OnBoard Reviews

Pros

The entire meeting planning process is very easy to manage. It allows all our team members to collaborate in real time from anywhere at any time using different endpoints. The minute generator greatly simplifies the workflow. It provides automated meeting summaries that provide highly significant information for later analysis.

Cons

It has a wide variety of functions that for new users it is a bit complicated to start using it.

Pros

Impactful features include composing the agenda from a word document, Zoom links can be accessed from OnBoard, improved calendar, Resource Library. User friendly. New features, upgrades, and improvements implemented on an on-going basis. Integration was seamless.

Cons

There are no aspect of this software that are difficult to use. Seriously, there is nothing I don't like about OnBoard.

Pros

It is not terribly complicated to use once you experience it and understand it, but I struggled with the limited instructions that are available to help you learn. I have been struggling with entering a survey, where the same answer options will be given for each question (and not the options you provide). After working on this over the course of 2 days and pulling my hair out at times, I called CS and heard 'oh yeah, that's easy to do" (of course your CS rep would say that, he's been taught how to complete the task). But I shouldn't have had to call CS for the answer; it should be in some tutorial or book at my fingertips.

Cons

It does not appear to be as customizable as we would like . . . we don't have the ability to change any formatting or appearance of the printed product, we don't seem to have the ability to add items to the agenda unless they are listed as an agenda item (sometimes we just want to add a footnote or additional note of explanation).

Pros

The features which I love about OnBoard are the e-signature and approval options. I am able to create surveys and get results much quicker as users are already used to the OnBoard portal. e-signatures were critical during COVID as we couldn't meet in person, but I needed signatures for approval of documents. I also love the customer support of my relationship manager. They are always listening on how to improve the product. Innovative is necessary in an electronic world.

Cons

The minutes feature is a work in progress. I am sure it works fine for some organizations, just not me. I do not like the fact that the pre-form automatically creates links of documents in the meeting minutes. Starting from scratch is cumbersome as well. They have taken my comments into consideration. Perhaps there will be a third option someday.

Pros

We used to produce a printed and bound board book for each meeting, requiring materials to be submitted far in advance, and last-minute changes were not able to be included. OnBoard gives me the flexibility to continue to make changes right up to the meeting date. Board members are able to access the virtual board book from wherever they are using the device that they prefer. We are also able to use OnBoard for committee meetings and cabinet meetings and capture any votes that take place directly in OnBoard.

I also use the polls/voting option almost daily with cabinet. There are many small items that need cabinet consensus and instead of waiting until the next cabinet meeting, we upload the needed documentation and send it out for a vote. The results are recorded in OnBoard for future reference, which is especially helpful for any board votes needed during the audit.

I also love the ease of use and implementation. I have had to do very little individual training with board members, and customer service has been super responsive whenever I (or a board member) has had an issue.

Cons

It would be great to be able to store a little more information about board members that you could run a report on - such as term information, etc.

Alternatives Considered

BoardEffect

Reasons for Switching to OnBoard

At the time we were choosing the layout and ease of use seemed more user-friendly.

Pros

OnBoard is easy to administer and easy to use. It allows me to configure the different areas as I need to and grant granular permissions. It is a great value for the non-profit business that needs to be agile with reliable access to all the items board members could need.

Cons

The only item I wish could be better is the integration with Zoom. The feature works fine but when board members or hosts use the Zoom link inside OnBoard they lose some functionality. To get around this I have taken to posting the Zoom link for the meeting in its title and ask the board members to copy and paste the link into their browser. If they didn't want full use of all Zoom options they are welcome to use the link provided inside the portal.

Alternatives Considered

BoardEffect and Boardable

Reasons for Switching to OnBoard

OnBoard was the best mix of options and price. I don't feel as though we lost any features we wanted but we saved a good deal of money going with OnBoard.

Pros

Plenty of room for expansion should the need arise. Extremely feature-filled. Easy but secure log-on (multi-factor identification). Passageways customer satisfaction team seems responsive to our suggestions and needs and incorporates/updates with some frequency.

Cons

Not the most intuitive in the world to navigate but has improved over time. Wish the screen re-sizing options were somehow less clumsy/clunky. Printing documents or agendas still requires multiple steps.

Alternatives Considered

BoardPro and BoardEffect

Reasons for Switching to OnBoard

Filled all of our essential requirements and was preferred by our board members when we demonstrated it. Pricing was inline with our budget, although on the higher end. We appreciated having unlimited storage and the ability to add users later on.

Pros

The OnBoard portal is easy for our board members to use with fewer clicks to get the information they need for their meeting. The view is the same from different devices which makes it easier for them to move between laptop and phone views. Having access to AGB resources is invaluable.

Cons

The feature I would like to see improved the most is the downloaded version of the agenda to Word from the agenda created on the site. It takes a lot of formatting changes to make it look good. The version that downloads is very difficult to read. We have tried uploading our own agenda, but then we lose the nice online version when we pull up the meeting book.

Pros

The platform is simple to use and the app is great.

Cons

Some issues with figuring out how to attach a presentation to the meeting.

