Finding software can be overwhelming. Software Advice has helped hundreds of board managers find the right software to efficiently plan, support and hold effective corporate board meetings
Showing 1-20 of 23 products
Diligent Boards is a content management solution for creating, distributing and collaborating on board meeting materials. Designed for small and large businesses, Diligent Boards aids in creating digital materials to support any organization... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
OnBoard is a cloud-based board meeting management solution designed for board member collaboration before, during and after meetings. Users can compile and coauthor board books and materials. Updates to materials save automatically... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Directorpoint is a cloud-based solution designed for boards of directors and executive teams. It is suitable for small, midsize and large organizations, nonprofits and charities. Directorpoint helps users manage committees, agendas,... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Boardbookit is a cloud-based board management platform. It caters to businesses of all sizes. It includes features for both board administrators and members. Boardbookit’s administrator features allow users to schedule meetings,... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
BoardEffect is a cloud-based board portal and management solution for businesses of all sizes. It caters to all industries including hospitals, health care systems, nonprofits, foundations, educational institutions and government entities.... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Boardable is a cloud-based board management solution for small to midsize nonprofit organizations. Key features include collaboration, document management, scheduling and member input. Boardable enables users to customize team structures... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
BoardDocs is cloud-based board management software for small and midsize municipalities, schools and governments. Primary features include meeting agenda management, policy management, event management, advanced search, document management... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Simbli Board Meeting Management
Simbli Board Meeting Management is a cloud-based collaboration tool, which allows users to manage meetings, planning sessions, board policy and board performance evaluations. Users can create various meeting types and manage them... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
emPower Digital Boardroom Platform
emPower Digital Boardroom Platform is a SaaS platform that provides solutions for conducting well organized and agenda-based boardroom meetings. Catering to large and medium-sized enterprises with corporate style hierarchy, emPower... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Convene is a cloud-based collaboration and board meeting platform suitable for large and midsize organizations across all industries. Key features include a drag-and-drop interface, meeting scheduling and voting, document distribution... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Designed by Loomion, Twelve Directors’ Portal is a cloud-based board portal solution for secure document exchange for directors and executive management. The application caters to large scale and medium scale corporate hierarchy... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Quip is a cloud-based project management and task collaboration solution that help users work together and communicate without emails. Users can create and edit spreadsheets, documents and checklists in the system, and team members... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Huddle is a cloud-based project management solution that help project teams in businesses across various industry verticals to manage different components of projects and collaborate with other team members. Key features include file... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
BoardPro is a cloud-based board management platform to manage board workflows, daily enterprise functions and documentation. It caters to nonprofits and small to midsize enterprises. Features include meeting management, agenda management,... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
eSCRIBE is a cloud-based meeting and agenda management tool. It is built to help governmental, educational and health care institutions maintain records and handle all stages of the meeting lifecycle. The product offers features that... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
BoardPaq is cloud-based board management software for small and midsize organizations. It caters to businesses across a wide variety of industries. Primary features include meeting management, news announcements, polls, task management,... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
BoardMax is a cloud-based meeting platform that helps organizations’ boards and staff members manage all member profiles, meeting minutes and boardroom materials in a centralized repository. It mainly targets nonprofit organizations,... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
ContractZen is a cloud-based solution that offers metadata-driven contract and meeting management, e-signature and virtual data rooms (VDR). Users can upload and store contracts and other documents by emailing attached documents to... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Board Intelligence is a cloud-based platform built to help users develop and share ideas in the context of board management. It caters to listed, public-owned and private clients. Board Intelligence features a report writing toolkit,... Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
IntelligenceBank offers a comprehensive approach to Content Management suitable for many companies. These web-based solutions are designed to be easy to use, and a free trial allows users to test drive the system. Read more
Platforms: MacWinLinux
Deployments: Cloud, On premise
Business Size:
Corporate board management is a complicated, time-sensitive process with very high stakes. It requires scheduling many (often geographically separated) parties, and demands meticulous communication and record keeping. In addition, companies and their boards can face serious consequences for any omissions or oversights.
