using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

[Adam Spiers]

I "accidentally" became secretary of my resident's association
committee recently, so I'm now producing meeting agendas and minutes
more often than before (sometimes it happens at work too).  So I
thought I'd poll the enormous collective wisdom of this group and see
if we could establish some kind of best practice around using org for
this task.  It could even become a Worg article ;-)

These are the goals as I see them:

  (1) Allow *fast* production of meeting agendas and minutes,
      exportable in a good-looking legible format which non-org
      readers can digest.

  (2) Allow minutes to be taken as the meeting progresses, minimising
      the amount of work required after the meeting.

  (3) Allow actions to be captured and then automatically extracted
      into a simple tabulated report which clearly shows actions
      grouped by owner.

  (4) Track progress of actions *after* the minutes have been issued.

  (5) (Up for debate) Allow minutes to be embedded within a previous
      agenda, easily demarcating between agenda items and minute
      items.  This encourages the meeting to follow its intended
      structure, and clearly documents unplanned deviations from the
      agenda (for better or worse), e.g. via colour coding.

I think it's pretty obvious that org already enables (1) and (2)
admirably, and of course I'm already beginning to use it in this
manner.  But I'm slightly struggling with the others.

For (3) and (4), my current thinking is to have workflow defined by
TODO keywords, e.g. 

  #+SEQ_TODO: ACTION WAITING | DONE

and to have action ownership defined via tags, e.g.

  #+TAGS: { Alice(a) Bob(b) Carys(c) }

Then a dynamic columnview block at the end of the file could easily
extract all actions and summarise them so that each owner of action(s)
can easily see them.  This is where sorting of rows in column view
would be really useful!

For (5) I'm really not sure how to achieve the demarcation.  Maybe
it's best when beginning to take minutes simply to copy the agenda to
a new file and start embedding minutes within that.  Then a diff of
agenda.org and minutes.org shows any deviations etc.?  This would also
preserve the original agenda by protecting it against accidental
editing.

Any thoughts on this or other ideas very welcome!

Thanks,
Adam

Re: using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

[Adam Spiers]

On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 12:56:07PM +0000, Adam Spiers wrote:

[snipped]

>   (3) Allow actions to be captured and then automatically extracted
>       into a simple tabulated report which clearly shows actions
>       grouped by owner.

[snipped]

> For (3) and (4), my current thinking is to have workflow defined by
> TODO keywords, e.g. 
> 
>   #+SEQ_TODO: ACTION WAITING | DONE
> 
> and to have action ownership defined via tags, e.g.
> 
>   #+TAGS: { Alice(a) Bob(b) Carys(c) }
> 
> Then a dynamic columnview block at the end of the file could easily
> extract all actions and summarise them so that each owner of action(s)
> can easily see them.  This is where sorting of rows in column view
> would be really useful!

Hmm, actually column view doesn't let you filter the table so that
there are only rows corresponding to headers containing the 'ACTION'
keyword, so it looks like a custom dynamic block writer function will
be required.  Is there an appropriate API I could use for extracting
all headers containing a given keyword from an org buffer?

Re: using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

[Eric Schulte]

On Monday, February 11, at 13:34, Adam Spiers wrote:
 > On Sat, Feb 09, 2008 at 12:56:07PM +0000, Adam Spiers wrote:

[snipped]...

 > Hmm, actually column view doesn't let you filter the table so that
 > there are only rows corresponding to headers containing the 'ACTION'
 > keyword, so it looks like a custom dynamic block writer function will
 > be required.  Is there an appropriate API I could use for extracting
 > all headers containing a given keyword from an org buffer?

I believe the TODO entries are saved as special properties, so you
should be able to access them using the properties API, which I have
found easy to use (and I'm far from facile with elisp).

(info "(org)Special Properties")

(info "(org)Using the property API")

although I don't know how you would cycle through all of the headers
in an org file...

Re: using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

[Adam Spiers]

On Sat, Feb 16, 2008 at 04:44:55PM +0000, Pete Phillips wrote:
> Hi Adam
> 
> Did you get anywhere with the ideas of taking minutes etc ?

I didn't have much feedback yet, but I did actually produce some
minutes in HTML using org.  However I found it quite a struggle due to
one or two things, e.g.

