CouncilPapers.

Before you commit

Committing an agenda is irreversible. Once committed, the agenda cannot be edited directly — if changes are needed afterwards, you must create a new version. See Creating a new version of an agenda.

Before clicking Commit Agenda, it is worth checking:

• All agenda items are complete — any items marked as incomplete will be flagged in the preflight checks
• Papers and annexes have been uploaded and associated with the correct items via Manage Files
• The agenda introduction text is correct
• The councillor attendee list is correct

How to commit

1. From the agenda building page, click Commit Agenda in the toolbar.

2. The Preflight Checks page is displayed. CouncilPapers runs the following checks automatically:

   Check	What it looks for
   Incomplete items	Any items flagged as Mark as Incomplete are listed with a warning
   Committee members addressed	All current committee members should appear in the agenda header
   Non-members addressed	Any councillors listed in the header who are not committee members are flagged
   Chair and Vice-Chair	Checks that the Chair and Vice-Chair designations are correct

   Warnings are shown for any issues found. You can still proceed with committing — the checks are advisory, not blocking.

3. Review the Publication Date field. This defaults to today's date. Adjust it if the agenda was published on a different date — for example, if you are recording a publication that happened earlier.

4. Click Commit Agenda to proceed. There is no further confirmation step — the commit happens immediately.

What happens when you commit

Several things happen simultaneously when an agenda is committed:

• The agenda is locked — it can no longer be edited directly
• Item numbers are renumbered — any gaps left by deleted items are closed up automatically
• The agenda is published to the Councillor App immediately
• The agenda is published to your council's public portal (if your council's publication setting is enabled) at councilpapers.com/council/[your-council]
• If your council uses the CouncilPapers WordPress plugin, the agenda is published there too
• PDF generation begins asynchronously — the Email Councillors page shows a banner confirming papers are being generated. Any notification email will be held until generation is complete before sending.

After committing

You are redirected automatically to the Email Agenda to Councillors page, where you can notify councillors and staff that the agenda has been published.

Even if you do not want to send an email immediately, you must pass through this page — use Proceed without Emailing to move on without sending a notification.

See Councillor email and notification options for full details of the notification options.

If you need to make changes after committing

Because the agenda is locked after committing, any changes require creating a new version. The type of version you create depends on what needs to change:

• Minor Version — permit changes to body text only, where item titles remain unchanged
• Major Version — permit changes to item titles, or adding or removing items

See Creating a new version of an agenda.

A note on PDF generation

PDFs are generated in the background after committing. A banner on the Email Councillors page confirms that generation is underway.

If you click Send Email before PDF generation is complete, CouncilPapers will wait until the papers are ready before sending — councillors will not receive a notification with missing attachments. You do not need to wait or check back manually.