Using Flare for meeting notes

[ccardimon]

I have been tasked with taking the minutes at our weekly Development Meeting. I thought writing them up in Flare and generating a WebHelp version would be a good way to post them for people to see. Thoughts? Has anyone here used Flare to create and store meeting minutes?

[Nita Beck]

For as much as I adore Flare, I wouldn't go there. Too much overhead! I think standard office apps such as MSWord or OpenOffice Writer are better choices for team documents. Besides, working in Flare for meeting notes doesn't "pass the bus test." If you're not available for any reason and someone else is tasked with writing up and distributing the notes, he or she won't have the benefit of building on your Flare foundation (assuming that you're the only Flare user on your team).

Just my humble opinion...

[ccardimon]

I am also the only one here who uses Flare and knows what Flare IS.

[ccardimon]

How about using Flare not to TAKE meeting minutes, but to ARCHIVE the previous meeting's approved and amended minutes as WebHelp?

[GregStenhouse]

I would document the minutes in word, and import into Flare and generate webhelp (while maintaining the original in word). Next meeting, update the original word doc and reimport. That should pass the "bus" test, and give you the extra flexibility you need to produce various outputs and impress the team

[SteveS]

I think this has its merits...

You could create a proforma, probably in Word, that anyone uses to take minutes.

If the proforma is set up proprly you should be able to do a simple import into Flare. Most of the import issues come from tidying up and mapping, so you'd need to make sure the proforma/ template is a good 'un.

You can then import into Flare using a filder structure based on organisational requirements. Could be monthly based, yearly based or whatever.

Then there's all sorts of possibilities. What about conditional tagging to hide confidential discussion from the general release? What about creating a 'minutes (light)' version for people who aren't interested in all the gory details...

Let us know how it works

[Nita Beck]

How about using Flare not to TAKE meeting minutes, but to ARCHIVE the previous meeting's approved and amended minutes as WebHelp?

Oooh, that's cool!. I should be doing that for our user group meetings. Why didn't I think of that?! Craig, you're brilliant.

[ccardimon]

Thank you, Nita. You made my day.