** This is some subtopic of the main agenda/minutes structure which
   has some initial explanatory text taking more than one line.  The
   text fill functions won't work nicely, and the first line will be
   treated as a heading, even though I don't want the subtopic to have
   any heading.
*** Likewise the problem exists in this sub-subtopic where again I
    don't want any heading.
**** ACTION but I couldn't change the above to nested list items,
     because then I couldn't have them contain TODO items such as this
     action.

Is there any way to have heading-less subtopics in org, where multiple
lines in the source document are treated as part of one paragraph, can
be re-filled to a given line wrap, and formatted accordingly during
export?

Re: using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

[Carsten Dominik]

On Feb 17, 2008, at 6:24 PM, Adam Spiers wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 16, 2008 at 04:44:55PM +0000, Pete Phillips wrote:
>> Hi Adam
>>
>> Did you get anywhere with the ideas of taking minutes etc ?
>
> I didn't have much feedback yet, but I did actually produce some
> minutes in HTML using org.  However I found it quite a struggle due to
> one or two things, e.g.
>
> ** This is some subtopic of the main agenda/minutes structure which
>   has some initial explanatory text taking more than one line.  The
>   text fill functions won't work nicely, and the first line will be
>   treated as a heading, even though I don't want the subtopic to have
>   any heading.
> *** Likewise the problem exists in this sub-subtopic where again I
>    don't want any heading.
> **** ACTION but I couldn't change the above to nested list items,
>     because then I couldn't have them contain TODO items such as this
>     action.
>
> Is there any way to have heading-less subtopics in org, where multiple
> lines in the source document are treated as part of one paragraph, can
> be re-filled to a given line wrap, and formatted accordingly during
> export?

Plain lists sort-of do this.

- Carsten

Re: using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

[Adam Spiers]

On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 12:19:13PM +0100, Carsten Dominik wrote:
> On Feb 17, 2008, at 6:24 PM, Adam Spiers wrote:
> >** This is some subtopic of the main agenda/minutes structure which
> >  has some initial explanatory text taking more than one line.  The
> >  text fill functions won't work nicely, and the first line will be
> >  treated as a heading, even though I don't want the subtopic to have
> >  any heading.
> >*** Likewise the problem exists in this sub-subtopic where again I
> >   don't want any heading.
> >**** ACTION but I couldn't change the above to nested list items,
> >    because then I couldn't have them contain TODO items such as this
> >    action.
> >
> >Is there any way to have heading-less subtopics in org, where multiple
> >lines in the source document are treated as part of one paragraph, can
> >be re-filled to a given line wrap, and formatted accordingly during
> >export?
> 
> Plain lists sort-of do this.

That was the first thing I tried, but see above comment about the
resulting restriction on TODO items.

Re: using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

[Bastien]

Adam Spiers <orgmode@adamspiers.org> writes:

>> >Is there any way to have heading-less subtopics in org, where multiple
>> >lines in the source document are treated as part of one paragraph, can
>> >be re-filled to a given line wrap, and formatted accordingly during
>> >export?
>> 
>> Plain lists sort-of do this.
>
> That was the first thing I tried, but see above comment about the
> resulting restriction on TODO items.

Which brings back an old idea I had: letting special entries with a
syntax like:

***: an entry here

Those entries would be "inlined": not foldable but TODO/tag-able
headlines.

I guess this would breaks the whole logic of the structure behind
org-mode files (not to speak of regexps), so it might not be worth
thinking deeper about this, unless it triggers possible workarounds.

As for taking meeting notes, I've done quite well with the current
limitations you are mentionning.  I use list most of the times and 
I restricts headlines to what might really need a TODO or a tag.

One thing that would perhaps make life easier is a simple way to 
convert list items to headlines in a region.

- one
- two

would become

* one 
* two

or 

*** one
*** two 

if the hierarchy above requires it.  

