More and more, Housing associations are turning to digital solutions to help with governance processes and streamline communication. With meetings occurring online and organisations going paperless, software has developed to aid in ensuring business as usual.
For many Housing associations, Board management software has become a crucial part of their operations. Board portals are a useful tool to ensure that the Board runs efficiently and that deadlines, goals and meetings are managed appropriately.
With so many Board portals on the market, it can be hard to know if you’ve got the best deal going for your organisation. We’re going to run through the benefits of using Convene, what our Housing customers say about us, and why you should consider making the switch to our smart, simple and secure software.
Why we use Board Portals
Board portals enable digital Board meetings, and their software facilitates a secured environment for sharing confidential documents and information.
They play a major role in supporting the information sharing, decision making, risk management and accountability that comes with good corporate governance. They provide a single platform for managing board and committee meetings, risk, decision making and other governance-related activities.
The main goal of a Board portal is to make meetings easier for everyone involved. With an all-in-one tool, you can streamline the entire process from start to finish. Easily schedule meetings, create the agenda and send out papers within a single application.
A Board portal promotes a culture of transparency and accountability across your business. As every action is monitored and tracked, you can make sure that nothing goes unnoticed or forgotten. In the 21st century, there is no reason your administrators should be scrambling to create an audit trail.
Whichever sector you are working in, good governance practices will increase your professionalism. It will also have a practical impact on the ability of your Board to make decisions and have dynamic discussions. Through a single, centralised meeting platform, you can maximise the potential of your organisation.
Why use Convene?
Intuitive Technology and Ease of Use
Board portals are designed to streamline the Board meeting process, making it easier for your organisation to structure and run meetings.
As one of the leading accessible Board portals, Convene is designed to be easy-to-use for everyone. We recognise how important it is for your team to stay on the same page – no matter how confident they are with technology. Our software has an intuitive interface with all the features you need for effective and accessible meetings.
With an all-in-one tool, you can streamline the entire process from start to finish. Easily schedule meetings, create the agenda and send out papers within a single application.
Then, during the meeting you can take advantage of a wide range of tools. An effective Board portal like Convene will enhance communication on any device. The range of useful features like shared annotations, laser pointer and live voting will improve the flow of your meetings.
Even after the meeting, you can continue to benefit from a Board portal. Automatic reports and meeting minutes can reduce the workload for your team. You can even clone past meeting templates to create a regular schedule in the future.
Value
Every organisation in the world needs to make decisions about cost and functionality. Sometimes, the decision is easier than others. A Board Portal can totally transform your business practices which may make it difficult to know what to expect.
In the long-term, a Board Portal can save money on administrative costs. It’s not just about increasing the amount of work that gets done, but also improving the quality of that work.
Convene is the perfect midpoint of functionality and cost. The comprehensive software was conceived to streamline communication and improve your business meetings. From the agenda to the audit, you can make sure your team is all on the same page.
Despite the low price, you can still find numerous helpful features to support your meetings. With meeting tools such as shared annotations, instant voting and Action Items, you can ensure everyone is at the same place.
Security
When you move to a secure solution like Convene, everything is documented. The automated voting information and attendance registers make audit trails simple. Tracking and recording the actions of users, particularly concerning sensitive information, means they cannot misuse this data.
Even in the most secure systems, data breaches are a possibility. It is crucial any security system includes appropriate contingency measures to deal with those who have gained access.
Cyber-criminals have marked the housing sector as an easy target. Due to their relatively lower levels of budget provision towards IT security, housing associations are perceived to have weak defences.
Inadequate, ineffective and insecure software can provide access points for cyber-attackers. Your association needs a system that it can trust, and ensures that security is top priority. By establishing strong cyber security measures from the start, housing associations can be confident in their defence against cyber threats.
We are committed to supporting your organisation through your journey to better information security. Monitored 24/7, Convene’s detection mechanism alerts the Support Team to any incidents that are then forwarded to the System Team for immediate resolution. Users can also report any incidents via chat, email or phone and our team will be ready to support you.
Community
Here at Convene we want to help build community in the sector, as the No.1 Board portal platform dedicated to Housing Associations.
