Committing an agenda

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 Commit Agenda 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 under "The following Items are marked as not-yet-complete". Each has a Clear button (removes the flag without editing) and an Edit button (opens the item).
   Committee members addressed	Any current committee member who is not included in the agenda is flagged
   Non-members addressed	Any councillor addressed by the agenda who is not currently a member of the committee is flagged
   Chair and Vice-Chair	Any mismatch between the committee's recorded Chair/Vice-Chair and those marked on this agenda is flagged

   Warnings are shown for any issues found, with Edit Agenda Recipients and Edit Committee Members buttons alongside the membership warnings. 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. (If the agenda has already been committed — for example after a double-click or a stale browser tab — you will see an Agenda Cannot be Committed page instead of the form.)

What happens when you commit

• The agenda is locked — it can no longer be edited directly
• Item numbers are renumbered and frozen — any gaps left by deleted items are closed up automatically, and annex numbers are assigned
• PDF generation begins asynchronously — a confirmation notes that papers are being generated and will be available shortly. When generation completes, the agenda's status becomes Agenda Published.
• If this agenda is the meeting's live version, it becomes visible in the Councillor App and — if your council publishes online — on your council's public portal at www.councilpapers.com/council/[your-council] and via the CouncilPapers WordPress plugin if your council uses it. The agenda listing becomes visible from the moment you commit; the downloadable papers appear once generation finishes a short time later.

Committing does not switch which version is live. The first agenda created for a meeting is automatically the live version, so committing it makes it visible. A second or later version does not become visible when committed — you must switch to it explicitly. See Publishing and switching versions.

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 — permits changes to body text only, where item titles remain unchanged
• Major Version — permits 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.

If you send a notification email before PDF generation is complete, CouncilPapers will hold the email and keep checking 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. In the rare case that paper generation fails repeatedly, the held email is abandoned rather than sent incomplete, and the failure is recorded for review.