Committing minutes

When to commit

Commit the minutes when you are satisfied they are a complete and accurate record of the meeting. Once committed, the minutes are published as a draft — visible to councillors and the public with a watermark identifying them as draft — and move to the Pending Approval & Adoption stage.

If you need to make corrections after committing, you can un-publish the minutes. See below.

Steps

1. From the minutes page, click Commit Minutes in the toolbar.

2. The Commit Minutes page opens:

   Minute starting page number — pre-filled automatically. The on-screen help notes it "is automatically calculated and should not need to be changed" — only adjust it if your council's minute page numbering requires it.

   User Notes — an optional internal note about this version of the minutes. Not publicly visible.

3. Click Commit and pre-publish.

4. You are returned to the View Meeting page. A banner confirms: "Minutes commit has been queued and will be processed shortly."

What happens when you commit

Committing runs as a background task — it usually completes within a minute or two:

• The minutes are locked — they cannot be edited directly
• The minutes move to Pending Approval & Adoption
• The draft minutes are published to the public portal and the Councillor App
• Watermarked PDFs are generated — they will be available shortly after committing
• A record of the commit is added to the minutes progress trail

The draft watermark remains on the minutes until both Approval and Adoption are complete. See The approval and adoption workflow.

If you need to make corrections

Minutes can be unlocked if corrections are needed. Click Un-Publish Minutes on the minutes page. This returns the minutes to an editable state and removes them from the public portal and Councillor App.

A record of the un-publish is left in the progress trail, maintaining a complete audit history.

Once corrections are made, commit again following the steps above.