`C-c *' outside tables could do it.  Or this could be added to `C-c -'

-- 
Bastien

Re: using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

[Carsten Dominik]

On Feb 19, 2008, at 5:23 AM, Bastien wrote:

> Adam Spiers <orgmode@adamspiers.org> writes:
>
>>>> Is there any way to have heading-less subtopics in org, where  
>>>> multiple
>>>> lines in the source document are treated as part of one  
>>>> paragraph, can
>>>> be re-filled to a given line wrap, and formatted accordingly during
>>>> export?
>>>
>>> Plain lists sort-of do this.
>>
>> That was the first thing I tried, but see above comment about the
>> resulting restriction on TODO items.
>
> Which brings back an old idea I had: letting special entries with a
> syntax like:
>
> ***: an entry here
>
> Those entries would be "inlined": not foldable but TODO/tag-able
> headlines.
>
> I guess this would breaks the whole logic of the structure behind
> org-mode files (not to speak of regexps), so it might not be worth
> thinking deeper about this, unless it triggers possible workarounds.

Yes, we have been at this before.  The trouble is that I could
conceivable allow special entries with a TODO keyword and tags, so as
long as everything fits into a single line.  The trouble really starts
if we want such an entry to have timestamps, deadlines, properties etc
attached to it.  For all these concepts, the outline structure is being
used.  It would require quite a break with conventions and always
look like a hack.

Another concept you could consider:  make links to tasks:

* Staff meeting
** Taking notes for a meeting
   - note one, here I can write what I want
   - note 2 bla
   - note, this requires the action [[task3]]
   - note 4

** Tasks
*** TODO <<task3>> find someone who can organize the party


> As for taking meeting notes, I've done quite well with the current
> limitations you are mentionning.  I use list most of the times and
> I restricts headlines to what might really need a TODO or a tag.
>
> One thing that would perhaps make life easier is a simple way to
> convert list items to headlines in a region.
>
> - one
> - two
>
> would become
>
> * one
> * two
>
> or
>
> *** one
> *** two
>
> if the hierarchy above requires it.
>
> `C-c *' outside tables could do it.  Or this could be added to `C-c -'

Yes, I do remember this request, and I remember getting stuck on this.
Did you aks back then to also convert plain lines into lists?  this is  
where I
got stuck, I think.  Lets take this idea up again.

- Carsten

Re: using org for meeting agendas and minutes?

[Carsten Dominik]

Hi Adam,

On Feb 17, 2008, at 6:24 PM, Adam Spiers wrote:

> On Sat, Feb 16, 2008 at 04:44:55PM +0000, Pete Phillips wrote:
>> Hi Adam
>>
>> Did you get anywhere with the ideas of taking minutes etc ?
>
> I didn't have much feedback yet, but I did actually produce some
> minutes in HTML using org.  However I found it quite a struggle due to
> one or two things, e.g.
>
> ** This is some subtopic of the main agenda/minutes structure which
>  has some initial explanatory text taking more than one line.  The
>  text fill functions won't work nicely, and the first line will be
>  treated as a heading, even though I don't want the subtopic to have
>  any heading.
> *** Likewise the problem exists in this sub-subtopic where again I
>   don't want any heading.
> **** ACTION but I couldn't change the above to nested list items,
>    because then I couldn't have them contain TODO items such as this
>    action.
>
> Is there any way to have heading-less subtopics in org, where multiple
> lines in the source document are treated as part of one paragraph, can
> be re-filled to a given line wrap, and formatted accordingly during
> export?


I have been re-reading this message and thought about the following:

I guess you know that there is a limited number of outline levels that
are exported as structural headings.  Any deeper levels are exported as
lists:

* This is a main section
** And this a subsection
***** But these five stars will become a list item
***** ACTION So here we have a list item as an action

One problem is that I am enforcing a line break after the
first line upon export of these headline-to-list-converted items.
However, I did this such a long time ago that I don't really remember  
why
I did that.  So we could remove this convention, or make it  
configurable,
either with a variable, or with a special cookie, like "~" or "@"
at the line end.

That would not yet solve the problem with M-q for filling
paragraphs.  Fixing that gets into conflict with tags and stuff like  
that.
However, this concerns only the Org-mode representation of the item,
not the distributed HTML version.

While this still does not address what Bastien has wanted for a long
time (a way to inline a task), it seems to me that it does go some
way to fix the issue you describe.

- Carsten

>
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