Recording a meeting

The recorder is one page you can run the whole meeting from, on your phone or computer. The top shows the recording time, the sound level and the Start / Pause / Resume and Done buttons. Below are the agenda, the quick marks and the list of what you have captured.

01Before you start: consent

Always tell everyone at the start that the meeting is being recorded, and why. Until you start, the recorder shows the reminder "Tell everyone the meeting is being recorded."

1. On the home screen, press Record a meeting, choose the project and the kind of meeting (the last one you used is already chosen).
2. Announce the recording.
3. Press Start recording. The first time, the browser asks to use the microphone. Allow it. The date, time, venue, number, agenda, default attendees and open actions are filled in for you.

Planned the meeting ahead? Open it and press Record this meeting, then Start recording.

02Keep SiteMinutes open

• The screen stays on by itself while you record. Put the phone flat on the table, screen up.
• Keep SiteMinutes open in front. If you lock the phone, switch to another app or the microphone is unplugged, recording pauses. Everything so far is kept: come back and press Resume.
• If you try to close the page while recording, the browser asks first.

03Follow the agenda

The agenda comes from the meeting (or its meeting type). A site meeting uses the JBCC site agenda.

1. When the meeting opens, press Begin.
2. Each time the discussion moves on, tap the next item in the list, or press Next.
3. Now discussing shows the current item with the points to raise, such as "Progress against programme".

Each tap marks the recording, so the minutes fall into the right sections. The heading shows how many items you have covered, for example "6/14 covered".

04Quick marks

There are six quick marks: Action, Decision, CI needed, Snag, Delay / rain and Note.

1. Tap a mark the moment something comes up. It is stamped with the time and the agenda item under discussion.
2. A bar appears where you can add a few words, such as "Paint sample by Friday". Press Save, or Skip. If you leave it, the bar hides itself after a few seconds.
3. To change a label later, tap the mark in the Captured list. To remove a mark, press Remove next to it. Removing a mark never affects the recording.

On a computer, press the keys 1 to 6 for the six marks.

05Pause, resume and finish

• Pause keeps all audio. Resume carries on.
• SiteMinutes saves a new part every 5 minutes. If something goes wrong, you lose at most that part, not the whole meeting.
• Done asks "Stop recording and go to the wrap-up?". Nothing is discarded — all audio stays with the meeting.

There is no delete button: SiteMinutes never throws away a recording.

Minimum length: minutes need at least 30 seconds of recording. If you tap Done sooner, choose Keep recording or Discard. Accidental scraps of a second or two (Resume and straight away Pause) are left out by themselves.

06Where the recording is kept

The recording is kept in this browser, on this device, until the minutes are created. So:

• Create the minutes on the same device and browser you recorded on.
• Don't record in a private (incognito) window, and don't clear the browser's website data before the minutes are ready.
• If you close the page, open the meeting again: it shows "A recording of … is kept in this browser". Press Continue recording or Wrap up & create minutes.

Once the minutes are ready, the copy in the browser is removed. See Your data & storage.

07Create the minutes

After Done, the Wrap up opens at step 1 of 4:

1. People: mark who was there (required: at least one person Present or Online). Add person also adds them to the project's People.
2. Photos: Take or add photos, or Skip.
3. Actions: Add action (what, who, due date if you like), or Skip.
4. Minutes: check the summary and press Create minutes — upload now.

The upload is about 30 MB per hour of recording, so use Wi-Fi if you can, and keep the page open until the upload has finished. The draft minutes appear on the meeting page in about 5–10 minutes.

08Started a meeting in the wrong project?

As long as the minutes have not been written yet (planned, recorded, or the minutes could not be created), you can move the meeting:

1. Open the meeting and press Move to another project at the very bottom, next to Project:.
2. Choose the right project and press Move.

The meeting gets the next number in that project (e.g. 723-SM-04); its old number is simply skipped. Its attendance, actions, photos and the recording go with it. Open actions carried forward from the wrong project are replaced by those of the new project's previous meeting, and the people on the attendance list are added to the new project's People if they are not there yet. The new project needs the same meeting type (e.g. Site meeting) — add it under the project's Meeting types first if it is missing.

Once minutes exist, the meeting can't be moved: delete it and record it again in the right project. In your personal space, meetings move between folders the same way and keep their number.

09Upload a recording made with another app

Recorded on a dictaphone, another phone app or in Teams? On the meeting page:

1. Open Upload a recording.
2. Press Choose audio files… and pick one or more files (m4a, mp3, wav, webm, ogg, flac or mp4 audio).
3. Put them in the right order with the arrows.
4. Press Create minutes from these files.

10Online meetings

In Chrome or Edge on a computer, the recorder can also record the other people on a Teams, Zoom or Google Meet call. See Online meetings.