Thankfully, there's board management software. It makes life easier for the managers of boards of directors, helping ensure efficient, organized and timely board management. But for it to do any of that, it needs to be selected with care and matched well to your company and your board's specific requirements.
This guide will help you more carefully select board management software. In it, we discuss:
What Is Board Management Software?
Common Features of Board Management Software
Key Considerations
Benefits and Potential Issues
Market Trends to Understand
What Is Board Management Software?
Board management software is a software platform used to help with all aspects of corporate board management and governance. From scheduling meetings to sharing documents and minutes, board management software is designed to streamline processes, prevent oversights and ensure best practices are followed.
Board management software is also commonly referred to and marketed as board portal software. Functionally speaking, there is no clear distinction. Board management platforms usually contain all the applications to also function as board portals and vice versa. Buyers should focus on each individual product's specific applications and not get sidetracked by terminology.
Common Features of Board Management Software
The following table shows common applications and tools included with board management and board portal software. Keep in mind these are just descriptions and that vendors may use different terms to describe similar or identical functions.
| Scheduling tools | Enable board managers to coordinate and schedule board meetings with board members, often with visual aids like calendars and simple automation tools that, for example, send and receive emails about proposed meeting times. |
| Committee management | Facilitates organization and communication with various board committees, like audit committees, executive committees or committees associated with mergers and acquisitions. |
| Board member directory | Provides a listing of all board and committee members with accompanying contact, position and biographical information. It is sometimes integrated with scheduling tools to easily determine availability and travel preferences. |
| Virtual rooms | Virtual rooms are used to hold online meetings and discussions. They can be used to hold board or committee meetings and they offer controls for access and permissions. |
| Document management | Allows for the uploading and selective sharing of documents used during, before or after board meetings. Provides greater security than many commonly used alternatives, such as sharing documents by email. |
| Collaboration tools | These tools let stakeholders work together on documents and proposals, featuring tools like commenting, task assignment, change tracking and document version histories. |
| Mobile compatibility | Board management software offering mobile compatibility is designed to be used, either with full or partial functionality, from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. |
| Feedback collection | Provides tools to help automate the process of feedback solicitation and compilation. This helps improve the user experience for board and committee members. |
| Security features | Security features such as document and communications encryption, secure document storage and virtual data rooms help ensure privacy, IT security and compliance with various governmental regulations. |
| Guest management | Allows for creation and management of guest accounts to extend various rights and access privileges to non-members, auditors and others on a temporary or permanent basis. |
Key Considerations
- Start with a list of needed features
Board management and board portal software is typically purchased as a standalone product as opposed to being part of a larger integrated suite. However, the applications and tools included in any particular solution can vary quite a bit. Buyers are encouraged to make a list of “must-have", “nice-to-have" and “not needed" features before beginning their search. - User experience should be a central consideration
The user experience of board and committee participants should be considered and weighed prior to making a purchase decision. Companies that have historically used more traditional methods (mail, email, phone calls) to arrange board meetings need to ensure that any new system won't “rock the boat" too much. The move to digital tools is often welcomed with open arms, but it's wise to consider any potential culture clashes prior to committing to a new system. - Consider how software fits into your overall corporate strategies and goals
Implementing a new board portal or board management system can be part of a company's strategic digital transformation. When stakeholders are asked for input during the research and product selection stages and understand that the new software is part of a larger corporate strategy, then buy-in is easier to obtain and the process of transitioning to the new system will go more smoothly.
Benefits and Potential Issues
Speaking generally, efficiency is the primary benefit of board management software. But that efficiency takes many different forms. Your search for board management software should include an assessment of which efficiencies are most needed and which would be most impactful. For example,
- If your board meetings require a lot of document collaboration, then you'll find the best ROI with board management solutions that support collaborative workflows.
Board members can leave comments and suggestions on PDFs with BoardPaq's collaboration tools - If scheduling of meetings is your most time-consuming task, then solutions with simple, visual calendar tools will be most beneficial.
Simple calendar tool provided by Board Management software - If your company's board meetings are cyclical, then board management solutions with meeting templates can be used to save time with meeting follow-ups and other related tasks.
Examples of tools that help with cyclical board meetings in Board Effect.