Alternatives Considered

Boardable

Reasons for Choosing OnBoard

Boardvantage was VERY expensive, the platform was old and clunky, and the app was useless.

Switched From

Nasdaq Boardvantage

Reasons for Switching to OnBoard

OnBoard had a more robust package and better nonprofit pricing.

Pros

OnBoard is user-friendly and quite intuitive; it has been a life-saver when making last-minute changes to meeting agendas and materials; it's compatible with both Apple and Android devices; and going paperless has saved us a significant amount of time and money.

Cons

1. Honestly, it's a bit on the pricey side.

2. When an agenda item (title, time, position on agenda, presenter, supporting document, etc.) changes, the software rebuilds the entire board book and any user's annotations/notes disappear - even if their annotations were made to a section that wasn't changed. It would be great if there was a way to retain an individual user's notes/annotations.

3. In the Analytics section, instead of just an Aggregate Count of Book Views by Role and an Aggregate Count of Meeting Views by Role, I would LOVE to be able to see exactly who has viewed board books and meetings so we can track who is engaged on the portal and reach out to those who are not and see if they need additional training or assistance navigating the portal.

Pros

As compared to our previous board portal, OnBoard is so much easier to use, more intuitive, and is an easier collaboration tool. We just held our first board meeting using OnBoard. Its integrated conferencing capability powered by Zoom made the meeting the most efficient and effective virtual meeting yet.

Cons

The platform needs an e-mail capability that will allow users to communicate with each other securely and with the ability to attach documents or find them within OnBoard's "resources." The current messaging capability -- akin to texting -- is good, but it lacks the flexibility of a more robust, e-mail-like communication capability.

Pros

I like the fact that OnBoard now has the Zoom platform available. Our board has gone to virtual meetings over the last six months and the Zoom feature in OnBoard makes it very easy to set up the meeting and notify board members.

Cons

Currently I still need to keep some board records in a separate spreadsheet, such as term lengths and dates members will be up for reelection. I have discussed this with the developers. It is possible that this will be remedied for administrators in a future update of the product.

Pros

Ease of use, organization, look, security, customer service, always open to ideas and making improvements, analytics.

Cons

Minutes builder and surveys could be improved. The ability to add custom fields to profile would be nice.

Alternatives Considered

Diligent Boards and Boardable

Reasons for Choosing OnBoard

Made the switch when our contract ended with The Governance Institute. Researched several products and OnBoard offered the functionality we needed at a price point we could manage with pandemic unknowns.

Switched From

BoardEffect and Nasdaq Boardvantage

Reasons for Switching to OnBoard

Functions offered, customer service and price

Pros

Lots of new features added frequently. Recently they added a way for Zoom to be embedded into the meetingbook. It has lots of features that make it easy for nontech individuals to use and comprehend the software

Cons

Password reset can be a big awkward but not a big deal.

Alternatives Considered

BoardPAC

Reasons for Choosing OnBoard

OnBoard is much cheaper and had better features

Switched From

BoardEffect

Reasons for Switching to OnBoard

Price

Pros

We've used OnBoard for board meetings for something close to five years now. What sets OnBoard apart from others in the industry is its value for the money and approach to customer support. They are incredibly responsive to the needs of their customers and are always adding new and incredibly useful features.

Cons

I can't think of one. Everything that's ever been glitchy or not worked well is usually fixed in a couple of months.

Alternatives Considered

BoardDocs and BoardEffect

Reasons for Switching to OnBoard

The difference between these products comes down to cost. They all do very similar things, but we would not have been able to implement more expensive products.

Pros

I have been surprised how quickly OnBoard became an essential tool for our organization and how quickly our Board of Directors embraced this new technology for not only distributing our meeting materials, but also as a secure platform that allows our Directors to access information and records. Prior to using OnBoard, we were compiling our meeting materials into binders for each individual Director and every attendee to the meeting and not only was it time consuming and costly to produce these binders, but we would often incur an expense to print something that would be outdated by the time the meeting occurred. With OnBoard, we can update information in our Board Book with a few clicks of the mouse. I have heard from multiple members of our Board how much they appreciate OnBoard and feel the platform has enabled us to create a cleaner, more appealing, and more streamlined presentation of our meeting materials.

Although there are features that do not align with the operations of our foundation, I use OnBoard almost daily. We have a very active Board who is managing a lot of exciting work for our foundation and we seem to constantly be preparing for a meeting - from the onset, the OnBoard platform contributed to completing our meeting picture and it never felt like a burden or hurdle because it is so user friendly.

Cons

OnBoard constantly wants to send out updates on behalf of our organization when I make updates to a meeting agenda, visibility, or materials and the mandate within our organization is to have communication directly with our Directors so we know what is being communicated. It would be great if I could set a default to not be asked about notifying our members as often as I am; however, I think it is important to note that when I do encounter an issue or want to provide feedback about how we want to be able to use the platform, everyone I have encountered with OnBoard has been extremely open and welcome the feedback.

