How to best use the meeting notes template?
Asked by Sandy Johnson:

I recently discovered the meeting notes template in Confluence (I'm using 5.8.13) and I'm wondering what the best way to use it is? I see two possibilities for recurring meetings. First, you could create a new page for each new meeting or second you could create one page and then edit and update that same page for each new meeting.

Does anyone have any best practices or ideas on how to best use this template?

Thanks


Answers:
author: Jeff
body: I would recommend creating a new page for each meeting, and setting the heading of the page to include the meeting text. Another recommendation is usually to nest these pages under a "meeting notes" page to keep everything neat and tidy in your confluence space.

comments: author: Anna Olenberg
body: Hello Jeff,

so if you copy the recent page for the new meeting, you do not use tasks in Confluence?

Otherwise if you use them, an open task from the last meeting you will have twice (1 on the old page and 1 on the new).

Maybe you have a recommendation how to deal with this issue.

Thank you! Cheers, Anna


author: Lukas Gotter _ Meetical
body: Hi Anna,

I wouldn't recommend to copy the pages and tasks for the reason you mentioned. You'll get duplicates of the tasks!

Instead, you could try this approach

1. Put all meeting note pages under the same "Meeting Notes" root as Jeff suggested (this is a best practice anyway)
2. Create your own meeting template for that space and put a [task report](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/task-report-macro-590260009.html) on it
3. Edit the task report and choose to only show open tasks below the root page, in this case "Meeting Notes".
4. That way you'll always have an open task report of previous items visible on the new meeting page without duplicating old tasks.
5. Additionally you could group meetings for meeting series under a common root, and use a similar approach to see open action items for series.

This is also the meeting notes best practice for Confluence which we help automate with our App.

Check out our App [Meetical Meeting for Confluence](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1222405?utm_source=atl-community&utm_content=194601 "Confluence Meeting Notes App") (Cloud and Server version available).

*Disclaimer: I'm the author of the App ;)*


author: Davin Studer
body: We do a new page for each meeting. It easier to look at your history that way, plus then the history is searchable.


author: TomC
body: Also agree with Davin and Jeff. With a page for each meeting and a parent page that uses the children macro, creating a new page with the meeting template automatically displays each new meeting as a link on the parent page.

And if you utilize a calendar appointment for a meeting (and this is probably obvious...), using this approach you can place its link on the appointment to the specific meeting where it will display the invitees and agenda. Later a click on the same link will reveal the updated version which will be show notes/minutes and action items. For recurring meetings as in your case, just a link to the parent page may be preferred; attendees can click on the upcoming meeting link or past meetings as they desire.


author: Sandy Johnson
body: Davin and Jeff - Thanks for the quick reply.