Convene offers unlimited training, so even those who are less ‘tech-savvy’ are supported during implementation. Your administrative staff do not need to worry about the time cost of training Board Members. Additionally, if there are any hiccups they can access a refresher course in no time.
Once you and your team are settled into using the Convene system to streamline your meeting process, the support doesn’t stop there.
Our Customer Success team are always just a phone call or email away, and can be in regular contact to fix any issues that arise, provide extra training, respond to feedback for systems development, while highlighting new and exciting use cases or features that are in the pipeline for Convene.
Similarly, if you have a technical issue, our Support team of experts are available 24/7, 365 days a year.
We’ve also established a community for social housing to share their knowledge and insight, and establish those all important connections.
We want to facilitate discussion and wisdom sharing for our Housing community and beyond. We’ll be hosting events, webinars & sharing our articles and newsletters and more, all focused on Housing Governance, Risk and Compliance.
What our Housing Customers say:
Given rising operational costs, it makes sense Housing Associations want to cut down the resources spent on meeting preparation. Convene saves administrators valuable time and energy, so they can focus on the important things
As Julia Wiles at Housemark observed: ‘Before Convene it was very time-consuming and labour-intensive to prepare meeting packs. There were lots of Board papers that had to be collated into one single PDF document.’
With Convene, Housing Associations can organise the Agenda and Board Pack with a simple drag-and drop. Once you have created your meeting template once you can re-use it as many times as you need for future meetings.
The benefits of this system were noted by Paul Phillis Kirk at Your Housing Group: ‘Convene has significantly reduced the time and resources required to create meeting reports and board packs. In Convene, all you have to do is import all the relevant documents and updates, and the app collates them for you!’
When it comes to security standards, Housing Associations need to stay ahead of evolving cybersecurity threats.
Speaking on their security requirements, Rachel Wickenden, Head of Executive Support at Newlon Housing Trust noted ‘We needed the assurance of a secure system due to our strict rules and regulations. Convene is great because it ensures that the right data is visible to the right people.’
With AES 256-bit encryption and CMMI Level 5 accreditation, Convene allows Housing Associations to rest assured that their data is secure. The fully GDPR-compliant system offers 24/7 protection and support, as well as granular access controls.
Housing Associations can also benefit from the Document Library which enhances administrative security and reduces soft data leaks. On this feature, Julia Wiles of Housemark said ‘If any documents are sent out between meetings, or if anyone leaves the organisation, then documents are safely stored in Convene’s Document Library.’
Convene comes with a comprehensive suite of features that allow Housing Associations to make the most of their meeting time. One of these is the live annotations function, so directors can share notes before the meeting.
This feature was picked up on by David Wingham at Coastline Housing Association ‘You can make notes on documents and share your notes with others on the team. I can sit at my desk or at home and add a comment, and my colleagues will see it when they next log in. It’s a really efficient way of working.’
Housing Associations require a solution that is simple and intuitive. Many of our customers have noted that Convene is easy-to-use – even for the most technophobic members of the team!
Speaking of the implementation at Clarion Housing Group, Senior Governance Manager, Scott Hyde, observed that ‘Normally, I’ve needed to provide the support for the implementation of any new systems, often needing to sit at desks and give granular instructions to users, it’s something I’ve done for years! However, with Convene, this is not necessary as it is such an intuitive system.’
So, Why Switch to Convene?
Housing Associations play an invaluable role in providing quality homes and creating communities. That’s why we’re proud of how many have chosen Convene to help fulfil their social purpose of housing people.
Here at Convene, we have over 200 clients in the Housing Sector, and we are dedicated to helping them achieve that all too important long-term stability.
That’s why software like our Board portal exists. Associations and their Boards need their meetings to run smoothly, and they need systems and software that facilitates this. Without access to relevant information easily, Boards cannot effectively administer their duties.
Convene provides directors and administrators with the necessary communication and collaboration tools that simplify Board material preparation, reports, and Board document sharing, among many other meeting-related tasks.
Whether you’re switching from traditional methods of meeting management or from another platform, it’s quick and easy to migrate your all too important data with Convene.
With a Board portal like Convene at your side, we can help make your day-to-day easier, so you can focus on the long-term.
