing the two most common problems clerks hit when pasting tables from Excel into agenda or minute text.

How to check which version is currently active and switch to the correct one.