Decisions

What's Covered

This video walks through the Decisions area of Our Cat Herder, used for circular resolutions or flying minutes — decisions that need to happen between meetings.

Creating a Proposal

• Any portal member can create a new proposal via New Proposal
• Fill in the Purpose, Background, and Recommendation
• Set custom vote options (default: Yes, No, Abstain) — up to five options, each must be unique, minimum of two
• Set the Vote by date and time (relative to your portal's time zone)
• Optionally hide voter names and how they voted from the PDF (will still show overall how votes have been cast)
• Add Voters and Viewers — a member can be one or the other, not both, and at least one voter is required
• Attach supporting documents by dragging and dropping or selecting from your Cat Herder documents

Staged Review

If a proposal needs review before voting, set only yourself as the voter and everyone else as viewers. Once the review is complete, edit the voters to give everyone voting access.

Managing a Decision

• The creator and Admins can Edit, Resend Invites, Extend Vote by Date, and Resolve a decision
• Other users can view the PDF, see results, and vote (if invited as a voter)
• A decision can only be edited before any voter has cast their vote
• Voters can still be edited after votes are cast (e.g. to remove and re-invite a voter who needs to change their vote)

Viewing and Voting

• Voters receive a notification with a link to the decision
• They can also log in and navigate to Decisions from the left menu
• Vote via the Vote button or from the View as PDF screen
• Once cast, a vote cannot be changed by the voter
• View results including a graph of the outcome
• Add Comments visible to all invitees (triggers a notification) or Private Notes for yourself

Active and Past

• Decisions are listed under Active (open for voting) and Past (voting closed)
• When the vote by date passes, voting is locked

Onboarding Use

Some organisations use Decisions to onboard new board members — for example, confirming they have reviewed governance documents.

Related

• How to Prepare for and Vote on a Resolution — member guide for voting on decisions