Pros

I appreciate the fact that OnBoard is an exceptional tool, skills can be picked up quickly, and virtual meetings can be started without any complications. I greatly appreciate the speed of executing orders with OnBoard, as well as the distinctive dashboard that enables us to easily set up the agenda, schedule appointments, and also set up links, as the importance of this increases the level of realism. I also like the dashboard because I can review the comments of colleagues and managers and respond to them directly. I also find that sharing tasks and compiling reports is very flexible with OnBoard, as all members can actively participate. Also great is the way OnBoard provides for taking minutes of meetings, updating them, adding notes and alerts, all of which are saved in an organized manner and we can also access them easily.

Cons

I did not find things difficult with OnBoard, as its distinctive design and high capabilities enabled us to manage virtual meetings as required.

Pros

As an organization we set up at least 3-4 meetings a month and it has really helped to streamline our process. Everything is now in one place. We also use the survey tool monthly and appreciate it's ease of use.

Cons

Approvals could be easier to use. I don't love that when changes are made in the back end sometimes it affects permissions that were set up long before hand. If you made an upgrade our board directors should still be able to access their usual meetings.

Alternatives Considered

Boardable

Reasons for Switching to OnBoard

Clean presentation, ease of use,

Pros

The features I love the most are the agenda and minutes builder. Previously it would take us an hour just to build out the agenda or minutes because of all the attachments/appendices needed for each document. When changes were needed, you would have to update the entire document and all of the attachment/appendix labels - which is another savings of at least 30 minutes to an hour for each board meeting.

Cons

What I like least are the glitches that keep occurring while in the system. I get kicked out of Minutes Builder - while doing my minutes in the middle of a board meeting, from time to time items won't save or the system will tell me that I don't have permission and it kicks me out of what I was working on. I will say this is not as often as it used to be but is still a bug that needs to get corrected.

Pros

The Board members of my non profit are volunteers so I do everything I can to make the best use of the time I need to take in their very busy lives but we also need to be able to share information in a secure manner. When we looked at Board management software options a few years ago OnBoard was the best bang for our non-profit buck. There were other applications that had more name recognition but we would have paid 10 times the price of OnBoard, plus OnBoard has all the tools we need for our organization.

Cons

We have been OnBoard users for a few years now and the price has definitely gone up in the past few years. In the beginning file uploads were slow and tended to be just a little bug-y, but the application had an upgrade a few months ago that fixed this problem.

Alternatives Considered

Nasdaq Boardvantage and Diligent Boards

Reasons for Switching to OnBoard

Price.

Pros

Good integration and user-friendly, similar to MS products which is good. The onboarding process went well, especially with the training for myself and our trustees who aren't very tech-savvy. I like how I can use this on my laptop, iPad and phone - all apps work very well. Main things I like:
- user friendly
- automation of reminders/RSVP
- collation of papers into a pack and access to download (can use without internet)
- timings - good indication for the team and the Chair - much more efficient use of time and focus
- ability to move the agenda around and subtitles format - looks professional

Cons

Not much really! two things for me:
- integrations of MS Teams (not Zoom)
- permissions for new trustees (new trustees should not have access to previous papers, or there at least should be an option)
Apart from that, I love OnBoard!

Pros

Key functions of OnBoard, such as creating meetings, agendas and meeting packs for Directors to support their decision making, are extremely straightforward and easy to use. This takes away the difficulty and time of having to introduce change to new users, who are instantly aware and easily persuaded of the benefit of having all their important information in one place.
The resources section is an ideal place for housing Directors induction materials.

Cons

I dislike the permissions function which I have to consistently check is functioning according to requirement.

Pros

OnBoard is extremely user friendly for both me as the administrator and my volunteers. I was able to jump right in to create our Board portal with little guidance or training. I love that I can create a relevant homepage for our directors with no clutter. Housing documents is simple and neat and easy to navigate.

Cons

The only downside to the software is that the privilege to download documents has to be given and it's a one or none deal. Being able to allow our volunteers to download some documents such as travel forms and expense reports, but not confidential policies or reports, would be a dream. It would really cut down on the number of emails to and from people.

Pros

Ease of use
Ability to schedule a meeting and create a book within the agenda with all necessary documents instead of emailing multiple documents.
The ability to vote on on different documents and place signatures. Makes like easier.
Can take minutes as meetings are ongoing.
Customer service is top notch, they are always reaching out to ensure we are satisfied with the product.
We use it to approve loans and do surveys.
The ability to prevent downloading of sensitive documents, they are secure.

Cons

I would like them to incorporate MS Teams so that I can do everything via the software. I know they have zoom but MS Teams would be nice.

Pros

OnBoard is a very easy, intuitive system. I have only recently started using it (< 6 months) and feel it was very easy to learn and become proficient at in a short amount of time. We use OnBoard for all our Board and Committee meetings and communication. The eSignature function is one we have recently implemented and I love having it for our Board meeting signatures. The support team is awesome and quick to get back to me when I have questions. I would highly recommend this software.

Cons

There is very little I don't like about the software. The only thing it cannot do for me right now is incorporate an eSignature in with a survey. I would like to use the survey tool for the annual certifications our board and senior managers need to complete. I believe Passageways is looking at this being an enhancement in the future.